An Investigation Into English Academic Reading Autonomy Of English Postgraduates

Learner autonomy is considered to be the ultimate goal of modern education, for learning how to learn and acquire knowledge and skills is more important than receiving knowledge and skills. As adult learners, postgraduates can learn more autonomously because of their cognitive level. Meanwhile, for English postgraduates, it is indispensible for them to do a large amount of English academic reading, which is an important way for them to accumulate academic knowledge, master research methods and writing skills to improve their research competence.The importance of learner autonomy and English academic reading has given rise to a great deal of research on leaner autonomy and English academic reading. Nonetheless, the studies on English learner autonomy usually take English as a whole, seldom do they investigate learner autonomy in the four skills of English (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, writing) separately. Research on English academic reading autonomy is in its infancy. Besides, the research subjects of the research on English learner autonomy mainly include secondary students, undergraduates and non-English postgraduates.In light of the previous studies, the present study sets out to investigate English academic reading autonomy of English postgraduates. This study is based on Benson’s framework of learner autonomy at learning management level and Wenden’s three-stage distinction of self-management behaviors for learner autonomy. This study tries to explore the overall situation of English academic reading autonomy of English postgraduates, the individual differences of English postgraduates’ English academic reading autonomy in terms of specialty and grade and the possible factors that influence English postgraduates’ English academic reading autonomy.The study took 192 English postgraduates from Central China Normal University as the research subjects. The research instruments include questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire was adapted from the one designed by Qiang Yun (强云,2004). All the 192 students were asked to fill in the questionnaire, and 10 of them were chosen to participate in the interview. The major findings are summarized as follows:1. English postgraduates display a medium level of autonomy in English academic reading, and the highest autonomy in monitoring, less autonomy in planning and the least autonomy in evaluation.2. Specialty difference and grade difference cannot be found in English academic reading autonomy of English postgraduates.3. The factors affecting English academic reading autonomy of English postgraduates include academic interest and motivation, background knowledge, supervisor’s guidance and monitoring, book resources and academic atmosphere.This study can present a whole picture of English academic reading autonomy of English postgraduates, therefore providing valuable implications for the school administrators, the supervisors and the students themselves in improving English postgraduates’autonomy in English academic reading.