A Study On Psychological Empowerment’s Effect On English Reading Achievement For Senior High School Students

Psychological empowerment (PE) is an important issue in management science. Although theimplementary conditions and applicative object of PE are very similar with condition and object inclassroom teaching, the number of studies on introduction of PE into instruction is relatively small. Thisthesis focuses on the combination between PE and instruction; tries to explain the possibilities of thiscombination. Besides, the effect of PE on English reading achievement was examined in this thesis. Bydoing so, methods to solve the problems in teaching were offered and teachers could teach English readingmore effectively. Also, it is hoped to see the further studies on this matter by cast a relatively new angle toeducational issues.Based on theories about PE, using Thomas and Velthouse’s theory about construction of PE, twoaspects of PE which cannot be intervened by man-made forces (self-efficacy or competence and impact)were removed and another two aspects of PE in Menon’s PE theory——information and rewards——were introduced in this thesis. These four aspects were set as channels to empower in senior two classes.The test papers of past college entrance exam and psychological empowerment scale (PES) were used asmeasuring tools in this thesis. Research questions are:1) Does psychological empowerment influence the English reading achievement in cooperativelearning groups for senior students?2) The influence of psychological empowerment on English reading achievement is positive ornegative?3) What detailed effects psychological empowerment has on different reading questions in detail?With the help of software SPSS, this study comes up with the following major findings:1) In English reading class, there is a significant difference between classes with and without theimplement of psychological empowerment.2) In English reading class, psychological empowerment has a significant positive correlativity withEnglish reading results.3) Psychological empowerment has different effects on four common kinds of questions——summingup and summarizing, inference questions, questions of details, and new words questions. To inferencequestions, a significant correlation exists. However, to summing up and summarizing, questions of detailsand new words questions, significant correlation was not found. These differences may caused by the different capabilities learners have to use when doing different questions.This thesis includes six chapters. Chapter one presents a brief overview of the whole thesis, andhighlights the purpose and significance of this study. Chapter two reviews the previous studies on PE andEnglish reading. Chapter three introduces theoretical framework——Thomas and Menon’s PE theories,and Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory. Chapter four explains methodology adopted in this study.Chapter five presents collected data and discussed about them. Chapter six summarizes the researchfindings.