| English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022)emphasizes the reform of education methods,focuses on developing students’ core literacy,highlights students’ dominant position,and pays attention to students’ individualized and diversified learning and development needs.In terms of teaching,the curriculum standards put forward that English teaching should not only pay attention to “what to learn”,but also pay attention to whether students “like learning”.Teachers should guide students to learn to manage their own learning,make clear their learning objectives,and make good study plans and time management.This reminds educators of the importance of students’ initiative and learning goals.Achievement Goal Orientation is widely applied in the field of educational psychology to figure out the inner reasons of students’ study behaviors in recent years,such as studies on achievement goal orientation and learning input,academic self-efficacy,academic achievement,etc.However,a few studies combine Achievement Goal Orientation with English learning.Thus this research aims at investigating the current situation of junior high school students’ Achievement Goal Orientation,English Learning Engagement and English Achievement,the relationship among the three variables and the mediating effect of English Learning Engagement.Three research questions are put forward in this research:(1)What is the current situation of junior high school students’ Achievement Goal Orientation and English Learning Engagement?(2)What is the relationship among junior high school students’ Achievement Goal Orientation,English Learning Engagement and English Achievement?(3)How does English Learning Engagement mediate the influence of junior high school students’ Achievement Goal Orientation on their English Achievement?Students in Grade 8 from three different junior high schools in Yunnan province were the subjects of this study,and the mixed research method was adopted.The major findings are:(1)Junior high school students hold Achievement Goal Orientation and English Learning Engagement at a medium level and there are significant gender and school location differences of junior high school students’ Achievement Goal Orientation and English Learning Engagement.(2)Masteryapproach Goal Orientation,Mastery-avoidance Goal Orientation and Performanceapproach Goal Orientation are significantly and positively correlated with English Learning Engagement and English Achievement respectively,Performance-avoidance Goal Orientation is significantly but negatively correlated with English Learning Engagement and English Achievement respectively,and all the three dimensions of English Learning Engagement are significantly and positively correlated with English Achievement.(3)English Learning Engagement plays a significant mediating role in the influence of Achievement Goal Orientation on English Achievement,and the mediating effect takes 73.7% and 40.7% of the total effect respectively in the two paths of Performance-approach Goal Orientation,and Performance-avoidance Goal Orientation to English Achievement.Besides,the indirect effect and direct effect of the paths of Mastery-approach Goal Orientation and Mastery-avoidance Goal Orientation to English Achievement work in the opposite directions,the ratio of indirect effect and direct effect are 2.378: 1 and 4.519: 1.The combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods in this study enables the researcher to discover the true reflection of the relationship among junior high school students’ Achievement Goal Orientation,English Learning Engagement and English Achievement in specific situations,which enriches the research on achievement goal orientation and English teaching,provides some references for the formulation of education policy and offers English teachers some valuable instructional implications so as to guide students to form appropriate Achievement Goal Orientation,improve students’ English Learning Engagement,and thus achieve better in learning English. |
