A Study On Achievement Attributions Of Senior School Students In English Learning

The success and failure attributions of students for their prior learning outcomes cause the students'emotional reaction and determine their prediction of success, and the probability that they will try hard more or less at the task in the future. Thus one of the first and most important tasks of language teachers is to know the attribution of students in order to motivate students in their later learning, which will in turn influence the students'learning process and learning outcomes.Attribution theory is proved to have great influences on English learning achievements. However, at present, researchers'studies about students'English learning attribution mainly focus on college level English learning, while the studies on senior middle school students'English learning attribution are relatively rare. Besides, in all the existed researches, most of them are based on quantitative study; studies basing on qualitative research or the combination of qualitative and quantitative research are relatively little. Therefore it is meaningful to research into senior middle school students'attributions in their English learning with a research method of combining qualitative and quantitative study and then apply the findings into the English teaching. The present thesis aims to probe into senior middle school students'achievement attribution in English learning.The present investigation attempts to answer the following three questions:(1) What is the general tendency of middle school students'attributions in English learning?(2) What are the differences in attribution of students between different genders and between different proficiency levels?(3) What are the factors that effect the unsuccessful learners'attributions? Methods adopted in present study are qualitative and quantitative research. The subjects of questionnaires investigation in the empirical study are 406 senior middle school students from two senior middle schools, in which 188 of them are male students and 218 of them are female students. Subjects for the face to face interviews are 4 students selected from the students that have been given questionnaires. Major findings of the present study are summarized as follows:1) Generally,students tend to attribute their English success and failure to internal factors such as effort and ability. By contrast, external factors such as luck and learning environment (context) are less important factors for their English achievements.2) There are significant differences between female and male's attribution in Ability-Failure and Luck-Failure,female students tend to attribute failure to ability while male students tend to attribute failure to luck; but there is no significant difference in the other elements between different genders. Significant differences do exist in elements such as ability, effort, and learning environment between successful and unsuccessful learners'success and failure attributions. The successful learners tend to attribute success to ability and effort, ascribe failure to effort and learning environment, while the unsuccessful learners tend to attribute success to learning environment, ascribe failure to ability.3). Confidence, interest, learning atmosphere, teacher's concern and instruction, and help from other students are factors underlying the unsuccessful learners'perceived attribution in English learning. It is clear that these factors play a meaningful role in the participants'attribution for failure or success in second language learning.The findings of the present study have the following pedagogical implications:(1) Teachers should train students'attributions according to gender difference and learning proficiency level difference.(2) Reinforce students'positive attribution trend by: a) cultivating students'interest towards English learning in Class by some lively activities and tasks in and out of class;b) building up students'confidence in English learning by controlling the difficulty of tasks and setting different requirements according to different students ; c) giving the unsuccessful learners more concerns and strategy instructions; d) promoting cooperative learning among the students...