A Study On The Relationship Among Motivational Regulation Strategies,learning Engagement And English Grades Of Senior High School Students

The effective usage of motivational regulation strategies(MRSs)contributes to sustain or increase students’ motivation.In the process of language learning,students are not always motivated.Factors such as difficulties of learning tasks or failure experiences may distract students’ attention leading to motivation decreasing or motivation absence,so the study on how to help students sustain or increase their motivation is particularly necessary.The English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School(2017 Edition)also emphasizes that keeping or increasing motivation is a key factor to improve students’ learning ability.However,the number of domestic researches on MRSs is limited and the influence of MRSs on academic achievements is not clear.Therefore,based on self-regulated learning(SRL)and self-determination theory(SDT),the present study regards MRSs as the independent variable,learning engagement as the mediating variable and English grades as the dependent variable to discover and clarify the relationship among these three variables so as to offer some pedagogical suggestions for English teaching and learning.In this study,the data were collected mainly from two sources.Quantitative data were collected through the questionnaire,in which 516 students in Grade Two from three senior high schools in Zhengzhou finished the questionnaire including the MRSs scale and the learning engagement scale;qualitative data were collected through the interview,in which 28 students who participated in the questionnaire survey were randomly invited to take part in the interview.For data analysis,quantitative data were analyzed through SPSS 26.0,information of interview were further transcribed and analyzed to supplement the quantitative data analysis.These data are used to answer the following questions:(1)What’s the general situation of senior high school students’ English MRSs usage and learning engagement?(2)Are there gender differences in senior high school students’ English MRSs usage and learning engagement? If there are,what is the characteristic of these differences?(3)What are the correlations among senior high school students’ English MRSs usage,learning engagement and English grades?(4)Does learning engagement mediate the relationship between English MRSs usage and English grades of senior high school students? If it does,what is the characteristic of such mediation effect?The results reveals that:(1)The frequency of senior high school students’ English MRSs usage is at an upper-middle level.Strategy of self-efficiency enhancement is used most frequently and self-reward is used with the least frequency.Students’ engagement with English learning is at a medium level.(2)There exist gender differences in senior high school students’ MRSs usage and learning engagement.Compared with boys,girls use MRSs more frequently and shows higher level of learning engagement.(3)Eight MRSs all take significant positive effects on learning engagement and English grades.Learning engagement has a significant positive correlation with English grades.(4)Learning engagement partially mediates the relationship between MRSs and English grades.These findings are helpful to clarify the relationship among MRSs,learning engagement and English grades.They also suggests some pedagogical implications for English teachers and learners.For English teaching,teachers should pay more attention on students’ engagement with English learning and give more guidance in their MRSs usage especially for these strategies related to intrinsic motivation building.For learners,they should realize the importance of MRSs on positive academic outcomes including learning engagement and English achievements and use these strategies consciously in finishing learning tasks.