An Investigation Of First-year Non-English Major Postgraduates’ English Listening Learner Autonomy And Self-efficacy

In recent years, with the expanding of postgraduate recruit scale and the increasing of postgraduate recruit category, the student-teacher ratio is rising and it has become an indisputable fact that the quality of postgraduate education is declining. Under such a situation, the cultivation of postgraduates’learner autonomy appears especially urgent. Though China has made great progress in the study of learner autonomy since1990s, the researches on individual factors influencing learner autonomy are still relatively rare. Self-efficacy is just an important motivational and personal factor that influences learner autonomy. In addition, most previous researches of learner autonomy and self-efficacy in the field of second language acquisition are carried out from a general perspective and those researches focusing on English listening specifically are few. Therefore, the author of this thesis chose this title. In an attempt to know about the current situation of first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening learner autonomy and self-efficacy and then to provide relevant and effective proposals to improve their English listening learner autonomy and self-efficacy, the author of the thesis investigated136first-year non-English major postgraduates of Shandong University at Weihai through the questionnaire.The present study conducted the investigation mainly from the following five aspects:(1)the overall situation of first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening leaner autonomy and self-efficacy;(2)the differences in first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening leaner autonomy based on gender and CET;(3)the differences in first-year non-English major postgraduates’ self-efficacy based on gender and CET;(4)the relationship between first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening learner autonomy and self-efficacy;(5)the sources of first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening self-efficacy, especially the computer-related sources.The collected data was analyzed by the Statistical Package for the Social Science17.0(SPSS17.0). The major findings of the present study are:(1) both the English listening learner autonomy and the self-efficacy of first-year non-English major postgraduates are low;(2) the present study shows neither significant differences in first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening learner autonomy based on gender nor significant differences in their English listening learner autonomy based on CET;(3) there are neither significant statistical gender differences in first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening self-efficacy nor evident differences in their English listening self-efficacy based on CET;(4) the present study proves that first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening learner autonomy is positively correlated with their self-efficacy;(5) among the four main sources of self-efficacy, the influence of vicarious experience and verbal persuasion is stronger than that of enactive mastery experience; the influence of physiological and emotional states is the weakest among the four sources; the multiplex resource is the main source of first-year non-English major postgraduates’English listening self-efficacy; as for the computer-related factors, the computer and internet use skills has great influence on the postgraduates" self-efficacy, and the influence of hardware and software facilities is a little weaker.Based on the results of the research, the author proposes some strategies to enhance first-year non-English major postgraduates" English listening learner autonomy and self-efficacy. The strategies to enhance students’English listening learner autonomy include helping students hold a positive belief in learner autonomy, guiding students to set appropriate learning goals and developing students’learning strategies of English listening. The strategies to enhance students’English listening self-efficacy include offering more successful opportunities to students, helping students set suitable learning models, improving students’self-efficacy through verbal persuasion, helping students minimize the negative physiological and emotional states, guiding students to make correct attribution and improving school computer facilities and students’computer use skills.