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【Abstract】A large number of non-English majors seldom consider what strategies of learning English they are using to regulate their motivation and how their motivation is related to achievement. Data were collected from 4000 college non-English-majors at Guizhou University using a questionnaire. This paper contrasts students' motivation and strategies of learning English. Some teaching approaches are offered to motivate students to do their best in attaining higher achievement.
【Key Words】motivation；strategies；achievement；approaches
1. Introduction
The students admitted in Guizhou University begin this journey at the same starting line as far as their entrance scores are concerned. There is a difference between the achievements over the four years. Why does this phenomenon exist? What are the causes of this phenomenon?And how can we help to solve this problem?This study offers some strategies to encourage students to reach high level achievement.
2. Literature Review
Motivation is a complex and multifaceted topic. There are conflicting views not only of what leads to motivation and whether it can be influenced, but also of what actually defines motivation. As Dornyei (2000) claims that motivation theories in general attempt to explain three interrelated aspects of human behaviour: The choice of a particular action, persistence with it, and effort expended on it. That is, motivation is responsible for why people decide to do something, how long they are willing to sustain the activity, and how hard they are going to pursue it (p.520). Molden and Dweck (2000), place particular emphasis on the ways in which the meanings that people assign to achievement situations affect their motivation, considering questions that revolve around what people strive for and what success or failure means. While different people may be motivated by the same goal, for example, the goal may hold quite different meaning and thus result in different motivational patterns.
More recently, motivational researchers such as Meyer and Turner (2002) have begun to acknowledge emotions as essential to learning and teaching in their conceptualization of what constitutes motivation to learn. In their classroom-based research program focused on various aspects of motivation, such as students' responses to challenge and teacher scaffolding of student involvement, Meyer and Turner (Meyer & Turner, 2002) found that emotions were central to their findings. Findings include that positive emotional support was included in highly involving classroom interactions and that teachers' affective responses are important both academically and at the interpersonal level. Teachers' enthusiasm, humour, love of learning and modeling of positive emotions and motivation as learners were evident as features of instructional context, as well as correlated with students' reports of positive affect and motivation to learn (Meyer & Turner, 2002).
According to self-efficacy theory an individual is intrinsically motivated when they choose a task (autonomy), which it is believed they can successfully complete (self-confidence and self-efficacy). Successful completion (receiving positive feedback) reinforces or adds to the individual's self-efficacy. Thus success at a task intrinsically motivates an individual towards that task. Self-efficacy refers to people's beliefs about their capabilities to carry out actions required to achieve a confident level of achievement (Banfura, 1993). Specifically, they are beliefs that individuals have that they can do something like read a book, write a poem, or dance. Self- efficacy beliefs refer to specific judgments rather than more global judgments like being a good reader, writer or dancer. In fact, self-efficacy often refers to specific situations within a learning environment based on learner goals. According to Linnenbrink & Pintrich (2003), students who are efficacious are more likely to work hard, to persist, and seek help so they can complete a task. These same students use cognitive and metacognitive strategies to increase their understanding. Students with low self-efficacy are much less likely to use a combination of strategies such as elaboration and relating concepts. Self-efficacy is also linked to motivational beliefs like interest, value, and utility, as well as positive affective reactions. Collectively, these characteristics of self-efficacy demonstrate a relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance. Studies have shown that learners' self-efficacy enhances their motivation and advances learning (Wigfield, 1998; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1990)
There are also some considerable evidence suggests that much of achievement motivation can be understood in terms of the different goals individuals bring to the achievement context (Utman, 1997). No matter what kind of goals students want to achieve, from better grades on an exam to the realization of a great ideal, self-efficacy and strategies are the critical factors to success. Bruce W. Tuckman's (1999) study shows there is a relation between strategy and success in school and in a variety of other areas as well. In deed, the entire concept of self-regulation has burst upon the motivation scene to reflect the connection between specific strategies and performance outcomes, exemplified by the considerable work of Schunk and Zimmerman (1998a), including a paper given earlier in this symposium. Strategies that have been shown to have a particular impact on achievement (Aimmerman, 1989) are self-observing, self-judging, and self-reacting (e.g., goal setting, planning), and more recently, self-evaluation and monitoring, goal setting and strategic planning, strategy implementation and monitoring, and strategic outcome monitoring (Zimmerman, 1998).As McCombs and Marzano (1990) state,achievement outcomes have been regarded as a function of two characteristics, "skill" and "will", and these must be considered separately because possessing the will alone may not insure success if the skill is lacking. Cognitive and metacognitive strategies, often referred to as "study skills," are considered essential to being successful in college. Their importance is underscored by the fact that academic tasks at the college level tend to demand far higher level thinking and independent learning than those encountered in secondary school (Carson, Chase, Gibson, and Hargove, 1992). Instruction in these strategies is currently the subject of much interest and research in education. An example of a general approach to teaching learning strategies, labeled "learning-to-learn," has its basis in informational and generative models of learning, and its emphasis on self-regulated and strategic learning (Simpson, Hynd, Nist, and Burrell, 1997).
