| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 應用英語研究所 === 99 === This study investigated Taiwanese technological university first-year students’ self-attributions for success and failure in English learning. The purpose was to explore students’ perceptions in English learning and their attributions for past English learning outcomes. Drawing on parts of Weiner’s (1979, 1983, 1992) three-dimensional framework of attribution, the study not only examined students’ overall English learning attributional features, but it also compared English learning attributional differences between/ among genders, majors, and students with different parents’ educational levels and family income statues.
The study used the opportunistic sampling to survey both English majors and non-English majors. A six-point Likert scale questionnaire developed from Gobel and Mori’s (2007) version was used as the instrument to collect data. Among 3,400 mailed copies of the questionnaire, 3,134 responses were collected, and 2,412 were valid. The statistical analyses, including the descriptive analysis, the paired-samples t-test, the independent-samples t-test, and the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed.
The results of students’ English learning perceptions show that factors (i.e., need to be employed and need to continue studying) were main factors affecting students’ English learning motivation. In addition, students thought that English courses in senior vocational high school focused more on the instruction of vocabulary, grammar, and reading skills, while English courses in college stressed more on the instruction of listening skills, reading skills, and vocabulary. Finally, students perceived that they performed best in reading, but worst in writing. They tended to use school’s test scores as a main source to judge their English learning performances.
The results of students’ English learning attributions show that their attributions for success were not the same as those for failure. Students tended to attribute their English learning success to external factors, while failure to internal ones. Teacher’s English language ability and concern about grades were most endorsed for success, whereas after-class communicative practices and effort were most stressed for failure. Furthermore, significant differences of attributions were found between/ among groups of variables (i.e., gender, major, parents’ educational background, and family income status). First, females had higher ratings on factors of success than males, but males had higher ratings on factors of failure than females. In success, females focused more on ability, effort, likes, concern about grades, interest, and motivation than males, while males stressed more on risk-taking, teaching methods, luck, and classroom atmosphere than females. In failure, females emphasized risk-taking, teaching methods, classroom atmosphere, and input more highly than males, but males endorsed likes, concern about grades, and interest more highly than females. Second, English majors had higher ratings on factors of success than non-English majors, but non-English majors had higher ratings on factors of failure than English majors. In success, English majors endorsed more on ability, concern about grades, likes, interest, motivation, and learning experiences than non-English majors, while non-English majors stressed more on teaching methods, classroom atmosphere, input, teachers’ help, peers’ help, parents’ help, school’s facilities, school’s emphasis on English learning, and school’s offering of after-class communicative practices than English majors. In failure, English majors stressed teaching methods, teacher’s English language ability, classroom atmosphere, input, teachers’ help, school’s facilities, school’s emphasis on English learning, and school’s offering of after-class communicative practices more highly than non-English majors, while non-English majors emphasized likes, concern about grades, interest, learning experiences, motivation, task difficulty, and parents’ help more highly English majors. Third, students whose parents graduated from university or graduate school emphasized more on ability, after-class communicative practices, and parents’ help in success than students whose parents graduated from elementary and high school. Students with university and graduate school parents’ educational levels tended to attribute their English learning failures to peers’ help more strongly than students with primary and high school parents’ educational levels. Fourth, students from high income families tended to ascribe their English learning success to ability, likes, concern about grades, learning experiences, after-class communicative practices, task difficulty, and parents’ help more highly than students from middle and low income families. Students from low income families stressed more on likes, learning experiences, luck, task difficulty, input, and parents’ help in failure than students from middle or high income families. Finally, pedagogical implications as well as limitations and recommendations for future research were provided in the end.
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