Relationships Between Multiple Intelligences And English Writing Self-efficacy Concerning Senior High School Students

Writing is an important way of language output. In the process of English writing teaching, teachers usually ignore the emotional factors in the writing process of students. Writing self-efficacy is one of the most effective emotional factors in the writing process. It is of important theoretical and practical significance that how to help students to cultivate a good English writing self-efficacy and so as to improve their English writing motivation and writing level. In recent years, the theory of Multiple Intelligences attracted attentions of many educators. It proposed the idea that human’s intelligence is not a single one, but a manifold aggregate. This provide us a new angle of view to discuss how to improve students’ English writing self-efficacy.In view of these, on the basis of a review of domestic and foreign researches on writing self-efficacy and multiple intelligences, the author tries to investigate the relationship between senior students’ English writing self-efficacy and multiple intelligences through investigation. In order to get some new inspirations in improving the English writing level of senior school students.The research questions are as follows:1) What’s the current situation of senior one student’s English writing self-efficacy and multiple intelligences?2) Is there any relationship between their English writing self-efficacy and multiple intelligences? If so, what is the degree of their correlation?3) Which intelligence is the most powerful predictor for students’ English writing self-efficacy?Qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis are conducted to find the answers.The subjects are 150 students from four different classes of senior one in Nanchang No.23 middle school and they were extracted by random selection. In order to test their score of multiple intelligences and English writing self-efficacy, two pieces of questionnaires self-designed by the author with reference to the authoritative questionnaires were distributed to these 150 subjects. The validity and reliability of the questionnaires have been tested to ensure the accuracy of the result(Q1:validity=0.658, reliability=0.907; Q2: validity=0.686, reliability=0.935).The author used SPSS16.0 to analysis the data obtained. Five students were selectrandomly to make an interview. Through descriptive data analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis and the analysis of interview, the following conclusions was obtained:1) Descriptive analysis shows that the basic situation of senior one students’ multiple intelligences is normal that students have their own advantages and disadvantages(Mean=129.19, SD=23.04). The basic level of English writing self-efficacy is relatively low which may be related to the students’ low English proficiency(Mean=43.92, SD=14.40). The result is confirmed in the analysis of interview which showed that students’ English writing self-efficacy is relatively low and they all have different advantage intelligence.2) Correlation analysis shows that there is a relatively low, but positive and significant correlation(r=0.484, p=0.01) between English writing self-efficacy and multiple intelligences. The correlation means that multiple intelligences has some impact on English writing self-efficacy to a certain extent.3) Regression analysis reveals that the linguistic intelligence is the most powerful predictive factor in multiple intelligences in terms of English writing self-efficacy(Model 1: EW self-efficacy=16.395+1.836*linguistic) and the musical intelligence takes the second place(Model 2:EW self-efficacy=8.248+1.417* linguistic+0,867*musical). Which means that, if the linguistic intelligence of a student is increased by one unity, his English writing self-efficacy will increased by 1.836(Model 1);and that if the linguistic intelligence and musical intelligence of a student are increased by one unity, his English writing self-efficacy will increased by 1.417 plus 0.867( Model 2). However, the result of interview showed that linguistic intelligence and visual spatial intelligence have impact on English writing.Thus, exploring methods to improve English writing self-efficacy from the perspective of multiple intelligences has certain positive function and practical significance. From which we can get a lot of inspiration and help to improve students’ English writing level. Multiple intelligences is a factor which is hard to control in learning process, while it has great impacts on learning. Teachers should concentrate more on students’ different advantages on multiple intelligences,especially on their linguistic intelligence and musical intelligence, and take measures to improve their English writing self-efficacy.