A Correlation Study Of Attribution Theory And Learner Autonomy In Non-English Majors

Ever since Holec put forward the concept learner autonomy in the 1980s, it has become a prominent topic both in the field of pedagogy and psychology and also becomes a new trend of foreign language teaching. However, up till now, little has been known about the correlation between attribution and learner autonomy in the foreign language field and there exists a shortage of empirical studies on how causal attributions influence learner autonomy in second language learning.An experimental study aimed to investigate the correlation between the two, and increase the effectiveness of language learning is carried out with the following three questions addressed in this study: 1) What is the overall situation of non-English majors'learner autonomy? Is there any significant difference in their ability of autonomous learning between different proficiency groups? 2) What is the overall situation of attributions for non-English majors'success and failure in their English learning? Is there any significant difference in the attributions among English learners of different levels? 3) What is the correlation between non-English majors'attributions in English learning and learner autonomy? Questionnaires and interviews are employed for study. The participants are non-English majors from China University of Petroleum (East China). The SPSS (Version 13.0) software is used to collect data to obtain valid data, with the interview data as a supplement to answer the three questions mentioned above.First, non-English majors'learner autonomy in language learning is generally low, and it is in accordance with students'increased proficiency levels. Second, the learners have more tendencies to attribute their success and failure to internal factors like effort, strategy and interest. Participants with higher English level tend to attribute their success to internal factors more frequently than those with lower level. Moreover, the former group does not show statistically significant differences from the latter one in failure attribution. Third, English learners'attribution and their learner autonomy are significantly correlated.In the light of the previous research, the present study presents some implications to enhance non-English majors'learner autonomy.