So, what a teacher should do is to play a mediational role in academic attainment and outcomes, that is to say, a teacher should provide students with strategy instruction and training in self-monitoring and self-correcting increased performance both directly and through the enhancement of self-efficacy.
Taking these theories into consideration, one can understand the role of motivation and study strategies to enhance achievement.
In order to contrast students' motivation and strategies , the author surveyed students in their respective courses in Guizhou University.
3. Administration
●Questionnaire
The questionnaire included 2 areas:motivation for attending college and strategies for studying. Each area had 10 items from study purposes to high level achievement strategies. The respondents were asked to rate each item of a 5-point likert-type scale with "1" meaning " strongly disagree," "2" "disagree", "3 "neutral", "4" "agree",and "5" "strongly agree." High scores indicate high motivation for attending college and efficient strategies for studying. Conversely low scores reflectedlow motivation, and inefficient strategies.
●Participants
Participants were 4000 students from Guizhou University50% of whom were females. With regard to class, 30% were freshmen, 30% were sophomores, 20% were third year students, and 20% were fourth year students. The mean age for all students was 21.5 years ranging from 18 to 23 years old (M age=21.5 years. SD=1.2). All participants were selected from those students who volunteered to be a research participant.
● Procedure
The administration of questionnaires took place in late fall in 2007. Staff colleagues of the authors conducted the administration. Students were informed their participation was voluntary. They did not sign their names. All questionnaires were distributed and collected during the same class. The total time in each class was 10 minutes.
4. Findings
Motivation for attending college ( See Table 1)
Table 1 indicates that motivation causes one to act or behave in a certain way and causes one to make the decision to focus mental and physical resources on a task. This study has found that students view learning purpose differently. For example, most students in Guizhou University (63%) reported that they were attending college primarily to gain new knowledge and skills so as to realize their dreams.
Table 2 shows that a large number of studentslack effective strategies for learning. For example, there are about 21% students only reading the handouts given by teachers, about 35% students report they just listen to the teacher and underline the key points. From the tables, we can come to the conclusion that motivation and strategy each make a distinguishable but interrelated contribution to achievement. Without motivation, there is no energy to propel that action. And without strategy, there is nothing to help select and guide the necessary action.
5. Discussion:
The responses to the questionnaire also prove that teaching method is an important means to attract students' attention, and teaching materials are also of prime importance for students' motivation. Therefore, teachers in Guizhou University should try various approaches to absorb students' interests and stimulate them to learn actively.
One way to achieve this goal is to make arrangements of pre-reading activities related to the teaching materials, including webbing, brainstorming, strip sentences and initial discussion and the like. These activities will stimulate students to link knowledge they have learned to the materials they are going to learn, and help them to relate the materials to their own experience, interests and aims. And these activities also increase their motivation and give learners a more positive attitude towards the materials.
Another way is to use computer technology in the classroom. Because web-based technology can be intrinsically motivating, it can provide an open-ended learning environment where there are no correct answers; it allow students to work privately it does not embarrass students who make mistakes. Working privately and not being embarrassed by failures are motivators for such people as the chance of damaging self-concept is low and failure is not on public display. Self-paced learning means that students can choose tasks they feel they are capable of completing. This reduces the perceived threat of failure and anxiety and increases intrinsic motivation because the task challenge and perceived ability are equal. This kind of self-paced, open-ended and user controlled environment allows the learner to select challenges which they feel are suitable (CARET, 2002a, paragraph 1 and Cotton, 2001 why students like CAI section, paragraph 2).
