A Case Study Of The Influence Of Academic Emotions On English Academic Performance Of Senior High School Students Based On Locus Of Control Theory

Academic emotion,available throughout the learning process,is one of the important factors affecting students’ cognitive processing,learning attitudes,teacher-student relationships,and the psychological well-being of students.As the objectives of English education in China shift to the cultivation of students’ core English literacy,schools are paying more attention to students’ emotional factors.Considering that senior high school students are not psychologically mature and their academic emotions are prone to fluctuate,negative academic emotions can lead to psychological problems and affect students’ learning outcomes if not channeled and regulated in time.These reasons make it necessary to study students’ academic emotions.Although there is an increasing number of research on non-intellectual factors such as academic emotions,and academic emotion regulation,little research has been published on the correlationship among locus of control,academic emotions,and English academic performance of senior high school students.This case study aims to explore the following three questions by referring to previous studies on academic emotions at home and abroad,using the Locus of Control theory,Attribution Theory,the Affective Filtering Hypothesis,and Positive Psychology as the theoretical basis,and combining quantitative and qualitative research techniques.The questions are as follows:(1)What is the influence of students’ locus of control on the English academic performance of students of different proficiency levels?(2)What is the influence of students’ locus of control on the English academic performance of students of different genders?(3)What negative academic emotions can be transformed into positive academic emotions through the intervention of students’ locus of control based on the Locus of Control Theory?Managing to respond to these two questions,a 20-week case study was conducted in Jiangmen No.1 Senior High School.The specific arrangements were as follows: the InternalExternal Control Scale was distributed to the 97 students in Class One and Class Ten Senior One in the first week.All the questionnaires were collected and turned out valid.After analyzing the data of the questionnaire,three students with a high internal locus of control and another three students with a high external locus of control were sorted out as the subjects of this case study.The English Academic Emotions Questionnaire for high school students was distributed in the third week to learn about the academic emotions presented by freshmen.In the fourth week,the first monthly examination was conducted as the pre-test.The first interview was conducted in the fifth week,and the second interview in the twelfth week.Both the Internal and External control Scale and the English academic emotions questionnaire were administered again in the nineteenth week to compare if there is any difference in the locus of control and academic emotions of the students at the beginning and the end of the study,especially the 6 subjects.The final exam for this term was considered the post-test and the third interview was conducted in the twentieth week.These interviews allowed the author to have a better understanding of students’ academic emotions.The author has had a continuous intervention of the attribution style and negative emotions of the three students with an external locus of control from the fifth week to the twentieth week.The major findings of this case study are as follows.(1)Students’ internal and external characteristics have a significant influence on their academic performance.The performance of students with an internal locus of control is significantly higher than those with an external locus of control.(2)Students’ internal locus of control has a significant influence on the academic performance of high-level students and intermediate-level students while students’ external control has a significant influence on the academic performance of low-level students.(3)In terms of students’ English academic performance,there is no difference between boys and girls with internal locus of control.However,girls with external locus of control got much better English academic performance than boys with external locus of control.(4)There was a significant high relationship between students’ positive academic emotions and their academic performance.(5)Students’ external locus of control can be gradually changed to an internal locus of control through attribution Training.Some students’ negative academic emotions can be cultivated into positive emotions.This study found that students’ internal and external locus of control had a significant impact on the academic performance of students of different proficiency levels and different genders.The modification of locus of control and attribution styles allows students to focus more on intrinsic efforts,enhance their learning motivation,and foster positive academic emotions so as to make greater progress in their English learning.