从自我决定理论的视角调查大学英语学习者的动机取向特征及成因
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摘要
大学英语是大学非英语专业本科生的一门基本的必修课程,主要面对大一和大二学生。不少英语教师发现这样一种现象:在英语学习的过程中,许多学生的学习兴趣和积极性日益降低。因此,本研究以自我决定理论为理论基础,试图通过对比大一和大二非英语专业本科生在英语学习动机取向上的差异来探索导致这一现象的原因以及促进大学英语教育发展的途径。
     试图研究的问题包括三个方面:深入了解自我决定理论;两个年级的学生是否在动机取向上存在差别;为促进大学英语教学的可持续性发展有何启示。基于以上三个问题,作者对西安一所高校的200名大一和大二非英语专业学生进行了问卷调查,主题是“我为什么要学英语”。为了避免在数据处理中出现多重共线性,作者首先使试验组男女比例均等,然后对大一、大二两试验组内的期末总评成绩进行了正态分布校验,确保两组数据符合正态分布,从而为之后的T检验奠定基础。
     问卷调查数据利用SPSS13.0软件分别进行了频度分析、信度分析和T检验。相关数据分析取得以下结果:1)两组受试者在“无动机”、“整合调节型动机”以及“内在动机”三个取向上存在非常显著的差异。其含义为:在英语学习的过程中,大一受试者更多地受到“整合调节型动机”和“内在动机”驱使,而大二受试者却更倾向于无动机。2)两组受试者在“外部动机”、“内摄型动机”以及“认同型动机”三个取向上未发现显著差异,即,无论受到内在动机驱使的程度有多深,大一和大二的受试者都或多或少地受到外在动机的驱使。3)动机类型或取向具有多元化特征。大一和大二的受试者都表现出六种动机取向:无动机、外部动机、内摄型动机、认同型动机、整合型动机和内在动机,这与自我决定理论的研究结果相一致。同时,每个受试者都表现出一种以上的动机取向,那些对英语学习毫无兴趣的受试者往往或多或少地同时表现出“无动机”和“外部动机”的倾向,有的受试者甚至受到不包括“无动机”在内的五种动机取向的驱使。
     通过数据分析、采访以及课堂观察,学习者兴趣降低主要有四方面原因:1)在心理上,英语学习者动机取向的多元化特征使教师很难得以了解学习者的个体学习特征差异或者是大多数学习者在学习过程中的相似性特征,因此,许多学习者感到不被教师重视甚至被忽略。2)在教学法上,不少教师过多关注“如何教”,即教学方法和手段,却忽视了“教什么”,即教学内容,这就容易使英语课华而不实,久而久之,学习者的兴趣自然会下降。3)在教学管理上,教考分离使许多学生觉得英语课没有意义,认为学英语很茫然,同时,高校的不断扩招也使教学环境恶化。4)在学习习惯上,许多学习者将英语学习单纯看成记单词的过程,不良的学习习惯导致的不佳学习效果势必降低学习兴趣。
     上述研究发现引起作者的进一步思考,并就促进教师和学生的变化提出以下几点建议:1)教师应采取有效措施满足学习者的胜任需求、关系需求和自主需求,促进学习者外在学习动机内化;2)面对大学英语教学中的各种误解和困难,英语教师更应树立职业信心;3)具有科学性、一致性和可持续性的教师再教育应该给与足够的重视。
College English, as an integral part of higher learning, is a required basic course for non-English-major undergraduates, especially freshmen and sophomores. Not a few College English teachers realize that many students show decreasing interest or motivation in learning English as each school calendar is outdated. Therefore, based on the theoretical framework of self-determination theory (SDT), the present study was designed to contrast the different motivational orientations between Chinese non-English major freshmen and sophomores, from which the causes for the subjects' decreasing interest or motivation are expected to be discovered and ways to improve College English education are to be explored.
     To have an understanding of self-determination theory, find out whether differences exist in motivational orientations between the subjects of two grades, and gain implications beneficial for future College English teaching and sustainable development, the author conducted a questionnaire on why to learn English to survey 200 non-English major freshmen and sophomores from a university in Xi'an. For avoiding multicollinearity, the author chose the same proportion of female and male subjects, and then tested whether the English proficiency of freshmen and sophomores chosen is normally distributed respectively, providing prerequisite for T-Test.
     With the help of SPSS 13.0, Reliability Analysis, T-Test and Frequencies were included to analyze the data obtained. The results of raw data analyses are as follows: 1) very significant difference between the two groups of subjects can be seen in "amotivation", "integrated regulation" and "intrinsic motivation". To be more exact, freshmen are more integratedly and intrinsically motivated than sophomores, and amotivation occur more to sophomores. 2) the two groups of subjects show no significant difference in "external regulation", "introjected regulation" and "identified regulation", that is, both freshmen and sophomores are more or less externally motivated no matter how internally motivated they are. 3) Another feature is the pluralistic quality of motivation types or orientations. On the one hand, the major factors contributing to non-English major freshmen's and sophomores' English learning behavior fall into six categories: amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, integrated regulation and intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, there is not a single subject who has only one orientation of motivation, the students who are considered totally uninterested in learning English mostly incline to at least amotivatation and external regulation and some subjects are even motivated by five orientations of motivation with the exception of amotivation.
     From the data analyses, interviews with teachers and routine classroom observation, the subjects' decreasing interest in College English class is found to be mainly due to the following causes: 1) psychologically speaking, the pluralistic quality of motivation types makes it difficult for teachers to come to know the individual learner differences or at least the differences for the majority of learners in one class, causing many learners to feel unvalued or ignored; 2) pedagogically speaking, overemphasis is laid on how to teach while what to teach remains unexplored and unimproved, and thus the students who get tired of those superficially attractive yet functionally meaningless classes will definitely diminish their initial interest in learning; 3) administratively speaking, the separation of teaching and examinations makes many students feel at sea in English classes, and the spiral expansion of enrollment in China's institutions of higher learning worsens pedagogical environments; 4) students' bad learning habit, namely, regarding learning English solely as an experience of learning vocabulary by rote, is another factor not to be ignored, since ineffective learning process featuring this habit will definitely lead to degrading interest in learning.
     The above reasoning for the subjects' decreasing interest triggers the author' further reflections on possible solutions aimed at facilitating changes in both learners and teachers: 1) teachers are supposed to take special measures to enhance the learners' sense of satisfaction in competence, relatedness, and autonomy, providing ongoing nutriments for the learners' internalization or integration or extrinsic motivation; 2) teachers should put great faith in their own profession regardless of others' misunderstandings and difficulties in TEFL; 3) it is of great importance to undertake scientific, consistent and sustainable teachers' further education, which has yet to be given due recognition and emphasis.
引文
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