A Study On The Relationship Of Learned Helplessness, Attribution, And English Learning Achievements Of High School Students

Some high school students,after experiencing a series of difficulties and frustrations,tend to lose confidence in learning English and to go through a series of negative emotions,such as,anxiety,horror and depression.This is learned helplessness in learning English.How serious is learned helplessness experienced by English learners in Senior High schools? How do learners with learned helplessness understand their own situations,feelings,and achievement in learning English? In order to figure out the answer,three specific questions are asked:1)What is the state of learned helplessness among high school English learners?Are there any differences between rural and urban students? 2)What do they attribute their learning achievement / failure to? Are there any differences between rural and urban students? 3)What is the relationship of learned helplessness,attribution and learning achievement?In the present study,600 high school students in Wuan(a country in Handan city)and Shijiazhuang were asked to fill out questionnaires,i.e.the learned helplessness questionnaire and attribution questionnaire,and some of them were later interviewed for more detailed information.The learned helplessness questionnaire adopted in the study was complied by Zhu(2008)who adapted the questionnaire of Quinless and Nelson(1984).The attribution questionnaire was complied by Lv(2006)on the basis of Seligman's questionnaire(1984).The survey and interview were carried out between December 15 th,2017 and December 16 th,2017.Students were asked to finish the two questionnaires in 20 minutes.And then,in order to understand the students better,the author interviewed some of them.The major findings of the study are as follows.First,the senior high school students' learned helplessness is at a moderate level.Along the four dimensions of learned helplessness,the cognition helplessness and emotion helplessness are more serious than behavior helplessness and motivation helplessness.And in the interviews,the students mention many reasons for this: growing burden of learning and changing teaching methods are two of them.When further examined,the degree of learned helplessness experienced by the rural high school students is significantly different from that of the urban high school students,on three of four dimensions---behavior helplessness,cognition helplessness and motivation helplessness.The rural students feel more helpless than urban students.However,no significant difference between the two groups is found along the dimension of emotion helplessness.Second,the results from attribution questionnaire show that the students tend to attribute their academic achievement to internal factors rather than external factors,among which,the effort attribution is the strongest factor.Again,significant difference between urban and rural students is found,especially in ability attribution and situation attribution.It means that rural students are more inclined to attribute their learning achievement to ability and situation than their urban parts.In the interview,the rural students complain that the learning environment provided by their parents and schools is not good for their learning.Third,in terms of the relationship between learned helplessness and learning achievement,each dimension of learned helplessness has a significant correlation with learning achievement.In terms of the relationship between learned helpless and attribution,luck attribution has a significantly positive correlation with students' learned helplessness.Effort attribution has a significantly negative correlation with students' learned helplessness,while situation attribution and ability attribution do not significantly correlate with students' learned helplessness.In terms of the relationship between attribution and learning achievement,effort attribution and ability attribution have positive correlations with students' learning achievement,while situation attribution and luck attribution have no significant correlation with students' learning achievement.About the relationship between the three factors,there is no significant difference between urban and rural students.