The correlation between non english majoredstudents attitudes towards learning englishand their english achievements

Aims of the study The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between non-English majorstudents'''' attitudes toward learning English and their academic achievements.. Res

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HCMC

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTIC AND LITERATURE

-  

 -THE CORRELATION BETWEEN NON-ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEARNING ENGLISH

AND THEIR ENGLISH ACHIEVEMENTS

Professor : Ms Phạm Thái Bảo Ngọc

Students : NHÓM 1

Class : 20CLC04

Ho Chi Minh City -05/18/2022

SUPERVISOR

MS LÂM NHƯ BẢO TRÂN

GROUP MEMBERS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2 5 R ECENT STUDIES ON THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS ' ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEARNING E NGLISH AND THEIR

REFERENCES 15

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1 1 Aims of the study

The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between non-English major students' attitudes toward learning English and their academic achievements In comparison to English majors, non-English majors will have fewer opportunities to learn English Up to this point, not only there has been little related research in Vietnam to achieve the aim, but those studies also lack sufficient evidence to support and clarify the subject; thus the group conducts this research to accomplish the target and to analyze this topic Furthermore, there are few groups focused on non-English majors around the world To complete the research, the author will conduct this research with the participants of non-English-majored students at the University

of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City (USSH, HCM)

1 2 Research questions

In order to achieve the aim, the study is in an attempt to acknowledge the two following questions:

- Is there any relationship between attitude in learning English and achievements?

- Is there any factor that is involved in the relationship between attitude in learning English and academic achievements?

2 1 Definitions

2 1 1 Attitude

Since attitude is an important part of this research, it is crucial to clarify what the meaning of attitude is The term “attitude” was first used in the psychology field It was Herbert Spencer who was credited as the first person to use this term in 1862 Later in the early twentieth century, Gordon Allport defined attitude as “the most distinctive and indispensable concept” in psychology Throughout that early century, there had been a wide variety of debates and controversies about its actual meaning In the late of that century, the debates waned gradually (Zanna MP & Rempel JK, 1988; Eagly AH & Chaiken S, 2005)

In the field of education, especially in learning a language, many experts have given numerous definitions of attitude According to Likert (1932), as cited in Gardner (1980), attitude means “an inference which is made based on a complex of beliefs about the attitude object” Ajzen (1988) thought in a little bit different way, he claimed attitude is “a disposition to respond favourably or unfavourably to an object, person, institution, or event” It means that attitude refers to the response and action either positive or negative toward the events around them “A hypothetical construct used to explain the direction and persistence of human behaviour” is what Baker (1992) defined as attitude Likewise, to Hogg & Vaughan (2005), attitude is “a relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings, and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols” And Hosseini & Pourmandnia (2013) defined attitude as “a disposition or tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain thing such as an idea, object, person, or situation”

In conclusion, the most suitable definitions are from Ajzen (1988) and Hosseini & Pourmandnia (2013) Both stated that attitude is a disposition to respond either positively or negatively towards certain events In this research, researchers aim to examine the attitudes of the students, whether it is favourably or unfavourably towards English As a result, those definitions can satisfy the demand and are the most suitable ones

2 1 2 Achievement

Achievement is often characterized and determined in formal education institutions by indicators such as course grades and accumulated grade point average (GPA), as well as the attainment of diplomas or degrees, certificates, vocational licenses, or other educational credentials A more limited notion of success focuses on standardized exam results within certain fields of study

In this study, the researchers will only focus on the standardized exam results, also known as the entrance exam test scores The team believes that other achievements are not as reliable as the standardized exam results because there are a lot of factors that can affect those other achievements such as the teachers, the schools, and so on In other words, the difficulty of the tests can be manipulated by people and the results cannot be reliable However, the entrance exam test is the test that is carried out in the whole nation It means that all students will have to

do the same test in the same amount of time Furthermore, this test is managed by the Ministry of Education and Training as a result there are a lot of guards to protect the results as well as overseers to prevent cheating

