A Correlational Study Of Motivaitonal Regulation Strategies And English Autonomous Learning Competence Of Higher Vocational College Students

For foreign language learners, motivation plays a very important role in thesuccess of the foreign language learning. However, the motivation of learners is notstatic but dynamic; is not stable but full of changes. At the same time, learning aforeign language is a difficult process. Motivation will be affected by many factors inthis process. In this case, the foreign language learners need to adopt some strategiesto eliminate the interference. So they can maintain learning motivations. In otherwords, only the learners who can regulate the learning motivation in the process oflearning a second language can ensure their learning effects. However, we know littleabout whether and how students use motivational regulation strategies in the foreignlearning process.In addition, more and more researchers pay attention to autonomy competence oflearners. And there is little related research on the relationship between motivationalregulation strategies and English autonomous learning competence.Moreover, basic English knowledge of higher vocational college students isrelatively poor, and the achievement is also low. In view of this situation, we need toresearch the motivational regulation strategies, autonomy competence of Englishlearning of non-English majors at vocational college, and their relationship. In orderto study them, we propose the following questions:(1) What are the overall patterns of motivational regulation strategies used byhigher vocational college students?(2) What are the differences in using motivational regulation strategies in termsof the students’ gender, specialty, the pass of Practical English Test for Colleges?(3) Are there any relations between motivational regulation strategies andautonomous learning competence?The research studies motivational regulation strategies and the relationshipbetween motivational regulation strategies and autonomous learning competence byquestionnaires and interviews. The students are from different departments ofZhangjiakou University, including55males and63females;61arts students and57 science students. Also,76students have passed the PRETCO, but42students havefailed the PRETCO. One of questionnaires is Li Kun’s Motivational Regulation inEnglish Learning Questionnaire, which is chosen from his2008Ph.D. thesis Chinacollege students English learning self control study. The other is AutonomousLearning Awareness Questionnaire (ALAQ), which is designed by Xu Jinfen (2004).Then the data of the questionnaires are analyzed by SPSS17.0. Descriptive analysisshows that the use of the eight motivational regulation strategies are in medium tohigh level. Independent Samples T-test shows that the using frequency of themotivational regulation strategies of girls is higher than boys. While the use ofmotivational regulation strategies by the arts students and science students do notexist differences. And the students who have passed the PRETCO use themotivational regulation strategies more frequently than the students who have failed.The correlation analysis shows the result that there is moderate to strong correlationbetween motivational regulation strategies and autonomous learning competence.Then according to the data, we select representative6students to perform theinterviews. The interview will provide further support for the research.In short, the study shows that non-English majors of higher vocational collegeuse the motivational regulation strategies at medium and high level. What’s more,there are differences in the use of MRS in terms of the students’ gender and the passof PRETCO. But there is no differences in MRS using in different majors. And it hasmoderate to strong relation with autonomous learning competence. This studyprovides more perspective for English teaching and learning at higher vocationalcolleges. In teaching, the teachers should encourage the learners to enhance learningmotivations and offer corresponding strategies of motivational regulation accordingthe different characteristics of learning tasks and the students. Also the studentsshould actively regulate their motivations and improve their autonomous learningcompetence.