摘 要

教师支持是影响学生学习意识的重要因素，尤其是在大学中，教师是大学生接触英语的直接途径。同时，以往的研究表明，自我效能感对自我调节学习有重要影响。本文试图探究高校英语教师的支持对大学生英语自我调节学习的影响，以及是否存在英语自我效能感的中介作用。本文通过问卷法，对武汉理工大学313名非英语专业本科大学生进行了感知教师支持、英语自我效能感和英语自我调节学习的情况调查。以SPSS为分析软件，对所收集数据进行了剖析。研究结果表明，三个变量间两两呈现正相关关系，且教师支持的三个维度不仅直接影响英语自我调节学习，也可以经由自我效能感来间接影响英语自我调节学习。因此，教师可以通过增加教师支持和增强学生的自我效能感来提高学生的自我调节学习意识。

关键词：教师支持；英语自我调节学习；自我效能感

Abstract

Teacher support is a vital factor of improving students' learning consciousness, especially in university, with teachers as a direct way for college students to learn English. Meanwhile, previous studies have shown that self-efficacy has an important effect on self-regulated learning. In order to explore the influence of English teacher support on college students' English learning, and to study whether the adjustment effect of students' self-efficacy exists, questionnaires in this study were distributed to 313 college English learners in Wuhan University of Technology. With SPSS used as the analysis software, the collected data were analyzed. The findings of the study indicated that English teacher support, self-efficacy and self-regulated English learning were positively correlated with each other. Moreover, the three dimensions of teacher support not only directly affect English self-regulated learning, but also indirectly affect it through self-efficacy. Therefore, teachers can increase teacher support and enhance students' self-efficacy to improve students' self-regulated learning consciousness.

Key Words: teacher support; English self-regulated learning; self-efficacy

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 3

2.1 English Self-regulated Learning 3

2.2 Teacher Support 3

2.2.1 The concept of teacher support 3

2.2.2 Teacher support and English self-regulated learning 3

2.3 English Self-efficacy 4

2.3.1 The concept of self-efficacy 4

2.3.2 Self-efficacy and English self-regulated learning 4

2.4 Analysis of previous studies 4

3 Research Methodology 6

3.1 Participants 6

3.2 Instruments 6

3.2.1 Questionnaire of English teacher support 6

3.2.2 Questionnaire of English self-efficacy 6

3.2.3 Questionnaire of self-regulated English learning 6

3.3 Procedures 7

4 Results 8

4.1 Descriptive statistics of English teacher support, self-efficacy and self-regulated English learning 8

4.2 The analysis of variance of English teacher support, self-efficacy and self-regulated English learning in different academic levels 8

4.3 The correlation analysis of English teacher support, self-efficacy and self-regulated English learning 10

4.4 Analysis of Mediation 11

4.4.1 Autonomy support 11

4.4.2 Competency support 12

4.4.3 Relationship support 13

5 Discussion 15

6 Conclusions 16

References 17

Appendix 19

Acknowledgments 25

Research on the Relationship between Teacher Support and Self-regulated English Learning of College Students—Evidence of Mediated Effects with Self-efficacy

1 Introduction

University is an important stage for students where they step half into the community, making independent arrangements for their learning without the supervision of their parents. After the strict management in high school aiming at the specific goal- college entrance examination, this is the first time for students to re-explore the meaning of learning and to plan for the future. During this period, teachers continue to influence the growth and development of students, though this is not mandatory. Teachers' responsibilities to students are less clear than those in pre-university education.

English as an important tool to meet the need of English Grading Test, job requirement or even postgraduate exam, is definitely a ridge which every college student should cross. Since English is a compulsory course in the university, students will meet all kinds of teachers in the classroom (Dietrich, Dicke, Kracke amp; Noack，2015). Self-determination theory emphasizes that teachers are the main role in the classroom to provide a supportive social learning environment (Maulana, Helms-Lorenz, Irnidayanti amp; Grift, 2016). Students-perceived teacher support behavior will affect their academic self-regulation of development, and will thus affect their academic performance. If teacher support does not have a positive impact on student learning, with the formation of a negative self-regulated learning, it is possible to weaken the enthusiasm of learners (Zhang amp; Wang, 2007).

