A Study Of Correlation Between Self-efficacy, Attribution And English Proficiency On Rural Primary School Students

Learners’ self-efficacy and attribution can greatly influence their achievement in foreign language learning. However, rural primary school students have been focused by many teachers and researchers because of lack of facilities and teachers, but few of them study rural pupils’ self-efficacy and attribution. Focusing on the psychological factors during their English learning not only can help rural primary school students improve their English proficiency, but also can benefit for their mental health.The subjects of this study are 279 rural primary school students who come from Nangoucha Primary School in Yan’an and Shejiaping Primary School, Gaojiecun Primary School and Letangbu Primary School in Yulin. This study investigates rural primary school students’ self-efficacy and attribution by two questionnaires—self-efficacy scale and attribution scale and interview. And then adopt mean score of their 4 English scores as their English proficiency to analyze the correlation between self-efficacy, attribution and English proficiency on rural primary school students. The results of the present study indicate that:Firstly, the mean score of self-efficacy of rural primary school students is 3.19, which indicates that their self-efficacy is in general level. And their GSE(M=2.94), EASA(M=3.33) and ESRS(M=3.31) are all in general level. Furthermore, English proficiency of rural primary school students is also not so high. The mean score is 74.79, but they have made progress with age;Secondly, rural primary school students are more likely to attribute their success in English academic to their effort, and they sometimes attribute it to the difficulty of the test, their English teacher and their ability, but they hardly attribute it to their mood in the exam and their luck. However, rural primary school students are more likely to attribute their failure in English academic to their effort and the difficulty of the test and they sometimes attribute it to their ability and their English teacher, but they hardly attribute it to their mood during the exam and their luck.Thirdly, rural primary school students’ self-efficacies, including their GSE, EASE and ESRS, are positively and significantly correlated with their English proficiency.Fourthly, rural primary school students’ English proficiency is significantly and positively related with ability, effort and teacher success attribution factors, and positively related with task difficulty and mood factors, but negatively related with luck factor. What’s more, rural primary school students’ English proficiency is negatively related with all failure attribution factors, and significantly and negatively related with teacher factor. However, students in different English proficiency level attribute their success and failure in English academic differently.Fifthly, rural primary school students’ self-efficacy is significantly and positively related with ability, effort, mood and teacher success attribution factors, and positively related with task difficulty factor, but negatively related with luck factor. Moreover, rural primary school students’ self-efficacy is negatively related with all failure attribution factors, and significantly and negatively related with ability, task difficulty and teacher factor. However, students in different self-efficacy level attribute their success and failure in English academic differently. What’s more, there is marginally significant difference between success attribution and failure attribution in task difficulty, mood, luck and teacher attribution factorsFinally, according to the interview, most rural primary school students think their interest and the necessity of learning English are significant related with their English learning.All in all, individuals’ self-efficacy, attribution and English proficiency are correlated with each other. Therefore, This study has proposed several suggestions for English instruction: 1) the local English teachers should provide rural pupils with more persuasive information; set different tasks for rural primary school students in different levels; encourage rural pupils to set their own goals of English learning and their English teachers should encourage them to set the long-term and short-term goals for themselves; 2) English teacher should know every student’s attribution style and should guide them to attribute their success or failure in English achievement properly; 3) their English teachers, school administrators, parents and others should help rural primary school students improve their self-efficacy and form positive attribution style, and improve their English proficiency.