As for teaching materials, a large number of students (85%) think that they are attracted by the materials which are full of interests, knowledge and practicality. They say they would like to devote to these materials without any pressure. As an old Chinese saying described "Interest is the best teacher". Therefore, when delivering teaching materials, teachers must be cautious as to choosing contents and length of certain materials.
6. Conclusion
There is an implication for practice or application in classroom teaching, insofar as motivation for achievement is a quality with high societal value. Efforts should be made by teachers to enhance students' attitudes or beliefs in their own capability, to impel or propel engagement in the learning process, and to teach students about relevant strategies that can be used, especially teach students to form active attitude and help them to find proper strategies, for they do exert a positive influence on both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation for higher achievement.
【References】
[1] Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development andfunctioning. Educational Psychologist, 28, 117-148
[2] Dornyei, Z. (2000). Motivation in action: Towards a process-oriented conceptualization of student motivation. British Journalof Educational Psychology, 70,519-538
[3]Linnenbrink, E. A., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003) The role of self-efficacy beliefs in student engagement and learning in the classroom. Reading and WritingQuarterly, 19,119-137
[4]Meyer, D. K., & Turner, J. C. (2000). Discovering emotion in classroommotivation research.Educational Psychologist, 37(2), 107-114
[5]Molden, D. C., & Dweck, C.S. (2000). Meaning and motivation. In C. Sansone& J. Harackiewicz (Eds.), Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The search for optimal motivation andperformance (pp. 131-159). San Diego: Academic Press
[6]Simpson, M. L., Hynd, C. R., Nist, S. L., & Burrell, K. I. (1997). Collegeassistance programs and practices. Educational Psychology Review, 9(1). 39-87.
[7]Wigfield, A. (1998). Children's motivations for reading and readingengagement, In J. T. Guthrie & A. Wigfield (Eds.), Reading engagement: Motivating readers through integrated instruction (pp.14-33). Newark, De:International Reading Association.
[8]Zimmerman, B. J., & Martinez-Pons, M. (1990). Student differences in self- regulated learning: Relating grade, sex, and giftedness to self-efficacy andstrategy and strategy use. Journal ofeducational Psychology, 82, 51-59
责任编辑：王利强
【Key Words】motivation；strategies；achievement；approaches
1. Introduction
The students admitted in Guizhou University begin this journey at the same starting line as far as their entrance scores are concerned. There is a difference between the achievements over the four years. Why does this phenomenon exist? What are the causes of this phenomenon?And how can we help to solve this problem?This study offers some strategies to encourage students to reach high level achievement.
2. Literature Review
Motivation is a complex and multifaceted topic. There are conflicting views not only of what leads to motivation and whether it can be influenced, but also of what actually defines motivation. As Dornyei (2000) claims that motivation theories in general attempt to explain three interrelated aspects of human behaviour: The choice of a particular action, persistence with it, and effort expended on it. That is, motivation is responsible for why people decide to do something, how long they are willing to sustain the activity, and how hard they are going to pursue it (p.520). Molden and Dweck (2000), place particular emphasis on the ways in which the meanings that people assign to achievement situations affect their motivation, considering questions that revolve around what people strive for and what success or failure means. While different people may be motivated by the same goal, for example, the goal may hold quite different meaning and thus result in different motivational patterns.
More recently, motivational researchers such as Meyer and Turner (2002) have begun to acknowledge emotions as essential to learning and teaching in their conceptualization of what constitutes motivation to learn. In their classroom-based research program focused on various aspects of motivation, such as students' responses to challenge and teacher scaffolding of student involvement, Meyer and Turner (Meyer & Turner, 2002) found that emotions were central to their findings. Findings include that positive emotional support was included in highly involving classroom interactions and that teachers' affective responses are important both academically and at the interpersonal level. Teachers' enthusiasm, humour, love of learning and modeling of positive emotions and motivation as learners were evident as features of instructional context, as well as correlated with students' reports of positive affect and motivation to learn (Meyer & Turner, 2002).
