English Learning Self-efficacy, Learning Anxiety, And Academic Performance Of Art Students In Rural Senior High Schools

In the 1970 s Bandura put forward the concept of self-efficacy.He believed that judgment of the ability that individuals have to perform certain actions will be affected by whether or not they have the confidence to complete this behavior.If people believe they are able to finish an activity,then they can produce a high level of self-efficacy.Since then the Self-Efficacy Theory has been supported by many empirical studies with the result that it has been constantly enriched and developed.Learning anxiety is the degree of students’ uncertainty about being able to learn content properly and includes stress,worry,and fear.Students’ academic performance is influenced by many factors,including self-efficacy and learning anxiety as the two significant ones.Characteristics of art students in senior high schools are divided into the two major categories of Art and Music according to their subject.Art students in the school have a higher level of expenditure than other ordinary high school students.Consequently the parents of art students living in rural areas have to carry a heavy economic burden and thus their expectations are greater,creating a higher level of learning anxiety and a lower level of self-efficacy in the art students.In addition,there is a certain degree of preference phenomenon in rural areas,so that the gender of art students produces different self-efficacy and learning anxiety quotients.These factors will affect art students’ academic achievement.The aim of this study was to examine how the complicated relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance affected the study of art students and non-art students in rural areas and thereby investigate the relationship between self-efficacy,learning anxiety,and academic performance of these students.In order to do this 502 students in a rural school environment were sampled and surveyed using The English Learning Anxiety Questionnaire(Wang,2000),and the English Learning Self-efficacy Questionnaire” drawn up by(Zhong etc.2004).The main findings are:1.In the students’ feelings about their competence in the course,their ability to achieve learning targets,their self-confidence,their ability to deal with difficulties,their total scores of self-efficacy,their nervousness about speaking English or answering questions in class,their responses in The English Learning Anxiety Questionnaire and English Learning Self-efficacy Questionnaire revealed a significant gender difference.Female students’ feelings about their competence in the course and ability to achieve their learning goals and their confidence about coping with difficulties,and self-efficacy were significantly more positive than those of male students.Data from the samples showed that boys’ English learning anxiety scores are significantly worse than girls.The boys’ responses show that they are generally nervous,afraid to speak English and fear classroom questioning.2.The responses to the questionnaires also revealed significant differences between art students and non-art students in their feelings about coping with the course’s difficulties,worry,nervousness,fear of classroom questioning,and English performance.The nervousness of art students is significantly greater than that of non-art students,and non-art students’ feelings about coping with difficulties,worry,fear of classroom questioning,and English performance are significantly more positive than those of art students.There are significant differences between art students and non-art students in coping with the course’s difficulties,worry,nervousness,fear of classroom questioning and English performance.The nervousness of art students is significantly higher than that of non-art students,and non-art students’ sense of coping with difficulties,worry,fear of classroom questioning,and English performance is significantly higher than that of art students.3.Whilst there was no obvious relationship between students’ feelings about coping with the course’s difficulties and the fear of classroom questions and the factors of self-efficacy,the total English score and the total score of English learning anxiety were negatively correlated.Similarly the factors addressed in The English Learning Questionnaire and its total score were negatively correlated with English scores.However,the factors of self-efficacy were positively correlated with English scores.4.The responses also showed that English learning anxiety plays a mediating role between the self-efficacy and English achievement.Being afraid to speak English is a negative part of the intermediary process between learning target confidence and English exam results and between the difficulty of the course and the eventual English grades.Nervous tension over learning target and English performance plays a negative intermediary role.Worry about the difficulty of the course and a low level of confidence in English performance also have some intermediary effect.