A Study On Motivation Intensity And Self-attribution Of Vocational College Students In English Learning

It is the case that during the learning process, students may differ greatly in affective factors, which lead to different learning outcomes. In SLA, motivation would probably be the most influential affective factors on learning. As attribution influences learners' motivation and has strong impact on learner's motivational behavior, self-attribution of students for their success or failure in SLA is even more important. Attribution theory is the analysis of how people process past experiences of failure and success and what consequences these will have on further achievement strivings. This paper is based on Weiner's attribution theory, for this theory provides a conceptual framework that can easily be used to change students' motivation via cognition processes of explaining success and failure.Questionnaires of motivation Intensity (MI) and the multidimensional-multiattributional causality scale (MMCS) were handed out to participants. By adapting both qualitative and quantitative methods, this paper explores and analyzes the motivation intensity and self-attribution of students from a high vocational college. Here are the findings:1) High vocational college students' overall motivation intensity in English learning is in the intermediate level. Significant differences of motivation intensity exist between the male and the female, high and low achievers. Based on interviews with students and English instructors, it can be concluded that a large percent of students in high vocational lack motivation to learn English and are needed to be motivated.2) As a whole, students attribute success and failure to internal, controllable factors such as learning strategies, effort which are considered as adaptive attributions. Meanwhile, interest, body condition and teachers' teaching are also regarded as important causes for success.3) Motivated students mainly attribute success and failure in learning English to learning strategies and effort, unexpectedly so do the demotivated. It is the case that demotivated students show a sense of lack of self-efficacy and learned helplessness when facing the tragic test results. They confess in desperate they are incurably lazy. Great differences exist in self-attribution of two types of students as they are significantly differentiated in attributions such as learning environment, teachers' teaching, language ability and luck.Suggestions are also probed to help students develop motivation in English.