A Study Of Non-English Majors' Differences In Tolerance Of Ambiguity By Gender And Proficiency

Since the 1970s, learner-centered instruction has become the dominant trend in foreign or second language education. Learner individual differences have attracted the attention of more and more researchers. Tolerance of ambiguity, which is regarded either as a personality trait or as a cognitive style, has naturally become the red-hot research topic.However, review of the literature shows that previous studies have only dealt with the effect of TOA on foreign or second language learning, such as the effect of TOA on listening or reading comprehension, or language learning strategy use. Very little research has been done to investigate the differences in TOA by gender and proficiency. Without understanding such differences, language teachers will have difficulties in devising appropriate teaching syllabuses, teaching plans, teaching materials and teaching activities to achieve the optimum instruction results.Based on the above reasons and research purposes, the present research, using Ely's (1995) second language tolerance of ambiguity scale, aimed to investigate the non-English majors'differences in TOA by gender and proficiency. The questions to be addressed in this study are as follows:1) Are there any differences between males and females in TOA? What are the major factors contributing to the differences between male and female students in TOA?2) Are there any differences in TOA between students of high-level proficiency and low-level proficiency? What are the major factors leading to the differences in TOA between students of high proficiency and those of low proficiency?In order to answer the above questions, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 119 non-English majors who were randomly drawn from Jiangxi Normal University. SPSS13.0 was used to analyze the data: independent samples T-test was adopted to find out the significant differences in TOA by gender; ANOVA followed by post hoc multiple comparisons was used to find out the differences in TOA by proficiency. Results indicate that females differ significantly from males in overall tolerance of ambiguity, with females having much higher TOA than the males. Females are more tolerant than males in reading, writing, speaking and pronunciation. No significant differences have been found between the two genders in terms of listening, grammar, translation,vocabulary learning, and guessing of lexical meaning. Another important discovery is that high proficiency students differ significantly from low proficiency students in overall ambiguity tolerance with the former being higher. Specifically, high proficient students are significantly more tolerant of ambiguity than low proficient students in reading, writing, listening, pronunciation, speaking and guessing meaning. There are no significant differences in TOA between high and low achievers in terms of grammar, translation and vocabulary development. The results suggest that English teachers should constantly adjust their teaching styles to match the students'learning styles.