| Learning engagement is closely related to the development of students.Since scholars put forward this conception,overseas studies on learning engagement have bloomed.Researchers have proposed a series of theories on learning engagement,and developed a number of measuring tools to conduct empirical research.Domestic studies on learning engagement started relatively late,and mainly focused on empirical research.With the issuing and promotion of English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education,the demands of permeating student-centered educational conception have becoming more and more urgent.Student-centered conception emphasizes that English teaching and learning should facilitate autonomous learning,with a focus on learning process and learning affect.However,in what ways can English teachers make it?Studies based on self-determination theory indicate that teachers' autonomy support can promote the fulfilling of students' basic psychological needs,which in turn further stimulates students' intrinsic and autonomous motivations,and then helps them experience happiness.However,studies on how teachers' autonomy support affects English learning engagement are still scarce.Hence,the present study puts forward a hypothesized model based on self-determination theory and prior research for the purpose of exploring the relationship between autonomy support and English learning engagement.On the one hand,perceived autonomy support is hypothesized to directly promote English learning engagement,and at the same time indirectly facilitate it by means of the mediating effect of basic psychological need satisfaction;on the other hand,perceived autonomy support is hypothesized to directly curb learning disengagement,and at the meanwhile indirectly affect it through the mediating role of basic psychological need frustration.In this study,a 63-item English learning questionnaire was designed through adapting well-developed independent scales by overseas researchers.420 junior high students from Puyang City,Henan Province were surveyed in this study.420 papers were given out and 400 valid papers were collected.Descriptive analysis,independent sample T-test as well as bivariate correlation analysis were conducted by means of SPSS.Structural models were built to explore the mediation role and bootstrap was applied to assess the mediating effects.The major findings are as follows:Firstly,Students' perceived autonomy support is above the average.Students'basic psychological need satisfaction just reaches the average and their need frustration is a bit below the average.Agentic engagement is at medium level while other dimensions are a little bit above the average.Cognitive disengagement is at medium level while other dimensions are below the average.Secondly,there are significant differences in autonomy need satisfaction between boys and girls.Boys tend to experience more need frustration than girls.Girls display more behavioral and emotional engagement than boys.Boys tend to have higher level of learning disengagement.The results do not present significant differences between headteacher group and non-headteacher group,between honors class and regular class.Lastly,students' basic psychological need satisfaction plays a complete mediating role between perceived autonomy support and English learning engagement;meanwhile basic psychological need frustration also plays a complete mediating role between perceived autonomy support and English learning disengagement.At the end of this study,based on the major findings above,several possible strategies are discussed for enhancing English learning engagement.On the one hand,adopting differentiating instruction,task-based language teaching and cooperative learning is beneficial to facilitate the satisfying of basic psychological needs;on the other hand,five specific strategies are summarized to help teachers become more autonomy supportive. |
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