An Attributional Analysis Of Achievement Motivation Related To Chinese College English Learners

Motivation, as one of important components of affective variables, has been widely accepted by both practitioners and researchers as one of key factors that influence foreign language learning. Recently, researches on motivation are mainly concentrated on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, however, achievement motivation is also one of the most important factors that affect learner'learning activities. The present study largely derives from a feeling that causal attribution affects college English learners'achievement motivation and it is hoped that an effective way will be found to improve college English learners'achievement motivation in English learning.The conceptual framework is based on achievement motivation theory (McClelland, 1953 & Atkinson, 1964), attribution theory (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967; Weiner, 1979, 1983, 1986), and theories on relationship between achievement motivation and causal attribution. Inspired by Weiner's research on relationship between achievement motivation and causal attribution, I focus my research on four research questions: 1) what is the achievement motivation status related to Chinese college English learners like? 2) to what factors are college English learners more likely to attribute their success; 3) to what factors are college English learners more likely to attribute their failure; 4) do individuals high in achievement motivation differ from those low in achievement motivation in task difficulty choosing.A quantitative study was adopted, and questionnaires were applied to investigate achievement motivation, causal attribution and task difficulty choosing tendency of the subjects. One hundred and ninety-five Chinese college students who are studying in Ji Lin University and Jia Musi University participated in this study, among which 106 were from English majors, while the rest 89 were from non-English majors. The results were analyzed with the help of SPSS. From analysis and discussion of the results, four major findings are got: 1) quite a large number of college English learners are low in achievement motivation in English leaning; 2) college English learners whether they are majoring in English or not and whether they are high or low in achievement motivation tend to attribute their success to internal causes, ability or effort, however, subjects show differences in ability causal attribution. Subjects from English majors are more likely to attribute their success to ability whether they are high or low in achievement motivation, while subjects from non-English major high in achievement motivation are more likely to attribute their success to ability than those low in achievement motivation, furthermore, English majors and non-English majors also show higher tendency to attribute their success to teaching quality; 3) when making attribution for failure, subjects majoring in English high in achievement motivation have more tendencies to make effort and task difficulty for their failure, while those low in achievement motivation are more likely to make teaching quality as their excuse for failure, however, subjects from non-English majors tend to attribute their failure to lack of effort whether they are high or low in achievement motivation; 4) subjects high (versus low) in achievement motivation have more tendencies to choose tasks of intermediate difficulty whether they are majoring in English or not.Results in this research indicates that subjects from English majors are different from those from non-English majors in causal attribution, and the reason might lie in the differences between two kinds of English learning activities conducted by English majors and non-English majors. It can also be concluded from the results that not only learners high in achievement motivation tend to attribute their success to themselves, those who are low in achievement motivation also have the same inclination. In addition, it is also noticed that task difficulty and teaching quality are two causes that need to be paid more attention when investigating achievement motivation based on attribution theory in the field of foreign language learning.Findings of this research may help teachers to know better their students'psychological status, and inevitably have some implications for English teaching of college English learners.