A Comparative Study On The Relationships Between Self-efficacy And Achievement Among High-achieved And Low-achieved Junior Students

The achievements of junior students have a tendency of polarization-theachievement of high-achieved students has become much higher than thelow-achieved students. The self-efficacy has been focused on among the factorsinfluencing the junior students’ achievements. The related researches also prove thatthere is great correlation between the self-efficacy and the achievement. Theself-efficacy changes the students’ cognitive development, thinking pattern andencourages students’ learning behavior through the process of influencing thestudents’ expectation of their achievements. This paper does a more in-depth anddetailed research, based on the previous research achievements and the author’steaching experience.This paper defines the concepts of self-efficacy, high-achieved and low-achievedstudents etc. and narrows the scope of study with the students of WeifangInternational Middle School as the research targets and is willing to do research on theeffect of self-efficacy on English learning. Two questionnaire surveys have beenconducted. The first questionnaire is adapted from “English self-efficacyquestionnaire of Junior Grade Two students” which is written by Bian Yufang. As thefirst survey hasn’t made ideal results, the second one “English self-efficacyquestionnaire of Junior students” is rewritten and is conducted for the second time.Based on the analysis of the data, the author concludes that junior high schoolstudents’ English academic achievements and self-efficacy has certain relations,through the investigation and analysis of the data of the survey. The author focuses ondescribing the self-efficacy of the students of Junior Grade One from the fourdimensions of English learning.Through the analysis, the author found out:(1) English learning self-efficacy andpresent English scores are related. The self-efficacy of high-achieved students issignificantly higher than that of low-achieved.(2) The self-efficacy of high-achievedstudents shows a rising tendency. With the promotion of grade, self-efficacy isincreasing gradually. The self-efficacy of low-achieved shows a downward tendencywith the promotion of grade.Through training the students of Grade One for a period of one term, the author compares the self-efficacy of the students in control classes with that of the studentsin experimental classes, reaching the conclusion:(1)The self-efficacy ofhigh-achieved students of experimental class is higher than that of the students controlclasses.(2) The self-efficacy of low-achieved students of experimental class issignificantly higher than that in control classes. The better achievements and higherself-efficacy confirms the success of the experiment.At the end of the paper, the author puts forward some suggestions for theteachers that teachers should pay attention to the students’ self-efficacy cultivation atthe psychology and the behavior level.