According to self-efficacy theory an individual is intrinsically motivated when they choose a task (autonomy), which it is believed they can successfully complete (self-confidence and self-efficacy). Successful completion (receiving positive feedback) reinforces or adds to the individual's self-efficacy. Thus success at a task intrinsically motivates an individual towards that task. Self-efficacy refers to people's beliefs about their capabilities to carry out actions required to achieve a confident level of achievement (Banfura, 1993). Specifically, they are beliefs that individuals have that they can do something like read a book, write a poem, or dance. Self- efficacy beliefs refer to specific judgments rather than more global judgments like being a good reader, writer or dancer. In fact, self-efficacy often refers to specific situations within a learning environment based on learner goals. According to Linnenbrink & Pintrich (2003), students who are efficacious are more likely to work hard, to persist, and seek help so they can complete a task. These same students use cognitive and metacognitive strategies to increase their understanding. Students with low self-efficacy are much less likely to use a combination of strategies such as elaboration and relating concepts. Self-efficacy is also linked to motivational beliefs like interest, value, and utility, as well as positive affective reactions. Collectively, these characteristics of self-efficacy demonstrate a relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance. Studies have shown that learners' self-efficacy enhances their motivation and advances learning (Wigfield, 1998; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1990)
There are also some considerable evidence suggests that much of achievement motivation can be understood in terms of the different goals individuals bring to the achievement context (Utman, 1997). No matter what kind of goals students want to achieve, from better grades on an exam to the realization of a great ideal, self-efficacy and strategies are the critical factors to success. Bruce W. Tuckman's (1999) study shows there is a relation between strategy and success in school and in a variety of other areas as well. In deed, the entire concept of self-regulation has burst upon the motivation scene to reflect the connection between specific strategies and performance outcomes, exemplified by the considerable work of Schunk and Zimmerman (1998a), including a paper given earlier in this symposium. Strategies that have been shown to have a particular impact on achievement (Aimmerman, 1989) are self-observing, self-judging, and self-reacting (e.g., goal setting, planning), and more recently, self-evaluation and monitoring, goal setting and strategic planning, strategy implementation and monitoring, and strategic outcome monitoring (Zimmerman, 1998).As McCombs and Marzano (1990) state,achievement outcomes have been regarded as a function of two characteristics, "skill" and "will", and these must be considered separately because possessing the will alone may not insure success if the skill is lacking. Cognitive and metacognitive strategies, often referred to as "study skills," are considered essential to being successful in college. Their importance is underscored by the fact that academic tasks at the college level tend to demand far higher level thinking and independent learning than those encountered in secondary school (Carson, Chase, Gibson, and Hargove, 1992). Instruction in these strategies is currently the subject of much interest and research in education. An example of a general approach to teaching learning strategies, labeled "learning-to-learn," has its basis in informational and generative models of learning, and its emphasis on self-regulated and strategic learning (Simpson, Hynd, Nist, and Burrell, 1997).
So, what a teacher should do is to play a mediational role in academic attainment and outcomes, that is to say, a teacher should provide students with strategy instruction and training in self-monitoring and self-correcting increased performance both directly and through the enhancement of self-efficacy.
Taking these theories into consideration, one can understand the role of motivation and study strategies to enhance achievement.
In order to contrast students' motivation and strategies , the author surveyed students in their respective courses in Guizhou University.
3. Administration
●Questionnaire
The questionnaire included 2 areas:motivation for attending college and strategies for studying. Each area had 10 items from study purposes to high level achievement strategies. The respondents were asked to rate each item of a 5-point likert-type scale with "1" meaning " strongly disagree," "2" "disagree", "3 "neutral", "4" "agree",and "5" "strongly agree." High scores indicate high motivation for attending college and efficient strategies for studying. Conversely low scores reflectedlow motivation, and inefficient strategies.
●Participants
Participants were 4000 students from Guizhou University50% of whom were females. With regard to class, 30% were freshmen, 30% were sophomores, 20% were third year students, and 20% were fourth year students. The mean age for all students was 21.5 years ranging from 18 to 23 years old (M age=21.5 years. SD=1.2). All participants were selected from those students who volunteered to be a research participant.
● Procedure
The administration of questionnaires took place in late fall in 2007. Staff colleagues of the authors conducted the administration. Students were informed their participation was voluntary. They did not sign their names. All questionnaires were distributed and collected during the same class. The total time in each class was 10 minutes.
