Research On The Quality Of Non-English Majors' Web-assisted Autonomous Learning

Learner autonomy has been a hot topic in the field of education since 1980s. Influenced by the educational concepts, such as learner-centered and lifelong learning, there is a growing concern to foster learner autonomy, and the cultivation of autonomous learning ability has become one of the goals of various levels and types of universities at home and abroad. With the development of constructivism, humanism and multi-intelligence theory, autonomous learning has also gained widely attention from the researcher in field of second language teaching. The rapid development of information technology provides a broad thinking of development and good technical support for language teaching. Therefore many universities establish autonomous learning centers in order to provide non-English majors environment for web-assisted autonomous leaning. Assessment plays an very important role in College English teaching. The comprehensive, objective, scientific and accurate assessment is an effective measurement ,which helps students develop their individualized leanring methods, enhence learning efficiency and learning achievements. College English Curriculum Requirement (2004) proposes that the learning assessment should be the combination of formative assessment and summative assessment with the goal of promoting the efficiency of students' learning and the language learning quality.The research explores effects of multi-assessment model on web-assisted autonomous learning, and focus on the questions as follows: 1) what is non-English majors' beliefs and understanding towards autonomous learning? what are the features of learners' actualization of web-assisted autonomous learning after class? 2) can multi-assessment model promote the learner autonomy? If yes, to what extent? 3) what is the impact of multi-assessment model on students' classroom performance? 4) is there any factor to affect quality of web-assisted autonomous learning? The quantitative research and qualitative research methods are adopted to ensure the scientific nature of the investigation. This quantitative research selects 112 freshmen from an Independent College in Jiangsu province as the subjects, and employs such research tools as pre-test and post-test of English proficiency, classroom observation, questionnaires and interview.The research results are concluded as follows: 1) web-assisted autonomous learning are widely adopted and practiced by non-English majors. They have already had the awareness and strategies of making of learning objectives, implementation of learning plan and evaluation, and have different degrees of autonomous learning ability; 2) multi-assessment model has strengthened their autonomous learning ability and improved their language ability; 3) students in EG show both academic and psychological preparation for the class performance so that they have more fluent language use, more active participating in class activities, and more confidence in language learning than students in CG; 4) factors affecting WAAL lay the negative effect on learner autonomy, such as weak awareness of strategies and assessment, teachers' inadequate participation in assessment, and barrier in resource sharing. If the problems above could be handled properly, the multi-assessment model will have significant effect on promoting autonomous learning.On the basis of the empirical study, the thesis puts forward some suggestions on the design of assessment model as follows: 1) diagnosis. It should diagnose learning problems and have promotion on students' learning; 2) direction. It should set clear assessing objectives in order to fulfill the function of the assessment; 3) dynamic. It should posses different assessment criteria in accordance with different individuals and learning phases.