An Investigation Into Autonomy Competence Of University English Majors

This research investigated the degree of English autonomy competence of Chinese English majors and its relationship with TEM-4 scores. The research was carried out with multiple methods including descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, independent-sample T-Test analysis and regression analysis.Ninety university English majors from the School of Foreign Languages of Ludong University participated in this research. All of them responded to the"English Majors'Autonomy Competence Questionnaire"which was mainly adapted from Pintrich et al.'s"Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire"(1993). The questionnaire was composed of sixty-six items on a five-point Likert Scale which involved sixteen variables of autonomy. SPSS 13.0 was used to carry out the data analysis. The data of four items on test anxiety, the data of item 49 on monitoring and evaluation, and the data of item 52 on regulation were recoded because of their reverse direction. The descriptive analysis was applied to calculate means and standard deviations for the purpose of measuring the degree of students'autonomy competence. Correlation analysis and regression analysis were used to explore the relationship between autonomy competence and TEM-4 scores. T-test analysis was used to find out how it differed in the use of the sixteen autonomous strategies between high-achieving students and low-achieving students and how it differed in TEM-4 scores between students with more autonomous learning time and those with less autonomous learning time.The present research yielded the following important findings. The degree of autonomy competence of English majors was on the whole at a medium level. Autonomy competence was not significantly correlated with TEM-4 scores but rehearsal strategy could account for 4.4% variance of TEM-4 scores. There existed no significant differences in the use of the sixteen autonomous strategies between high-achieving students and low-achieving students but there existed significant difference in TEM-4 scores between students with more autonomous in-class learning time and students with less autonomous in-class learning time.The research has potentially important implications for fostering students'autonomy competence. It suggests that teachers should raise students'awareness of autonomous learning, stimulate their inner drive to learn English and instruct them to use various learning strategies. It also implies that both teachers and students should change their roles in English teaching and learning process. Teachers should give students more rights for their learning whereas students should self-manage their learning more voluntarily.