A Correlative Study Of Demonstrative High School Students' Achievement Motivation And Attribution In English Learning

In today's Chinese education system,exam-oriented education is still the main theme of classroom teaching.In this case,high school English teaching focuses more on the instillation of knowledge points,while ignoring other aspects including emotional factors,especially the cultivation of psychological health.This leads to high school students' viewing the pass of examinations as the purpose of English learning.They probably do not really obtain the sense of accomplishment in learning English.Such phenomenon is particularly noticeable in demonstrative high schools.The High School English Curriculum Standard of China(2017 Edition)clearly states that the overall goal of the high school English curriculum is to enable students to form a preliminary comprehensive language application ability through English learning,to promote mental development and improve comprehensive humanistic qualities.Therefore,it is of great significance to fully understand demonstrative high school students' achievement motivation and attribution in English learning,because the strength of English achievement motivation will considerably influence students' English learning enthusiasm and effectiveness.In addition,the attribution of success or failure is related to learner's perception of the current learning outcome and the generation of subsequent learning behaviors.Thus,the current study is expected to provide some effective and instructive suggestions for high school English teaching by exploring the overall situation of demonstrative high school student' achievement motivation and attribution in English learning,and by analyzing the correlation between them.Based on Atkinson's(1964)achievement motivation theory and Weiner's(1974)attribution theory,the present study adopts questionnaires as research method,and the research subjects are 380 students in grade 2 from three demonstrative high schools: Yulin No.1 High School,Baise High School and High School Attached to Guangxi Normal University.Achievement motivation questionnaire mainly adopts the Achievement Motivation Scale(AMS)designed by Gjesme and Nygrad(1983)from Norway,with slight adjustments,which includes two dimensions: motivation of pursuing success and motivation of avoiding failure.And attribution style questionnaire is mainly based on Lefcourt's(1979)Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale(MMCS)and the author makes slight alterations to it.The questionnaire is consisted of four dimensions: effort,ability,luck and context.The present study focuses on three questions:(1)What is the overall situation of demonstrative high school students' achievement motivation in English learning?(2)What is the overall situation of demonstrative high school students' attribution in English learning?(3)What is the correlation between demonstrative high school students' English learning achievement motivation and attribution? And the results show that:(1)demonstrative high school students' achievement motivation in English learning in general is at a medium level.And the motivation of pursuing success is higher than the motivation of avoiding failure.(2)Demonstrative high school students' attribution in English learning is positive in general.Students tend to attribute their success and failure in English learning to internal and controllable factors.Among the four dimensions of attribution,the mean of effort is the highest,followed by ability,luck and context.(3)There exists correlation between demonstrative high school students' English learning achievement motivation and attribution,but the correlation is not significant.Among the four dimensions of attribution,effort is positively correlated to achievement motivation while ability,luck and context are negatively correlated to it.According to the research results,the paper comes up with some suggestions from the perspectives of teachers and students respectively for the purpose of making a modest contribution to the quality-improving of English teaching in senior high schools.For teachers,they are expected to provide scientific guidance on students' attribution in English learning,intervening in students' achievement motivation,and release students' learning pressure and test anxiety.For students,they are supposed to set up correct English learning self-concept and engaging in appropriate communication with parents.