The Relationship Among English Majors’ Professional Commitment, Learning Burnout And English Achievement

Professional commitment and learning burnout reflect undergraduates’positive and negative learning psychology respectively so, in order to improve teaching quality, it is of great value to have an understanding of the status quo of undergraduates’professional commitment and learning burnout. Scholars at home and abroad have done many theoretical and empirical studies on the two topics. However, so far there have been few studies about English majors and few on the relationship among undergraduates’professional commitment, learning burnout and their academic achievement. The present study is aimed to understand the status quo of professional commitment and learning burnout of English majors and try to probe the relationship among professional commitment, learning burnout and English achievement, and hopefully shed some light on English teaching.The researcher surveyed305English majors from Hubei University with Undergraduates’Professional Commitment Scale and Undergraduates’Learning Burnout Scale developed by Professor Lian Rong et al.. English achievements were represented by students’score of Comprehensive English (for freshmen and sophomores) or Advanced English (for juniors and seniors). All the data were processed by SPSS13.0for Windows. First the researcher analyzed professional commitment and learning burnout of students of different genders and grades, and then the relationship between professional commitment and learning burnout. When discussing the relationship among professional commitment, learning burnout and English achievement, the researcher analyzed freshmen and juniors respectively since their achievements are not comparable.Results show that1) English majors’professional commitment is on the medium level. Among the four dimensions, normative commitment is the highest and continuance commitment is the lowest. There is no significant difference between male students and female students on professional commitment. Freshmen’s professional commitment is significantly higher than that of juniors and seniors; sophomores’professional commitment has no significant difference from that of students of the other three grades.2) English majors’learning burnout is on the medium level. Among the three dimensions, improper behavior is the most serious and emotional exhaustion is the least. Male students’learning burnout is significantly more serious than that of female students. Learning burnout of sophomores and juniors is significantly more serious than that of freshmen; seniors’learning burnout has no significant difference from that of students of other three grades.3) Professional commitment correlates with learning burnout negatively and among the four dimensions of professional commitment, affective commitment is the most important predictor of learning burnout. Freshmen’s and juniors’professional commitment does not correlate with English achievement. Their learning burnout correlates with English achievement negatively. Among the three dimensions of learning burnout, improper behavior is the most important predictor of freshmen’s English achievement while emotional exhaustion is the most important predictor of juniors’English achievement.From the study we can conclude that we can help students improve their English achievement by reducing their learning burnout and enhancing professional commitment is of great help in reducing learning burnout. We should pay special attention to increasing professional commitment of juniors and seniors:we may improve teaching methods, organize extracurricular activities, provide employment guidance so as to make them love their major even under more learning pressure and have faith in their future as English majors. We should pay special attention to reducing sophomores’and juniors’learning burnout:we may provide guidance on learning strategies to help them learn more efficiently. For freshmen and sophomores, we should have strict requirements and regulations to prevent improper behaviors. For juniors and seniors, we should help them arrange study time reasonably so that they can be engaged in major study vigorously. Besides, male students’learning burnout is more serious than that of female students, so male students need more attention.