| Research on motivation, and achievement motivation in particular, has burgeoned over the last 30 years in both the educational psychology and developmental psychology literatures. Achievement motivation refers to the need for achievement, which is defined now as a concern with success in competition with some standard of excellence (McClelland, 1961: 25) . Another variable examined in the study is attributional beliefs. Attributional beliefs are sort of causal explanations of the outcomes of one's performance according to Weiner's attributional theory. It is proposed by Weiner that causal attributions are another type of beliefs that affects learners:', motivation to learn English. However, there exists a shortage of empirical studies on how attributional beliefs influence students' foreign language learning.The current study has explored the influence of achievement motivation and attributional beliefs on students' foreign language learning. The specific purpose is to provide empirical evidence that achievement motivation and attributional beliefs may have an effect on students' English learning. The subjects involved were 120 senior high school students. In this study, an English Learning Questionnaire, which is composed of three parts-Personal Information, Achievement Motivation Scale of T.Gjesme & R.Nygard and the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale, was administered to collect information on language learners' individual background, achievement motivation and attributional beliefs. The results of the questionnaire and English scores were inputted into the computer, a statistical analysis system ( SPSS 10.0) was used to analyze them. The findings are summarized as follows:Subjects high in nAchievement prefer working on moderately difficult tasks but subjects low in nAchievement show quite a different preference curve , they prefer tasks which are either the most difficult one or the easiest one.It is found that success-motivated subjects always attribute success to internal factors(primarily effort), in contrast, failure was to be attributed by success-motivated subjects to lack of effort and by failure-motivated subjects to lack of ability. Incomparison with failure-motivated subjects, success-motivated subjects tended to experience success as attributable more to ability than to luck, and failure as attributable more to luck than to ability.Students participating in achievement motivation training achieved higher motivation scores than original figure, and they also made greater progress in foreign language learning than students in control group.The findings of this study provide us with some useful insights,(1) Enhance achievement motivation in foreign language learning. Motivation directs learners' behavior, so students with high achievement motivation tend to study harder and use more strategies whenever possible, with the aim of more efficient learning and better outcomes. ( 2) Shape positive beliefs about the causes of success and failure, which will affect learners to select and use learning strategies in foreign language learning, then affect their English points.The whole thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter focuses primarily on the purpose and the necessity of the study.The second chapter presents work coming from different theoretical perspectives on the development of achievement motivation. These research work has received a great deal of attention in motivation research for the last several decades.The third chapter includes passages which focus on the theories this study are based on. These theories are McClelland's theory of achievement motivation, Weiner's attributional theory and some other theories of achievement motivation.The fourth chapter is the methodology which describes the subjects that participated in the study and the instrumentation.The fifth chapter is the research work which deals with data collection , data analysis, achievement motivation training and the final conclusion.The sixth chapter ends...
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