A Study Of Correlation Between Achievement Motivation And Language Learning Strategies Of Non-english Majors

Since researches on second language acquisition absorbed new ideas of cognitivepsychology in the early1970s, its focus has been changed from how to teach to howto learn, and the study of language learning strategies was born at the right moment.Factors affecting language learning strategies as one of the research priorities in thisfield have attracted more and more attention. Though motivation is the most widelyrecognized factor that influences language learning strategies, few researches touchupon the relationship between achievement motivation and language learningstrategies.With the establishment of many theoretical models of achievement motivation,its measurement has gained effective development, which promotes many educationalpsychologists to apply achievement motivation theory into students’ study. In thisthesis, achievement motivation, an individual factor, is chosen as an entry to tryfinding out its relationship between language learning strategies of Chinesenon-English majors through quantitative study based on the theoretical framework oflanguage learning strategies. The goals of this survey are to propose constructivesuggestions to improve the quality and effectiveness of English learning of Chinesecollege students and bring some enlightenment for college English teaching.122sophomores majoring in science and engineering in Chengdu University ofTechnology are chosen to participate in this research. In the questionnaire survey, thesubjects’ utilization of language learning strategies and level of achievementmotivation are tested. Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) hasbeen used for reference as language learning strategy questionnaire and achievementmotivation questionnaire is based on Ye Renmin’s Achievement Motivation Scale(AMS) and Yu Anbang and Yang Guoshu’s Social-Oriented Achievement Motivation(SOAM). The research is designed to answer the following questions:1. Whatlanguage learning strategies are generally used by non-English majors?2. What’s therelationship between these strategies and proficiency?3. Whether achievementmotivation has any relevance to language learning strategies?4. If these two variables are correlated to each other, what’s the relationship between different levels ofachievement motivation and language learning strategies?Through data collection and analysis, findings are as follows. First, non-Englishmajors use both direct strategies and indirect strategies. The most frequently usedstrategies are compensation strategies and metacognitive strategies followed bycognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies, while memory strategiesare least employed. Besides, students who have higher English proficiency tend to usemore language learning strategies than those relatively backward students. What’smore, achievement motivation, as well as its every component, has obviouscorrelation with the use of six categories of language learning strategies. Finally,compared with students whose achievement motivation are low, those who havehigher achievement motivation use language learning strategies more frequently, andstudents’ use of six categories of language learning strategies is influenced bydifferent levels of achievement motivation.