The Relationship Of Perceived Self-efficacy, Attributional Beliefs And Achievement For English Majors

The present study adopts a quantitative approach and seeks to investigate language self-efficacy and students'attributional styles by using a sample of 242 English major students from Guangxi province in China. Based on the theoretical foundations of Bandura's self-efficacy theory and Weiner's attribution theory, the study also examines the interactions among students'language self-efficacy, attributional beliefs and their academic performance on TEM-4 in an EFL context.The general statistical results of the study indicate that:(1) there does exist a relationship between language self-efficacy and English academic achievements—the high achievers have fairly good self-efficacy while moderate achievers have moderate self-efficacy and the self-efficacy of low ones is slightly lower than those of the other two groups;(2) language self-efficacy is positively correlated with the English academic achievements of the students;(3) ability attributions are the most powerful predictor in achievement-related settings, concerning students'self-attributions to success and failure in English learning. However, luck-success attribution and effort-failure attribution are negatively related with English achievement;(4) under different circumstances (successful/unsuccessful performance), the perceptions of students'self-attributions to successes and failures may exert different influence on language self-efficacy beliefs.The results lend support to the view that the beliefs of self-efficacy and casual attribution not only play an important motivational role in language learning, but are good predictors of language achievement. The findings of this study provide some useful insights into English teaching and learning: (1) Shape positive beliefs about the causes of success and failure, which will affect students'attitude towards English learning. Teachers need to be aware of students'attributional beliefs, and guide students to correct self-attributions by means of attribution training. (2) Provide constructive feedback. Teachers can help students cognitively realize the facilitation of self-efficacy beliefs in English learning. (3) Enhance students'language self-efficacy and positive self-attribution with a variety of means.Limitations as well as possible pedagogical implications are also discussed in the study. For instance, the sample under investigation is relatively small; moreover, multiple data collection techniques are needed to get more accurate information. Therefore, the results obtained in the present study leave much to be improved and it is hoped that further research will lead to more overall and accurate results.