A Study Of The Correlation Between Self-efficacy And Autonomy In English Learning Of Non-English-Major Graduate Students

Learner autonomy has been regarded as the prerequisite in language learning, and one of the important goals of language teaching is to foster students' learner autonomy. The graduate students are considered as the individuals with the ability to conduct academic researches independently, which, to some extent, depends on their autonomous learning.Previous studies abroad and at home mainly focus on the definitions, theoretical foundations and the necessity of developing autonomy in English learning. However, little attention has been paid to the contributing factors of learner autonomy, especially from the perspective of self-efficacy. In addition, most of the participants involved in the researches are the non-English-major undergraduates and vocational college students, and the non-English-major graduate students, as a specific group, has been neglected. Moreover, the research instrument in previous studies is restricted to questionnaire only. Hence, the present study is intended to explore the correlation between the non-English-major graduate students' self-efficacy and autonomy in English learning through qualitative and quantitative research methods so as to put forward some constructive suggestions to English learning and teaching.102 non-English-major graduate students in Shandong Normal University were involved in the study. Questionnaires and interviews were employed as the research instruments. SPSS 17.0 was adopted to analyze the data collected from the questionnaires. Ten participants involved in the research were selected to be interviewed during class breaks. The present study is intended to figure out the general situation of the autonomy in English learning of the non-English-major graduate students and their self-efficacy; whether gender and major exert effects on these two dimensions; whether there is a significant correlation between the non-English-major graduate students' autonomy in English and self-efficacy; whether the non-English-major graduate students' self-efficacy can predict their autonomy in English learning.The major findings from the questionnaires and interviews can be summarized as follows: the non-English-major graduate students perform well in English autonomous learning. The students of different genders and majors show no significant difference in their autonomy in English learning. And the non-English-major graduate students have relatively high self-efficacy, and genders and majors exert no significant effects on their self-efficacy. Furthermore, the non-English-major graduate students' self-efficacy and their autonomy in English learning have a significant and positive correlation. And the non-English-major graduate students' self-efficacy has a good predicative validity on their autonomy in English learning.On the basis of the findings of the research, some constructive suggestions for cultivating students' self-efficacy and promoting their autonomy in English learning have been put forward. At last, the author presents some pedagogical implications of this study and poses some suggestions for future study.