In addition, self-efficacy is another factor which influence self-regulated learning. Students with higher self-efficacy are more involved in learning English with more confidence, taking a proactive approach as well as setting high learning goals for themselves, while those with lower self-efficacy are more likely to take English learning as a heavy burden, avoiding the challenge of learning tasks as much as possible (Li amp; Xu, 2014). In this study, self-efficacy is considered as a mediation variable.

The quality-oriented education reform in China is constantly advancing, but there have appeared a lot of problems in the actual process of carrying out the reform, the reform among college students particularly. Having access to more network media, with the increased speed and breadth in their information receiving, they no longer totally believe in teachers’ authority and knowledge, and may sometimes be skeptical about their teachers.

According to this, the research on self-regulated English learning of college students can provide educational practitioners with theoretical support on teaching practice and activity management. In this way, they will take appropriate measures to enable the teaching activities and school management to proceed smoothly. Also, the research can help teachers better understand the teaching activities and how students can participate better in study activities, in order to help students form a positive learning attitude (Zhang, 2012). It is expected that this study can provide some suggestions for the classroom teaching of the university teachers, so as to enable the college students to improve their ability on self-regulated English learning.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Self-regulated Learning

The self-regulated learning that emerged in the 1990s describing a process of taking control of and evaluating one's own learning behavior (Ormrod，2009), is an effective way to promote students' self-learning, improve the quality of learning and form the ability and potential to learn (Chen, 2007).

In general, the factors that affect the learner's ability to learn independently include internal and external ones. Internal factors are also known as learner factors, including intellectual factors such as perception, memory, reasoning and other non-intellectual factors such as motivation, self-efficacy, attribution, learning attitude, learning style and learning strategies (Shang amp; Kou, 2007). Among them, learner factors are the most important and direct factors that affect self-regulated learning, in which self-efficacy plays the most significant role.

2.2 Teacher Support

2.2.1 The concept of teacher support

For the understanding of teacher support, Wehlage and Rutter (1989) believed that teachers who are proactive in paying attention to understand students and to help students solve problems related to academic sentiment and growing trouble are giving teacher support. Scholar Jia Juan (2012) in her master's thesis defined teacher support as students-received positive regard in study and daily life given by teachers, more specifically, a series of actions like caring, understanding, listening to their difficulties and giving encouragement.

2.2.2 Teacher support and English self-regulated learning

In the study of the relationship between teacher support and student self-regulated learning, teacher support is generally divided into three dimensions by scholars at home and abroad, including self support, cognitive support and emotional and social support (Newman amp; Goldin, 1990; Pianta, Paro amp; Hamre, 2009; Reeve, Jang, Dan, Jeon amp; Barch, 2004). It is also found that most of the subjects of research focused on children or teenagers in secondary school, college students are rarely studied (Ye, Zhang amp; Hu, 2011; Zhang amp; Zhao, 2012; Zhang amp; Jiang, 2009). In addition, Zhang (2012) and Li (2015) claimed that there were few studies on teacher support in China, and most of the studies examined the overall teacher support perceived by students in the general teaching situation, rather than in a particular subject.

2.3 English Self-efficacy

2.3.1 The concept of self-efficacy

The concept of self-efficacy was first proposed by the famous American psychologist Bandera, referring to individual's expectation of whether or not he or she has the ability to manipulate a particular behavior in a particular context, which also means the individual's belief, judgment, and self-esteem on how that can competent for an activity before performing a particular one (Sun, 2015). In his point of view, because of the differences among all areas of activities, the required skills, and competency vary widely. Also, the self-efficacy of one person under different situations may not be the same. Therefore, there is no general sense of self-efficacy. Under any circumstances to discuss self-efficacy, it has to be related to a specific area (Wang, 2007). The self-efficacy in this paper focuses on the self-efficacy of English, that is, the self-perception of college students' ability of their English proficiency.

