A Study Of English-major Postgraduates’ Autonomous Learning Ability And Perceived Academic Self-efficacy

Since the 1980’s, pedagogy and psychology have begun to focus on autonomous learning.American Psychologist Bandura points out that factors influencing autonomous learning ability can be divided into internal factors, behavior factors and environmental factors,among which self-efficacy is one of the key internal factors to influence learners’ autonomous learning ability.At present, many researchers have emphasized the importance of autonomous learning,self-efficacy, and the relationship between autonomous learning and self-efficacy at home and abroad, but English-major postgraduates are rarely regarded as research subjects in their studies.In addition, questionnaires about English-major postgraduates’ autonomous learning ability are inadequate. Therefore, English-major postgraduates are regarded as research subjects in this thesis and an English-major Postgraduates’ Autonomous Learning Ability Questionnaire is designed.This thesis aims to employ a quantitative research method to study the following four research questions:(1) What is the overall situation of English-major postgraduates’ autonomous learning ability and perceived academic self-efficacy?(2) Is there any difference in English-major postgraduates’ autonomous learning ability and perceived academic self-efficacy based on gender, specialty, and grade?(3) Is there a correlation between English-major postgraduates’ perceived academic self-efficacy and autonomous learning ability?(4) Is there a causal relationship between English-major postgraduates’ perceived academic self-efficacy and autonomous learning ability?This study takes English-major postgraduates from a university in Shandong Province as the research subjects. There are two instruments: English-major Postgraduates’ Autonomous Learning Ability Questionnaire designed by the writer and Postgraduates’ Perceived Academic Self-efficacy Questionnaire designed by Li Xiaona(2010). The writer employs SPSS16.0 to process and analyze the data in this thesis and concludes the major findings as follows: first, the level of English-major postgraduates’ autonomous learning ability and perceived academic self-efficacy is above the average, so they have relatively great autonomous learning ability and perceived academic self-efficacy. Second, there are significant differences in English-major postgraduates’ autonomous learning ability based on gender and there are significant differences in their perceived academic self-efficacy based on gender and grade, so their gender influences their autonomous learning ability, and their gender and grade influence their perceived academic self-efficacy. Third, the correlation between English-major postgraduates’ perceived academic self-efficacy and autonomous learning ability is significantly positive, so the greaterEnglish-major postgraduates’ perceived academic self-efficacy is, the higher their autonomous learning ability is. Fourth, there is a causal relationship between English-major postgraduates’ perceived academic self-efficacy and autonomous learning ability, so perceived academic self-efficacy can predict autonomous learning ability well.This study is significant in respects of the relatively new research subjects and instrument.This study enriches the empirical studies about autonomous learning, self-efficacy, and the relationship between autonomous learning and self-efficacy. It also provides some practical implications, namely promoting English-major postgraduates’ autonomous learning ability through enhancing their perceived academic self-efficacy. However, it is limited in that the number of the subjects is relatively small; the quantitative method is used only; the content of the English-major Postgraduates’ Autonomous Learning Ability Questionnaire is not comprehensive enough and the English-major Postgraduates’ Perceived Academic Self-efficacy Questionnaire is not designed; Multivariate Analysis of Variance is not used. The future study could be carried out to make up for these limitations by expanding the samples, combining quantitative methods and qualitative methods, designing more comprehensive English-major Postgraduates’ Autonomous Learning Ability Questionnaire and English-major Postgraduates’ Perceived Academic Self-efficacy Questionnaire, and employing Multivariate Analysis of Variance.