A Study On Senior High School Students’ English Learning Agentic Engagement

As the key component of English learning,agentic engagement enables two key outcomes—improving students studying and improving learning circumstances(Reeve& Shin,2020).Agentic engagement predicts students’ learning,skill development,and classroom performance(Reeve,2013;Reeve & Tseng,2011).However,studies on agentic engagement remain limited at home and abroad,and there are few studies that deeply explore the English learning agentic engagement(ELAE)of middle school students in China.Therefore,this study sought to investigate the agentic engagement of high school students in English learning in the following aspects.Firstly,this study tried to investigate the ELAE situations of high school students: including their ELAE levels,and their agentic engagement degree in listening,speaking,reading,writing,and grammar.Secondly,this study revealed gender differences,discipline differences,ethnic group differences,and English achievement differences in ELAE.Also,this study attempted to investigate other variables that might influence high school students’ ELAE when learning English.Both quantitative and qualitative research techniques have been utilized in this study.The situation of senior high school students’ ELAE and the ELAE differences in four dimensions were investigated using the quantitative technique.The qualitative approach was adopted to explore other factors that may affect the English learning agentic engagement of high school students.322 high school students participated in the questionnaire,of which 9 students voluntarily participated in structured interviews.After data collection,validity,reliability,descriptive analysis,frequency analysis,independent sample T-test,and one-way ANOVA analysis have been carried out using SPSS 22.0.The three-level coding of interviewing content has been done with the N-vivo program.Based on the analysis of the data,the major findings indicate that:(1)English learning agentic engagement among high school pupils was at a medium level,and their English learning agentic engagement degree ranked from high to low as follows:Agentic engagement on English learning self-effort,agentic engagement on helping peers’ English learning,agentic engagement on cooperating teachers’ teaching,agentic engagement for helping teachers’ teaching;in the five modules of English learning,high school students’ agentic engage degree ranked from high to low as follows: reading,writing,grammar,speaking,and listening.(2)In terms of disparity,there were significant differences in agentic engagement of high school students in gender,disciplines(liberal arts and sciences),and English achievement levels.While no significant difference was found between Han ethnic group and ethnic minorities.Specifically,the average ELAE score for female students was significantly higher than for male students;the average ELAE score for liberal arts students was significantly higher than for science students;the average ELAE score for the high score(English achievement)group was significantly higher than for the medium group and low group;and the low group was significantly higher than the medium group.(3)This study investigated more potential variables of high school students’ agentic participation in English learning.After the three-level code of the interview content,5 first-level nodes and 12 second-level nodes were obtained.The first-level nodes were the macro factors that affect the English learning agentic engagement of middle school students.And the second-level nodes were microscopic factors that affect the English learning agentic engagement of middle school students.The first-level nodes included individual factors,teaching factors,teacher factors,environmental factors,and peer factors.Among them,individual factors had the greatest impact on the agentic engagement of high school students in English learning,followed by teaching factors.The second-level nodes under each first-level node included: Learning motivation,students’ English foundation or grades,the continuity of English learning,teacher feedback,teachers’ teaching ability,reward and punishment mechanism,teaching organization,teaching activities,peer relations,peer influence,English subject characteristics,and curriculum setting.Based on the above findings,this study may help us to recognize and understand the current state of high school students’ agentic engagement in their English learning.Finally,the limitations of this study were identified and recommendations for future research were made.