Investigation of Turkish EFL learners’ attributions on success and failure in learning English

Aysun Yavuz, Devrim Hol

Abstract


The purpose of this study is to investigate the attributions of Turkish EFL learners on success and failure in learning English as a foreign language with different variables such as gender and level of English proficiency.  To investigate the attributions of the participants and gather the relevant data, a questionnaire including 38 items and semi-structured interview protocol were applied. To analyze the data, SPSS 20.0 was used, and interview protocol was decoded using document analysis. It was revealed from the findings that learners attribute their success and failure to both internal and external attributions; however, they give more priority to internal attributions. Investigating all these concepts will help all the stakeholders to be aware and understand the reasons behind the learners’ success and failure in learning English with different variables including gender, and level of proficiency.


Keywords


attribution theory, gender, level of proficiency, attributions, internal attributions, external attributions, locus of control

Full Text:

PDF

References


Altan, Z. M. (2006).Beliefs about language learning of foreign language-major university students. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 31 (2), 45-52.

Bagozzi, Richard P., ed. Principles of marketing research. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994.

Brown, R. A., Gray, R. R. & Ferrara, M. S. (2005).Attributions for personal achievement outcomes among Japanese, Chinese and Turkish university students. Information and Communication Studies, 33, 1-13.

Can, B. (2005). An analysis of elementary school teachers. causal attributions related to self-identified success and failure. MA thesis submitted to the Institute of Social Sciences, Boğaziçi University, Turkey.

Christenson, K., Kim, S., Dysken, M. & Hoover, K. (1992). Neuropsychological performance in obsessive compulsive disorder, Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 16, 221-234.

Georgiou, S. T. (1999). Achievement attributions of sixth grade children and their parents, Educational Psychology, 19, (4), 399-412.

Gronhaug, K. & Falkenberg, J. S. 1989. Exploring Strategy Perceptions in Changing Environments. Journal of Management Studies, 26(4): 350-359.

Hashemi, M. R., & Zabihi, R. (2011). Learners! Attributional Beliefs in Success or Failure and Their Performance on the Interchange Objective Placement Test. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1(8), 954-960.

Heider, F. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, New York: Wiley

Horwitz, E. (1990). Attending to the affective domain in the foreign language classroom. In S. S. Magnan (ed). Shifting the Instructional Focus to the Learner. Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 15-33.

Hsieh, P. H. & Schallert, D. L. (2008).Implications from self-efficacy and attribution theories for an understanding of undergraduates’ motivation in a foreign language course. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 33, 513-532.

Kelley, H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska

Kelley, H. & Michela, J. (1980). Attribution the oryand research. In M. Rosenzweig, & L. Porter, Annual review of psychology, 31 (pp. 457-501). Palo Alto, California: Annual Reviews.

Kelley, H.H. (1992). Common-sense psychology and scientific psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 43, 1-23.

Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Lightbody, P., Siann, G., Stocks, R & Walsh, D. 1996. Motivation and attribution at secondary school: the role of gender. Educational Studies, 22, 13-25.

Malhotra, Yogesh. "Why knowledge management systems fail: enablers and constraints of knowledge management in human enterprises." Handbook on Knowledge Management 1. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2004. 577-599.

McDonough, S. H. (1989). Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching, George Allen & London: Unwin Ltd.

Moore, J.P. & Chan, K.S (1995). Attributional beliefs and strategic knowledge of students in Years 5, 7, and 9: Comparisons across subject domains. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference.

O’Sallivan, J. & Howe, M. (1996). Causal attributions and reading achievement: individual in low income families, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 21, 363-387.

Özduygu, F. G. (1995). Causal attributions of learners with high success fear and differences between students with high and low success fear under the conditions when success or failure is common. Unpublished Master Thesis submitted to the Institute of Social Sciences Hacettepe University, Ankara.

Platt, C.W. (1988). Effects of causal attributions on first-term college performance: A covariance structure model. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 569.578.

Power, S. & Wagner, M. (1984). Attributions for school achievement of middle school students. Journal of Early Adolescence, 4, 215-222.

Ozkardes, A. (2012). Achievement attributions of preparatory class learners at the school of foreign languages at Pamukkale University for their success or failure in learning English. MA thesis submitted to Institute of Social Sciences Pamukkale University, Denizli.

Pintrich, P. R. & D. H. Schunk. (1996). Motivation in Education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ushioda

Robson C (2002). Real World Research, 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford

Rotter, J. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of Reinforcement. Psychological Monograph, 80, 1-28. Siegel, 2015

Saticilar, U. (2006). An investigation into the achievement attributions of English language learners in different grades. MA thesis submitted to Institute of Social Sciences Onsekiz Mart University, Çanakkale.

Semiz, Ö. (2011). The effects of a training program on attributional beliefs, self-efficacy, language learning beliefs, achievement and student effort: A study on motivationally at risk EFL students. A doctoral dissertation submitted to Atatürk University, Erzurum.

Slavin, R. E. (2000). Educational Psychology: Theory and practice (6thed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Stajkovic, A. D. & Sommer, S. M. (2000). Self-efficacy and causal attributions: Direct and reciprocal links. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 707-737.

Stevenson, H. & Lee, S. (1990). Contexts of achievement, Monographs of the Society Child Development, 55, (1-2, Serial Number 221).

Sweeton, Jennifer, and Bries Deerrose. "Causal attributions: A review of the past and directions for the future." The New School Psychology Bulletin 7.1 (2009): 31-41.

Weiner, B. (1974). Achievement motivation and attribution theory, Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press.

Weiner, B. (1979). A theory of motivation for some classroom experiences, Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 3-25.

Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion, New York: SpringerVerlag.

Weiner, B. (1991). Human motivation: Metaphors, theories and research, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Weiner, B. (2000). Intrapersonal and interpersonal theories of motivation from an attributional perspective, Educational Psychology Review, 12, (1).

Weiner, B. (2010). The Development of an Attribution-Based Theory of Motivation: A History of Ideas. Educational Psychologist, 45(1), 28-36.

Williams, M. & Burden, R. (1999).Students. Developing Conceptions Themselves as Language Learners, The Modern Language Journal, 83, 193-201.

Williams, M. (1994). Motivation in foreign and second language learning: An interactive perspective. Educational and Child Psychology, 11, 77-84.

Woolfolk, A. (2004). Educational Psychology (9th ed). The USA: Pearson Ally and Bacon

Woolfolk, E. A. (1998). Educational Psychology (Seventh Edition), Boston: Allyn and Bacon.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies
ISSN 1305-578X (Online)
Copyright © 2005-2022 by Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies