A Correlational Study On Personality And English Learning Motivation For Medical Postgraduates

As medical technology is quickly developing nowadays, international academic exchanges are becoming more and more important. Therefore, improving the level of medical English has become the urgent desire of every medical practitioner. Many medical schools have also realized that it is important to master medical English and set up medical English as optional courses or compulsory courses. Especially, the postgraduates are required to have the ability of clinic and research after they graduates from the university. They face that the task is hard, difficult, requiring powerful practice and having a wide range of knowledge, which need postgraduates looking up medical literature or translating English materials in order to wide their knowledge and obtain the needed medical study information. With the wide international communication, the social requires the postgraduates not only master basic English knowledge but also special medical English knowledge.The thesis made a correlational study between personality and English learning motivation of postgraduates basing on the theories of Eysenck' personality and Hunt's learning motivation. Motivation theorists of the early 20th century searched for general principles of behavior. Hunt in 1965 made the observation which suggested that the type of motivation was contrasted with behavior propelled by "extrinsic" forces (extrinsic motivation), and was labeled "intrinsic" motivation" (intrinsic motivation). The author studied the intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Most people had the investigation and studied medical English learning from one aspect (medical English learning or personality) or one level(primary school students, junior high school students, senior high students or university students); However, few people studied the medical postgraduates.The study observes the detail information of Hebei Medical University postgraduates who are in the first year. The author investigates the following questions during the study: firstly, the author investigates the general condition of postgraduates'personality in Hebei medical university; then, the author studies their English study motivations; at last, the author wants to know weather and why there are any correlations between the personality and motivations. The thesis uses SPSS, questionnaires and interviews to have a study and finds out that:most of the postgraduates'personalities (extrovert type makes up 40.8%, and middle type makes up 55.6%)are positive and active; the postgraduates are interested in studying English, so they have strong motivation; The author compares the personalities with the intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation by SPSS.7.0 The result shows that Asymp. Sig. is 0.007 (lower than 0.05) and 0.32 (higher than 0.05), so there is no significant difference between personality and intrinsic motivation and there are correlation between personality and extrinsic motivations.So, according to the present condition of their personality and English learning motivation as well as the correlation between personality and English learning motivation, the author makes some suggestions for medical postgraduates, and hope that the suggestions are useful for improving the teaching level and strength of medical English teachers in medical university and postgraduates in international competition.