An Investigation Of Self-efficacy In Self-regulated English Learning: A Case Study Of Non-English Major Postgraduates In Southwest University

Self-regulation refers to "the process whereby students activate and sustain cognitions, behaviors, and affects that are systematically oriented toward the attainment of goals" (Schunk, 1994:75). Social Cognitive Theory makes several assumptions about self-regulated learning and the performance of behaviors. These assumptions address the reciprocal interactions among person, behaviors and environments (Schunk, 2004). Personal factors mainly include self-efficacy, learning strategies, goal setting, attributions etc. Self-efficacy, as one of the two types of motives (another is attribution), influences self-regulated learning greatly by affecting learners' self-monitoring, self-evaluation and strategy use (Pang Weiguo, 2003).Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to learn or perform behaviors at designated levels (Bandura, 1986). Self-efficacy which is particularly relevant to school learning and other achievement situations exercises great influence on the academic achievements of a person (Bandura, 1986). Self-efficacy beliefs affect such achievement behaviors as choice of tasks, persistence, effort expenditure, and skill acquisition (Schunk, 2004). The higher the self-efficacy is, the more actively students learn English, and the better their English performance become.In view of the crucial roles self-efficacy played in academic environment, the present study intends to investigate self-efficacy of non-English major postgraduates in Southwest University under the view of Social Cognitive Theory from three aspects: (1) their general self-efficacy; (2) their English self-efficacy; and (3) their sources of English self-efficacy. The research results show that non-English major postgraduates (average: 31.567) have similar level of general self-efficacy with English major postgraduates (average: 31.415); they have low English self-efficacy, especially their listening self-efficacy (average: 6.8) and speaking self-efficacy (average: 6.438); and their sources of self-efficacy are vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, goal setting, learning strategies use, etc.In the light of the previous research, the present study proposes that English teachers should assist non-English major postgraduates to enhance their English self-efficacy by adopting 11 strategies which include: guiding students to set their goals; setting fitting models for students; offering more successful opportunities to students, etc.This thesis consists of six parts:Chapter 1 is an introduction, which briefly introduces the research background of the present study and the theoretical and practical significance of the present study.Chapter 2 reviews related research on self-efficacy and self-regulated learning. It provides an overview of the historical and contemporary issues related to self-efficacy at home and abroad, and defines some terms and concepts relevant to the present study, which definitely relate to self-efficacy and self-regulated learning.Chapter 3 presents the methodology. In this chapter, the objectives, instruments, subjects, data collecting procedures and data analysis device of the present study are introduced.Chapter 4 deals with data analysis and reports the findings of the present study.Chapter 5 puts forward 11 strategies for English teachers to help non-English major postgraduates enhance their self-efficacy, for instance, promoting students' communicative competence, guiding students to set goals and attribute properly and so forth.Chapter 6 draws the whole thesis into conclusion and further research is recommended.