| In recent years, the large-scale enrollment of English major postgraduates has raised some doubts about the training quality of English major postgraduates. Many scholars have also made some relevant researches on postgraduates’ training quality. The concept of engagement, which originates from burnout, has become a new research field under the influence of positive psychology. Owing to the direct relationship between study engagement and training quality, it is very significant to get a better understanding of the English major postgraduates’ current learning situation from the perspective of study engagement.Inspired by the theories of Constructivism, attribution and Humanism, the present research combines the methods of quantitative with qualitative questionnaire to investigate English major postgraduates’SE among three universities in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The research aims to reveal English major postgraduates’ learning status, discuss their learning problems and finally explore some measures to help schools improve the training quality. It is mainly focused on the following research questions. (1) What is the overall picture of English major postgraduates’ SE and how is their performance of each dimension? (2)Is there any difference of SE among different objectives? (3)Is there any correlation among these dimensions? How is it? (4)What are the major factors affecting SE? Based on previous researchers, four dimensions are totally concluded in present research:(1) Emotional engagement mainly draws on English major postgraduates’ positive as well as negative reactions to teachers, classmates, academics and schools, such as their learning view and stress. (2) Behavioral engagement encompasses English major postgraduates’ autonomous involvement in academic performance or self-directed academic behaviors and scientific research activities. (3) Cognitive engagement refers to English major postgraduates’ investment on their self-efficacy and willingness to exert the effort necessary to challenge the difficulties and master certain learning skills. (4) Scientific research absorption focuses on their concentration on scientific research, including their effort on improve consciousness of problems, innovation and data-collecting ability.After processing the quantitative data by SPSS 16.0 and analyzing the results of interviews, the major findings of current investigation can be summarized as follows. (1)The overall situation of English major postgraduates’ study engagement is at a comparatively low level; especially the emotional dimension. Their scientific absorption also needs further improvement. (2)There are some differences among these participants of different genders, grades, and English level. The male group performs better than the female one. The cognitive engagement of higher grades is stronger than the low grades, and the higher English level they achieve, the more engagement they make in study. (3) There is a significant positive relationship among these four scopes. (4)According to the qualitative analysis of the research, it finds that the factors affecting their study engagement mainly come from English-major postgraduates’personal attitude, tutors’ instruction and the supports of universities.According to the existing problems, the thesis proposes the following three suggestions. Above all, English major postgraduates should set up correct attribution perceptions, they need to enhance their specialty identity; attach more importance on emotional engagement. As for the tutors, working as instructors, supporters and facilitators, they should not only improve classroom teaching quality, but intensify instruction on English major postgraduates’research. In terms of the universities, an ecological training system can be constructed, multiple curriculum system be established, so as to create a more favorable academic atmosphere for English major postgraduates’ academic research. |
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