Relationships Between Learning Motivation,Academic Self-efficacy And English Achievement

Learning motivation and academic self-efficacy are two important affective factorsthat affect learners’ English achievement. Some empirical studies have beenconducted on the relationship between English achievement and learning motivation,and between English achievement and academic self-efficacy. However, very littlework has been done on the relationships between the postgraduate students’ learningmotivation, academic self-efficacy and English achievement. The present study isdesigned to investigate the relationships between postgraduate students’ learningmotivation, academic self-efficacy and English achievement. Based on theachievements of the previous researches conducted at home and abroad, this researchrecruited258postgraduate students to do two questionnaires. The present studyaddresses the following five research questions:(1) What are the patterns of the postgraduate students’ English learning motivation?(2) What are the patterns of the postgraduate students’ academic self-efficacy?(3) Are there any differences in the postgraduate students’ learning motivationrelated to their gender, grade, major, hours of English learning and achievement?(4) Are there any differences in the postgraduate students’ academic self-efficacyrelated to their gender, grade, major, hours of English learning and achievement?(5) What are the relationships between the postgraduate students’ learningmotivation, academic self-efficacy and English achievement?The first two research questions attempt to reveal the patterns of the postgraduatestudents’ English learning motivation and academic self-efficacy, including the threesubtypes of learning motivation and four dimensions of academic self-efficacy, andthe descriptive statistics were adopted to answer these two questions. The third andthe fourth questions are meant to analyze the effects of different variables on thelearning motivation and academic self-efficacy, and the independent t-test andone-way ANOVA with post hoc tests were utilized to distinguish their differences. The fifth question aims to investigate the relationships between the learningmotivation, academic self-efficacy and English achievement. A sequence ofcorrelation analysis was adopted to analyze their interactive relations. The findingsfrom this study can be summarized as follows:(1) The postgraduate students’ English learning motivation was at a low level. Mostpostgraduate students had situational motivation, followed by instrumental motivationand cultural motivation. The postgraduate students had a middle level of academicself-efficacy in their English learning. Among the four dimensions, the postgraduatestudents’ confidence scored the highest and was at a middle level, followed byfrustration sense and difficulty sense successively, while the ability sense scored thelowest and was the only one that at a low level.(2) The variables of gender, grade and major did not cause any significantdifferences on the postgraduate students’ learning motivation and academicself-efficacy. While there were significant differences on learning motivation andacademic self-efficacy between the four groups of postgraduate students withdifferent length of English learning. Significant differences on learning motivationand academic self-efficacy were also found between postgraduate students withdifferent achievement levels.(3) English achievement was positively correlated with both learning motivationand academic self-efficacy, and the three categories of learning motivation and thefour dimensions of academic self-efficacy were positively relevant to each other. Thusthe postgraduate students who had higher motivation performed better in their Englishlearning, and the postgraduate students with higher academic self-efficacy obtainedbetter English learning achievement. Seen from the results of the regression analysis,the academic self-efficacy could predict the English achievement, while the learningmotivation could not.In light of the major findings of this study, some useful suggestions andimplications for English teaching and learning were proposed. It is suggested thatteachers should pay attention to students’ affective factors, such as enhancing theirbelief, establishing proper goals and cultivating their interest in English learning. The improvement of learning situations (teaching materials, teachers and teachingmethods, atmosphere, etc) and the adoption of reasonable feedback will also motivatethe postgraduate students in their English learning. In terms of academic self-efficacy,teachers should lead their students to have a correct attributional pattern in order tohelp learners have positive self-awareness of their past experience, and teachers canhelp students benefit from the vicarious experience by creating a positive learningenvironment for them. Besides, teachers’ verbal persuasions and students’ positiveemotional states will also greatly influence students’ self-efficacy beliefs.