An Empirical Study On College Art Majors’ English Learning Behavior Based On Attribution Theory

As a result of college expansion, art majors are also in constant expansion. Due to the particularity of their majors, however, their academic bases especially English are weak generally. Many previous researches reveal that these students lack English learning motivation. Their emotion and attitude of English learning are quite negative. Meanwhile, they don’t apply strategies in their English learning. All the negative learning behavior restricts the development of college art majors’ English education. In 1970 s, Weiner put forward the famous Attribution Theory,which proposes that a learner’s attribution of academic achievement will affect his emotional responses and the expectation for future, and have significant impact on the learner’s subsequent behavior. Attribution Theory is widely applied in the field of education, among which there are many studies related with language teaching and learning, but studies related with English learning behavior are rarely found.Based on the wide application of Attribution Theory, and the urgency of improving art majors’ negative English learning behavior, this study aims at solving the following questions:(1) What is college art majors’ attribution of English academic achievement?(2) What is the present situation of college art majors’ English learning behavior?(3) What is the relationship between college art majors’ attribution and English learning behavior?This study uses a sample of 250 art major participants from SNU. The participants are from two colleges, involving twelve specific professions and two grades. The one semester study applies multiple methods such as questionnaire,classroom observation and interview to deeply study the art majors’ attribution ofEnglish academic achievement and English learning behavior, and finally finds out that:(1) As for the attribution of English academic achievement, the sequence of attribution in success is ability, effort, luck and context, the sequence of attribution in failure is ability, effort, context and luck. Generally, art majors tend to attribute English academic achievement mostly to ability.(2) As for the English learning behavior, all the means of each dimension are between 2.00 to 3.00. Further study indicates that art majors’ learning motivation varies, but on the whole the level is not satisfactory; there are inconformity between students’ learning belief and learning strategy; most art majors don’t have a clear learning attitude, and have negative emotional responses toward English learning.(3) The correlations between art majors’ attribution and their English learning behavior are complex. Learning motivation as well as learning belief has significant positive correlation with success-ability, success-effort and failure-effort; learning strategy has significant positive correlation with success-ability, success-effort,failure-effort, and has significant negative correlation with success-luck,failure-ability, failure-context, and failure-luck; learning emotion and attitude has significant positive correlation with success-effort and failure-effort, and has significant negative correlation with success-luck, failure-ability and failure-luck.On the whole, only effort has significant positive correlations with all the dimensions of English learning behavior,which indicate that attributing to effort will help art majors improve English learning behavior.The results indicate the effectiveness of applying Attribution Theory to explain the current situation of art majors’ English learning behavior, and it’s necessary for teachers to improve students’ English learning behavior by modifying their attribution. According to the results and reflection, the author proposes the following pedagogical implications for college art majors’ English teaching:(1) to know students’ attribution;(2) to set up appropriate learning goals;(3) to guide students to form positive attribution; and(4) to provide appropriate evaluation and feedback.