An Analysis Of The Correlation Between Ambiguity Tolerance And High Middle School Students’ Listening Comprehension In English

During the1980s, the research on tolerance of ambiguity started in foreignlanguage teaching and learning. As one of the individual differences, tolerance ofambiguity (TOA) has great effect on learners’ foreign language acquisition. Listeningcomprehension is one of the most difficult and complex language skills for languagelearners. In order to explore the relationship between high middle school students’TOA and their listening comprehension and students’ TOA differences, the presentstudy combines four independent variables: high middle school students’ TOA,listening test scores and TOA differences by gender and by major. The research alsocomparatively analyzes the differences in English listening test scores among high,moderate and low ambiguity tolerance students. The questions to be answered in thisstudy are as follows:1）What is the general tendency of high middle school students’ degree of TOA? Isthere a gender difference in TOA of high middle school students? Is there a TOAdifference by major?2）Is there a correlation between high middle school students’ TOA and theirlistening comprehension level?3）Does students’ ambiguity tolerance degree correlate with different sections oflistening tests and how?In order to answer the above questions, the thesis investigates262students froma middle school through questionnaire, listening test and interview. The questionnaireused in the research contains18items mainly about ambiguous situations in listeningcomprehension. The listening test took about40minutes. The author collected andanalyzed questionnaire data and listening test scores by SPSS17.0. The relationshipbetween high middle school students’ TOA and listening comprehension is analyzedby correlation coefficient. T-test is used to analyze TOA differences. The differencesin English listening test scores among high, moderate and low ambiguity tolerancestudents are compared by one-way ANOVA. With quantitative and qualitativeanalysis, the following major findings are concluded:1. High middle school students usually tend to show moderate or low tolerance ofambiguity. However, some students have very low tolerance of ambiguity and just a few students have high tolerance of ambiguity.2. There are significant differences in tolerance of ambiguity by gender and bymajor. Male students are more tolerant of ambiguity than female students and sciencestudents are more tolerant of ambiguity than liberal arts students.3. Students’ tolerance of ambiguity is significantly positively correlated with theirEnglish listening test scores. Meanwhile, students’ scores in part A and part B are alsopositively correlated with their tolerance of ambiguity, but Scores in part A are moreobviously correlated with students’ ambiguity tolerance.4. There are differences in English listening scores among high, moderate and lowambiguity tolerance students. Students with moderate tolerance of ambiguity get thehighest scores in English listening test. Students with high and moderate tolerance ofambiguity get higher scores than students with low tolerance of ambiguity. Moderatetolerance of ambiguity has more positive influence on listening comprehension.Research results suggest that tolerance of ambiguity has some effect on listeningcomprehension. Thus, English teacher should be aware of knowing about andcultivate students’ tolerance of ambiguity, especially the cultivation of moderateambiguity tolerance to improve students’ listening level in English.