A Correlation Study On English Learning Strategies And Self-efficacy Of Non-english Major Postgraduates

Language learning strategy refers to a series of specific actions taken by the learners inorder to learn English well. Self-efficacy refers to one’s belief in his capabilities to producedesigned levels of performance that exercises great influence on the academic achievement of aperson. It could mediate language development. They are both important variables influencingthe learning process. However, most of the past literatures on this topic were mostlyconcentrated on the specific strategies learners use to improve language abilities. The inquiryinto the affective influence on learner’s strategy was inadequate. And concerning the correlationbetween English learning strategy and self-efficacy, most research participants are mainlycollege students or middle school students, while the postgraduates were neglected. That is thevaluable point of this paper. Due to the above reasons, this thesis plans to carry out study on thecorrelation between English learning strategy and self-efficacy and tries to provide a usefulsupplement to the research field on this topic.This thesis adopted quantitative and qualitative approach to expect to investigate Englishlearning strategies and self-efficacy and their relationship by administering two questionnairesand interview, expecting answering the following three research questions:Which English learning strategies and self-efficacies are non-English major postgraduatesinclined to use? Whether there exist differences in the adoption of language learning strategiesand self-efficacies based on postgraduates’ type, specialty and academic achievements? Basedon the above two questions’ analysis, the important of this thesis is to explore the how is thecorrelation between the learning strategies and self-efficacy?The subjects of this study were240non-English major postgraduates from Qufu NormalUniversity. Ten interviewees were selected randomly aiming to get more detailed understandingof the relationship between English learning strategies and English self-efficacy. The data wasanalyzed by the SPSS17.0. The methods of statistical analysis were descriptive statisticalanalysis, independent samples T-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearsoncorrelation analysis.The results of the study indicated that: First, non-English major postgraduates employedEnglish learning strategies at moderate level and they used mother-tongue strategies the mostfrequently. There were no significant differences in English learning strategies betweenacademic postgraduates and professional postgraduates, or between liberal art postgraduatesand science postgraduates. However, among the four categories, there existed differences infunctional strategy and achievement level, and mother-tongue strategy and achievement level. Second, non-English major postgraduates held self-efficacy at moderate level and had thehighest level in sense of self-confidence for goal. There was no significant difference inself-efficacy between postgraduates’ type and major. But evident difference exited betweenEnglish self-efficacy and achievement level. Third, Statistical analyses showed the positivecorrelation between the overall English learning strategies and self-efficacy among non-Englishmajor postgraduates. Especially, the functional strategy, the highest Person correlationcoefficient is.477, while the mother-tongue strategy has no correlation with self-efficacy.Among the three dimensions of self-efficacy, the sense of course-competence has the highestPerson correlation coefficient which is.477; the sense of course dealing’ Person correlationcoefficient is.450and the sense of self-confidence for goal has the lowest Person correlationcoefficient which is.443.Based on the above findings and analysis, the author of this thesis offers some suggestionsand implications for raising strategy use and for enhancing self-efficacy level of non-Englishmajor postgraduates to facilitate English teaching and learning practice.