Predictive Power Of Different Factors Of Achievement Motivation To English Proficiency

Over the past thirty years, the main thrust of second language acquisition research has been towards focusing on differences between individual learners. As one of the general factors of individual learner differences, motivation, especially achievement motivation, has been found to have a noticeable influence on the rate and success of second/foreign language learning. To date, the correlation between achievement motivation and learning achievement in English has been evidenced out by many researchers; however, there exists a shortage of empirical studies on the issue that to what extent different factors of achievement motivation can predict learners' English proficiency, especially minority English major students.Accordingly, this thesis reported a study aimed to find out how two types of achievement motivation correlate with English proficiency of both higher-achieving and lower-achieving students and how much eight beliefs about perceived causes of achievement can predict subjects' English proficiency. The subjects involved were 43 second-year minority English majors in School of Foreign Languages, Southwest University for Nationalities. Data were collected from questionnaires on achievement motivation and English proficiency test. The results showed that there was a significant and positive correlation between motive to achieve success (Ms) and English proficiency of higher-achieving minority English major students, whereas no significant correlation between Ms and English proficiency of lower-achieving minority English major students had been found. Motive to avoid failure (Mf) indicated a significant midrange negative correlation with English proficiency of higher-achieving minority English major students, whereas Mf had found out to be significantly and positively correlated with English proficiency of lower-achieving students. Furthermore, English proficiency of higher-achieving minority English major students can be predicted by ability-success (AS), effort-success (ES) and luck-success (LS), among these, AS shared the strongest predictive power. It can be also predicted by two perceived causes of failure: effort-failure (EF) and luck-failure (LF), and EF was the best predictor. On the other hand, English proficiency of lower-achieving minority English major students can be predicted by context-failure (CF) and EF, and CF showed the strongest predictive power.Based on the conclusions above, some pedagogical implications were presented for teachers to arouse minority students' achievement motivation and to help minority students fashion positive beliefs about success and failure.