An Exploratory Study Of The Epistemological Beliefs And Language Learning Beliefs Of Singapore Secondary School Chinese Language Students

Very often when asked how their students were learning the language, a typical Singapore Chinese Language (CL) teacher would relate to the students'performance to the students'interest level in the subject. From an educational psychological perspective, "interest" does possibly affect learners'learning. However, to provide this as a reason reveals how limited a teacher knows about the student's psychology. This research attempts to study two psychological aspects of the learners, namely the epistemological beliefs and the language learning beliefs. A survey was conducted to capture the students'beliefs. The students' examination results and self-evaluation of language proficiencies were used in a comparison analysis to reveal any co-relation that may exist.This research is conducted in two typical government co-educational secondary schools. A composite survey instrument was created by adopting various existing instruments. The questions for epistemological belief were mainly adapted from Schommer-Aikins et. al.(2000) Schommer Epistemological Questionnaire (SEQ) for middle school students. Through exploratory factor analysis, the results revealed four factors, namely:"Ability to learn", "Omniscient authority", "Stability of knowledge" and "Diverse approaches to learning"。When the factors were compared against the self-evaluation of language proficiencies, we discovered that students who proclaimed higher abilities in CL were found to be more respectful to the authoritative figure. This possibly reflects the effect of Confucianism on some Asians (Chan & Elliot,2002). When the factors were compared against students'examination results, results revealed that students with higher scores in CL tended to adopt varied methods in learning, as well as to believe that knowledge is stable and unchanged over time.The questions for the language learning beliefs were mainly adapted from Horwitz (1988)'s Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI). Exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors, namely:"Future-minded Chinese language learners", "Innate language learning ability", "Stability of Chinese language knowledge", "Influence of experts in Chinese language learning" and "Chinese language learning is a different experience"。When compared against students'self-evaluation of language proficiencies, we discovered that students who perceived themselves as having higher abilities viewed the learning of CL to be useful in their future career. This translated into motivation for learning the language. For students who thought that their abilities are weak, they tended to believe that innate ability affected how well they learnt CL. When the factors were compared against students' examination results, results such as students who scored better for CL examinations believed that CL is an easier language than the English language (EL) were much predictable. However, we also uncovered some interesting findings, such as students who scored better tended to believe that there existed not much difference in the learning of CL and EL. Students with better EL results believed otherwise, that a difference existed.Putting together the findings from the epistemological beliefs and language learning beliefs, we discovered that two major themes linked them together, namely:the effect of the authoritative figure, and the stability of knowledge.In conclusion, this research provided some insights for both research and practice. It highlighted a possible approach for CL teachers to gain more in-depth knowledge of our students psychologically when they were learning the language. It was hoped that this would allow teachers to improve on their instructions, and in turn lead to improved students'learning.