A Study On The Correlation Between English Learning Motivation And Learning Autonomy Of High School Students

There are more and more concern to the empirical studies on correlation between English learningmotivation and autonomous learning. However, the studies which take high school students as the subjectsare even fewer. The study will probe into the way of improving ability of learners by investigating therelationship between learning autonomy and learning motivation (one individual element of learners) on thebasis of the previous researches.This study is an exploration of the correlation between English learning motivation and learningautonomy of high school students; and further investigates that intrinsic motivation plays much betterfunction in high school students’ learning, and further investigates to what extent the correlation existsbetween motivation and autonomous learning, as well as further explores effective teaching and learningmethods for improving students’learning effects.At the very beginning, the study introduces the research background, significance，connected researchterms and the outline of the study. Then it reviews the related theory and researches at home and abroadfrom the viewpoint of autonomous learning and learning motivation etc. Then the researcher reviews theexisted researches of the relationship between the learning motivation and autonomous learning by scholars.The study will distinguish the different types of elements for the learning motivation and autonomouslearning through the empirical study, while studying the relationship of these elements and the effects onhigh school students. Therefore, it can get beneficial inspirations for teaching practice.102grade eight students from four high schools of Linxia city are chosen as subjects of this survey.The study is conducted mainly through questionnaire survey, complements with data collected via answersto an interview, and SPSS13.0is used to analysis the statistics. The results are following:（1）High schoolstudents are motivated intrinsically and extrinsically, however, they are motivated more intrinsically.（2）Astrong positive correlation exists between high school students’ English learning motivation and fiveaspects of autonomous learning; the correlation between both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation andautonomous learning are significant positive correlation, of which, the function of intrinsic motivation isstronger.（3）There is a significant difference in intrinsic motivation and learner autonomy among differentscore students. High achievers are more intrinsically motivated and more autonomous in their learning.Owing to the complex and multifaceted nature of motivation and autonomy, the results explores in thepresent study are not enough for us to thoroughly understand learners’English learning activities. Therefore, efforts are still needed to promote further research. However, the present study results will have animportant influence on English learning and English teaching. Motivation is a psychological term which iswidely used in our daily life and the research. When students have high learning motivation, they willbehave more actively, be interested in learning, and establish learning goals. From this perspective, thestudy brings the correlation between learning motivation and autonomous learning into the field of Englishlearning and provides a new perspective to explain the individual differences in English learning. Theresults also show that English teachers should try to motivate students and help students take theappropriate strategies to adapt to their own motivation or overcome the difficulties in order to promote theEnglish learning autonomy.