A Study On The Relationship Among Learning Styles,Tolerance Of Ambiguity And English Learning Achievement Of College Non-english Majors

With the focus of second language acquisition research shifting from “how to teach” to “how to learn”,in which the learners’ individual differences and personality traits are greatly emphasized.Tolerance of Ambiguity(TOA)was proposed in 1949 by Frenkel-Brunswik,which is defined as the ways that language learners respond to the ambiguous and contradictory information situated in learning materials,covering a wide range of difference from passive receiving to negative resisting.Moreover,in the field of foreign language learning,Tolerance of Ambiguity refers to the degree of psychological tolerance held by language learners when encountering the uncertainties during the course of language learning,since the ambiguous situations could easily be caused by the understanding of language as well as the language itself in the process of foreign language learning.While Chinese students are learning English,it’s inevitable and necessary for them to cope with new information and internalize it into their knowledge system which is already established in their mind.Thus,in the process of learning English,they need to approach the differences between English and Chinese on the basis of pronunciation,lexicon,syntax,grammar,discourse and even the diverse cultural background as well,in which more and more attention has been drawn to the study of learner’s ambiguity tolerance.Nevertheless,most relevant researches are carried out to explore the relationship between tolerance of ambiguity and language learning achievement of English majors,while the researches aiming at figuring out how non-English majors’ ambiguity tolerance are connected to their language learning achievement receives relatively little attention.Learning styles,as another individual differences involved in the language learning process,are refered to as “a general predisposition voluntary or not,toward processing information in a particular way”(Skehan,1991).Sorting through the majority of studies related to the learning styles,few researches are conducted based on the Oxford’s classification.In addition,the number of researches relevant to the relationship between Chinese non-English majors’ learning styles and their learning achievement as well as their ambiguity tolerance remains relatively small,where there is enough room for the relevant researches to be deepened and improved.In accordance with the overview of the relevant research,with the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis,the author manages to find out the relationship among the three factors,which are namely tolerance of ambiguity,learning styles and English learning achievement.In terms of the results obtained from the survey on 100 non-English majors from Huazhong University of Science and Technology,the thesis aims to investigate the research questions listed as follow:1.What is the general tendency of learning styles of non-English major students ?2.What is the current situation about the non-English major students’ tolerance of ambiguity?3.What is the relationship among the learning styles,tolerance of ambiguity and English learning achievement of the non-English major students?The author adopts the Oxford’s Style Analysis Survey: Assessing Your Own Learning and Working Style(Oxford,1991)as well as Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale(Ely,1995)to finish the data collection.Based on the data run by the SPSS 21.0,several major findings on a general scale have been revealed as follows:1.The level of Tolerance of Ambiguity(TOA)of Chinese non-English majors tend to vary individually,with the score ranging from 37 to 55,so that the subjects fall into three groups,among which the number of subjects with low ambiguity tolerance is the smallest.The degree of ambiguity tolerance is positively correlated with their English learning achievement.However,it seems that there is no significant differences between the tolerance of ambiguity of male and female subjects.2.The learning styles of Chinese non-English majors are inclined to be versatile and diverse.Generally speaking,they prefer to use concrete-sequential,visual and closure-oriented styles while the least favorite one is hands-on style.In terms of differences between the different gender,significant differences are shown between the hands-on and extroversion styles of male and female students.Additionally,the introversion style is negatively related to the English learning achievement while the closure-oriented style tends to be positively correlated with the English learning performance.No significant correlation is shown between male learners’ CET-4 scores and learning styles,but as for the female ones,a significant negative correlation is revealed between the introversion style and their English learning achievement.3.Preferences of learning styles are shown in the different TOA groups,but in each group,the learning styles tend to be versatile and diverse.Apart from this,the concrete-sequential style is the most favorite one,while the hands-on,auditory and introversion are the least favorite style in all three groups.Furthermore,between low TOA group and middle TOA group shows significant difference in auditory styles while the difference in closure-oriented style tends to be significant between high TOA and middle TOA group.Based on the findings above,implications on college English teaching are given on the basis of different research questions.To sum up,in the process of English teaching,teachers should put emphasis on learners’ individualities and their different personality trait so as to help them to achieve successful English learning.