4. Findings
Motivation for attending college ( See Table 1)
Table 1 indicates that motivation causes one to act or behave in a certain way and causes one to make the decision to focus mental and physical resources on a task. This study has found that students view learning purpose differently. For example, most students in Guizhou University (63%) reported that they were attending college primarily to gain new knowledge and skills so as to realize their dreams.
Table 2 shows that a large number of studentslack effective strategies for learning. For example, there are about 21% students only reading the handouts given by teachers, about 35% students report they just listen to the teacher and underline the key points. From the tables, we can come to the conclusion that motivation and strategy each make a distinguishable but interrelated contribution to achievement. Without motivation, there is no energy to propel that action. And without strategy, there is nothing to help select and guide the necessary action.
5. Discussion:
The responses to the questionnaire also prove that teaching method is an important means to attract students' attention, and teaching materials are also of prime importance for students' motivation. Therefore, teachers in Guizhou University should try various approaches to absorb students' interests and stimulate them to learn actively.
One way to achieve this goal is to make arrangements of pre-reading activities related to the teaching materials, including webbing, brainstorming, strip sentences and initial discussion and the like. These activities will stimulate students to link knowledge they have learned to the materials they are going to learn, and help them to relate the materials to their own experience, interests and aims. And these activities also increase their motivation and give learners a more positive attitude towards the materials.
Another way is to use computer technology in the classroom. Because web-based technology can be intrinsically motivating, it can provide an open-ended learning environment where there are no correct answers; it allow students to work privately it does not embarrass students who make mistakes. Working privately and not being embarrassed by failures are motivators for such people as the chance of damaging self-concept is low and failure is not on public display. Self-paced learning means that students can choose tasks they feel they are capable of completing. This reduces the perceived threat of failure and anxiety and increases intrinsic motivation because the task challenge and perceived ability are equal. This kind of self-paced, open-ended and user controlled environment allows the learner to select challenges which they feel are suitable (CARET, 2002a, paragraph 1 and Cotton, 2001 why students like CAI section, paragraph 2).
As for teaching materials, a large number of students (85%) think that they are attracted by the materials which are full of interests, knowledge and practicality. They say they would like to devote to these materials without any pressure. As an old Chinese saying described "Interest is the best teacher". Therefore, when delivering teaching materials, teachers must be cautious as to choosing contents and length of certain materials.
6. Conclusion
There is an implication for practice or application in classroom teaching, insofar as motivation for achievement is a quality with high societal value. Efforts should be made by teachers to enhance students' attitudes or beliefs in their own capability, to impel or propel engagement in the learning process, and to teach students about relevant strategies that can be used, especially teach students to form active attitude and help them to find proper strategies, for they do exert a positive influence on both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation for higher achievement.
【References】
[1] Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development andfunctioning. Educational Psychologist, 28, 117-148
[2] Dornyei, Z. (2000). Motivation in action: Towards a process-oriented conceptualization of student motivation. British Journalof Educational Psychology, 70,519-538
[3]Linnenbrink, E. A., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003) The role of self-efficacy beliefs in student engagement and learning in the classroom. Reading and WritingQuarterly, 19,119-137
[4]Meyer, D. K., & Turner, J. C. (2000). Discovering emotion in classroommotivation research.Educational Psychologist, 37(2), 107-114
[5]Molden, D. C., & Dweck, C.S. (2000). Meaning and motivation. In C. Sansone& J. Harackiewicz (Eds.), Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The search for optimal motivation andperformance (pp. 131-159). San Diego: Academic Press
[6]Simpson, M. L., Hynd, C. R., Nist, S. L., & Burrell, K. I. (1997). Collegeassistance programs and practices. Educational Psychology Review, 9(1). 39-87.
[7]Wigfield, A. (1998). Children's motivations for reading and readingengagement, In J. T. Guthrie & A. Wigfield (Eds.), Reading engagement: Motivating readers through integrated instruction (pp.14-33). Newark, De:International Reading Association.
[8]Zimmerman, B. J., & Martinez-Pons, M. (1990). Student differences in self- regulated learning: Relating grade, sex, and giftedness to self-efficacy andstrategy and strategy use. Journal ofeducational Psychology, 82, 51-59
责任编辑：王利强