A Correlational Study Of Self-Regulated Learning And Academic Achievement Of Chinese Non-english Majors

Corresponding to the shift from "how to teach" to "how to learn" in the field of teaching methodology of second language acquisition, a learning methodology called self-regulated learning have been emerging on the horizon since 1970s. Although a unanimous agreement on how to define self-regulated learning and how to improve self-regulated learning has never been reached, it is well acknowledged that the promotion of self-regulated learning capability may enable learners more efficient in learning a foreign language.This study investigates self-regulated learning within the framework of Zimmerman's (2000, 2002) social cognitive model of academic self-regulation. The data are collected by means of Xie Jiashu's (2002) Self-regulated Learning Skill Rating Scale for College Students, which consists of four aspects (motivation, congnitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and learning environment) involving five dimensions of six questions. The subjects participated in this study are 218 sophomores of different learning situations and majors from Zhengzhou University.This study attempts to find out the correlations between students' self-regulated learning and their second language academic achievement. Hence, the three research questions are addressed as follows:1. What is the general situation of non-English majors' self-regulated learning?2. Do students from teaching-reform class and normal class, science majors and liberal arts majors differ in their self-regulated learning, including the differences of self-regulated learning based on gender?3. What are the correlations between non-English majors' self-regulated learning and their second language academic achievement?The findings indicate that the situations of self-regulated learning vary. First, college students are more self-regulatory in self-efficacy, organization & elaboration strategy, time-management, self-evaluation, construction of material environment. Second, when self-regulated learning is examined between teaching-reform class students and normal class students, significant divergence is presented in eight sub-dimensions: self-goal, value,...