A Study On The Relations Between Chinese University English Learners’ Individual Differences And Their Reflective Thinking Ability

The renowned educator John Dewey defined the concept of reflection as “active,persistent,and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the future conclusions to which it tends…”(1933,p.7).Reflectors can obtain new experience and achieve self-improvement through the reflective process of re-defining themselves,reconsidering and solving problems.Since Dewey brought up the concept of reflection and extended this concept into the field of education,various scholars from home and abroad have continuously developed and extended the meaning and practice of reflective thinking.Gradually,in the domain of education,how to enhance teachers’ and students’ reflective thinking ability and improve their ability to teach and to learn become heat topics.Until now,research on the reflective thinking conditions of Chinese university learners and the factors influencing this thinking ability were inadequate and the researches on relations between their reflective thinking ability in learning English and the individual differences were quite rare.Therefore,the primary aims of the current research were to explore the general status of participants’ reflective thinking ability in learning English and to investigate the relations between Chinese university learners’ reflective thinking ability and their individual differences in order to increase university English teachers’ and learners’ understanding of reflective thinking ability and arouse their attention.Two specific research questions guided this investigation:(1)What is the general reflective thinking level of Chinese university English learners in learning English?(2)Do Chinese university English learners’ individual differences have influences on learners’ performance regarding reflective thinking ability? If they do,to what extent do they affect learners’ performance?The research collected all together 624 questionnaires by freshmen students and juniors from six universities in China,among which 575 are efficient questionnaires.The participants came from four different majors: teaching Chinese as second language,English,information and computing science,and civil engineering,which further fell into two main groups,liberal arts,and science and engineering.The research adopted the questionnaire of reflective thinking ability(QRT)by Kember et al.(2000)and the questionnaire of motivation by Song Zhu(2009)to investigate the general reflective level of Chinese university English learners and to explore the influences of gender,grades,majors and motivation on the four levels of reflective thinking ability,namely,habitual actions,understanding,reflection and critical reflection.The collected data were put into analysis in SPSS 16.0 and the following results were yielded:(1)Participants showed high mean scores in understanding and reflection with critical reflection followed and they got lowest scores in habitual action;(2)There were statistically significant differences of gender,grades and majors in different levels of university English learners’ reflective thinking: compared with female students;male learners relied more on habitual actions,such as memorization and repetition;female students gave more emphasis on understanding and conducting reflection and critical reflection;juniors exhibited statistically high mean scores in critical reflection and habitual actions than freshmen;students in liberal arts demonstrated statistically high mean scores in three levels of reflective thinking ability,understanding,reflection and critical reflection;(3)Correlation tests revealed the close relation between reflective thinking ability and motivation with regards to English learning;(4)The results of regression indicated the intimacy relationship between critical reflection and cultural motivation,while instrumental motivation had close relations with understanding and reflection.Based on the research findings,it is advocated that:(1)Although university English learners have the awareness of reflection,their critical reflection needs the guidance of English teachers;teachers can organize group discussions,clubs and public lectures involving reflective knowledge and strategies with the aim to train university learners’ critical reflection;(2)University English teachers need to connect old and new pieces of knowledge and teach systematically in the teaching process and pay attention to students’ basic knowledge,especially to male students’ understanding and reflection;(3)University English teachers should take active measures to cultivate and exalt students’ inner desires in learning English and meanwhile,the phenomenon of cramming before English exams should be dealt with in order to enhance students’ cultural motivations.Future studies can examine the differences of reflective thinking ability between undergraduate students and graduate students.Case studies can be conducted and the factor of English scores on unified examinations can be discussed to further assess the influences of reflective behaviors and levels on learning outcomes of English learners.