2.3.2 Self-efficacy and English self-regulated learning

From the perspective of the influence of self-efficacy on English self-regulated learning, scholar Li (2016) argues that English self-regulate learning is an active and constructive learning process for English learners；Individual differences in learners are manifested in academic achievement as that a higher level English learner comes with greater self-efficacy and better English self-learning ability; The conclusion also supports the inference that the self-efficacy can directly or indirectly affect the language learning process of the second language learner. A group of English majors were tested by Scholar Li (2009), showing that students with high self-efficacy are more likely to learn English autonomously.

2.4 Analysis of previous studies

In recent years, a large number of studies have discussed the role of non-cognitive skills such as self-efficacy and self-regulation (Kim，Wang，Ahn amp; Bong，2015). In summary, most researches on teacher support, self-regulated English learning and self-efficacy focus on the two-way relationship of them, among witch studies on how teacher support affects college students’ self-regulated English learning are rare. But in fact, the characteristics of college English teaching determines that teacher support plays a certain role on whether students actively participate in English autonomous learning. In this paper self-efficacy is considered as a mediated effect. The research focuses on differences on college students at different academic levels perceiving English teacher support; the role of English teacher support on college students' self-regulated learning; the role of self-efficacy on English self-regulated learning and whether self-efficacy plays a mediating role between teacher support and self-regulated English learning.

3 Research Methodology

3.1 Participants

The subjects of this study are all together 313 college students from Wuhan University of Technology, including 136 freshmen, 102 sophomores, 34 juniors and 41 seniors. Among all there are 161 males, 152 females, 84 art students and 229 science students.

3.2 Instruments

The questionnaires, written in Chinese, comprise three parts. In the first part, general information are required such as gender, age, and grade. The following parts consist of the questionnaires of English teacher support, self-regulated English learning and English self-efficacy.

3.2.1 Questionnaire of English teacher support

The questionnaire on the measurement of English teacher support comes from scholar Yu (2015). In this questionnaire, English teacher support are further divided into three dimensions, which are autonomous support, competency support and relationship support, each with 4, 5, and 6 questions, totaling 15. Among them, 1 item is negative (Item 13). Five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 to 5, was used in the questionnaire to represent for the degree of similarity between the items and subjects’ situation (1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neutral, 4= agree, 5= strongly agree). The three dimensions are respectively with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.88、0.88、0.91.

3.2.2 Questionnaire of English self-efficacy

In order to collect the data on the level of English self-efficacy among undergraduates, the questionnaire from Zheng (2012) was adapted for the investigation, with 20 items included, five-point Likert scale used. Among them, 7 items are negative (Item 1, 3, 9, 11, 12, 16, 18). The Cronbach’s alpha of this questionnaire is 0.78.

3.2.3 Questionnaire of self-regulated English learning

Questionnaire from Tang (2001) was utilized to measure the level of non-English majors’ self-regulated English learning. The total 21 items were divided into four subscales: planning strategy (Item 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11), methodology (Item 5, 13, 14, 16, 17), feedback (Item 6, 15, 18) and remediation (Item 12, 19, 20, 21). Under the consideration of reliability, 2 items were shifted into negative descriptions (Item 7, 9). Cronbach’s alpha of the whole questionnaire is 0.91, with the 4 subscales respectively 0.91、0.87、0.98、0.83.

3.3 Procedures

Freshmen and sophomores in their college English classes scanned a certain QR code to complete the online questionnaires, and the juniors did in their optional evening English classes. The same questionnaires were distributed to seniors through online chatting groups in which most students had taken online English tutorial classes for postgraduate qualifying examination. Participants were asked to answer the questions anonymously and voluntarily. The time for finishing the questionnaires was 15 minutes.

Statistics were analyzed by SPSS17.0. For the purpose of answering the research questions, analysis of description, ANOVA (analysis of variance), analysis of correlation and analysis of mediation were conducted successively. Analysis of descriptive statistics was used to show the level of the three variables; ANOVA was employed to test possible differences among students in all grades; correlation analysis was utilized to further explore the internal relationship among the variables and their subscales; and the analysis of mediation is to explore whether there has been a mediated effect of students' self-efficacy.

4 Results

4.1 Descriptive statistics of English teacher support, self-efficacy and self-regulated English learning

In this study, 313 questionnaires were distributed and collected representing 313 samples, of which descriptive statistics were summarized in Table 4.1 below.