A Study On Relationships Among English Learning Motivation, Learning Strategies And Learner Autonomy Of Senior High School Students

With the development of society and technology,and the raise of lifelong learning,autonomous learning becomes a hot research topic.These researches start from different perspectives,including definition of autonomous learning,how to improve learner autonomy and the relationship between learner autonomy and its influencing factors.The autonomous learning itself may be influenced by many variables,such as age,psychological development level,cognitive level,cognitive style,learning motivation,learning strategies,learning environment,culture etc.Among them,learning motivation and learning strategies are the key variables affecting learner autonomy.Besides,few scholars research the relationships among learning motivation,learning strategies and learner autonomy.In particular,there are few researches on high school students.Through quantitative research method,this study aims to explore two questions:(1)what is the relation between learning motivation and learner autonomy?(2)What is the relation between learning strategies and learner autonomy? By three kinds of questionnaires: a learning motivation questionnaire,a learning strategies questionnaire and a learner autonomy questionnaire,200 high school students in Hebei province are surveyed.The survey data is analyzed by descriptive statistics and correlation analysis in SPSS13.0 and can be drawn into two conclusions:(1)there is a significant correlation between high school students' learning motivation and their autonomy.Deep motivation is more significantly correlated with learner autonomy than surface motivation is.High school students generally have a relevantly high level of learner autonomy.Most of them can understand teaching aims but they cannot determine learning goals and make learning plans well.Their learning motivation is very strong,and surface motivation is stronger than deep motivation.(2)Learning strategies are also significantly correlated with learner autonomy;the use of students' learning strategies is at a medium level,and compensation strategies are mostly used among all the learning strategies.In addition,from the data analysis,it can be seen that the correlation coefficient between learning strategy and learner autonomy is higher than learning motivation with it;the deep motivation is more significantly correlated with leaner autonomy than surface motivation with it;the metacognitive strategies have the highest correlation coefficient with learner autonomy than other learning strategies with it.It is expected that this research can help English educators and learners understand the relationship among learning motivation,learning strategies and learner autonomy,and can provide some reference and suggestions for the development of students' autonomy.According to the research results,English teachers and students should realize the importance of the role of learning motivation and learning strategies in autonomous learning.In order to develop the learners' autonomy in English learning,English educators had better motivate their deep motivation and promote their ability to use learning strategies by training them to use the metacognitive strategies.