Learning Environment, Students' Attitude And Academic Efficacy In College English Classrooms

The purpose of this study is to investigate associations between students' perceptions of the College English classroom learning environment and their attitudinal outcomes. A sample of 1057 undergraduate students from seven universities in Changchun responds to the Chinese versions of the What is Happening in this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire and the Attitude and Academic Efficacy Questionnaire. The WIHIC questionnaire, which has been shown to have high reliability and validity in educational settings, is adapted to measure the seven dimensions of the College English classroom learning environment, namely Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Study, Task Orientation, Cooperation and Equity. The Attitude and Efficacy Questionnaire assesses students'attitudes towards their College English classes and academic efficacy. The questionnaire is modified from two existing instruments: the Test of Science Related Attitudes and the Morgan-Jinks Student Efficacy Scale. The questionnaires employed in the present study are prepared using translation, back-translation and pilot test. Although the study reported in this paper is largely quantitative, it also includes some important qualitative information to provide richer insights into the learning environments in College English classrooms, based on classroom observation, student interviews and teacher interviews. The results of the study indicate: (1)The validity and reliability of the Chinese version of the WIHIC questionnaire are confirmed, providing support for its confident future use at the university level in China; (2) Statistically significant correlations are found between these classroom environment dimensions and students'attitudes towards their College English classes and academic efficacy. The results suggest that, to improve students'attitudes towards using English, teachers should be encouraged to increase the amount of Involvement and Student Cohesiveness in their classes. Students are more likely to have higher academic efficacy if their classes include more Involvement and Study; (3) For all scales, students prefer a more favorable classroom environment than the one that they perceived to be actually present, especially for the scales Involvement, Teacher Support and Cooperation; (4) Overall, students show relatively favorable perceptions of all the dimensions except the Involvement scale which is below the acceptable level. In addition, from student and teacher interviews, differences are found in their perceptions of the classroom learning environments, especially in their perceptions of the scales Teacher Support...