2 2 Aspects of attitude

There is an array of scales to measure attitude Some can be named such as the technology acceptance model, expectancy-value model, and vector model Albeit having many other models, the research team still chooses the ABC model for some reasons As it can be seen from the name, which is the technology acceptance model, it is an applied model of attitude in which intention to use technology is influenced by attitude towards that technology and perception of its usefulness (Davis, 1989 & 1993) The technology acceptance model is regularly used in economics and technology when a company wants to measure the degree to which the technology can help to improve task achievements (Djamasbi et al 2009) Consequently, this model cannot be used in this research Next is the expectancy-value model This model is offered

by Rosenberg (1956) who suggests that the ‘value importance’ and ‘perceived instrumentality’ are separate and possibly manipulable dimensions of attitude-related cognitive structures As I have mentioned above, to measure attitude precisely, researchers have to measure all three dimensions As a result, the research team cannot choose this model Lastly, Calder & Lutz (1972) represent attitude structure in their approach, as a two-dimensional metric space, recognized as the vector model One dimension represents an affective component and the other represents a cognitive component Due to the lack of measuring behavioral aspects, this model is not suitable for this study In conclusion, the mentioned models cannot be used in this research due to some demerits the team has explained above Moreover, the ABC model is the most general framework for interpreting the shaping of attitude (Guagnano and colleagues, 1995)

ABC model is the abbreviation of the affective, behavioral, and cognitive model The concept of attitude can be viewed from three different aspects: affective, behavioral, and cognitive (Wenden, 1991) ABC model is the model that can study the three rudimentary aspects of attitude The three aspects originated from three theoretical approaches of cognitivism, behaviorism, and humanism, respectively (Zainol Abidin, Abidin, Pour-Mohammadi & Alzwari, 2012)

Firstly, the cognitive aspect of attitude involves the beliefs of the language learners about the knowledge that they receive and their understanding of the process of language learning The cognitive attitude can be classified into four steps: connecting the previous knowledge and the new one, creating new knowledge, checking new knowledge, and applying the new knowledge

in many situations

Secondly, the behavioral aspect of attitude deals with the way one behaves and reacts in particular situations In reality, successful language acquisition allows learners to identify with native speakers of that language and acquire or adopt particular features of behavior that distinguish members of the target language group Kara (2009) also stated that “Positive attitudes lead to the exhibition of positive behaviors toward courses of study, with participants absorbing themselves in courses and striving to learn more Such students are also observed to be more eager to solve problems, to acquire the information and skills useful for daily life, and to engage themselves emotionally.”

Finally, concerning the emotional aspect (also called the affective aspect) of attitude, Feng and Chen (2009) stated that “Learning process is an emotional process It is affected by different emotional factors The teacher and his students engage in various emotional activities in it and varied results of emotions yielded” Attitude can help learners express whether they like or dislike the items or situations around them It concurs that the inward sentiments and feelings of

FL students impact their viewpoints and their attitudes towards the objective language (Choy & Troudi, 2006)

Overall, attitude can be divided into three dimensions Each one of these aspects has distinctive features to bring out language attitude results In order to measure attitude precisely, researchers need to include all the aspects in the test through the ABC model ABC model is the abbreviation

of the affective, behavioral, and cognitive model Exclusion of any aspects can lead to a wrong result

2 3 Attitude in learning a foreign language

It is undeniable that attitude plays a vital position in improving language learning According to Gardner (1985), attitude used to be regarded as an aspect of motivation in language learning Brown (2000) concluded that a positive attitude closer to the self, the native language group, and the goal language crew greater proficiency Achievement in studying a language depends not

COGNITIVE ASPECT

AFFECTIVE ASPECT

only on learners’ intelligence but also on the learner's attitude Anyone from students, teachers, and researchers all agreed that excessive motivation and a positive attitude to a language and its tradition contribute to achievements in studying that language (De Bot et al., 2005) According to Choy & Troudi (2006), attitude should assist the inexperienced persons in expressing whether or not they favored or disliked the objects or surrounding situations It used to be agreed that foreign language learners' internal feelings and thoughts influenced their views and attitudes toward the goal language Kara (2009) noted that a positive attitude could lead to the exhibition

of advantageous behaviors towards guides of study

As presented in an article by Mehrak Rahimia and Masoumeh Hassani, the differences between individuals in learning a foreign language mostly come from their differences To some people, studying a 2nd language is an important task that they must face during their academic years, while to some, it is the easy way to achieve bilingualism Whatever the case is, researchers seem

to agree that variables such as attitudes can influence foreign language learning Karahan (2007) claimed that ‘positive language attitudes let learners have a positive orientation towards learning English’ Attitudes can play a very crucial role in language learning as they can influence students’ outcomes in language learning, whether it is success or failure It is believed that positive attitudes toward language learning facilitate the process and enhance it, while the negative counterpart acts as a psychological barrier against the learners There is even available empirical evidence to back the postulations Nikolov (2001) for instance, found that students’ negative attitude to Russia or Russians was responsible for their failure to learn or retain the language Gardner and Lambert (1972) also gave evidence in their extensive studies that positive attitudes towards foreign languages enhance proficiency Researchers believe that attitudes have cognitive, affective, and behavioral components The cognitive component is the beliefs or perceptions about the objects or situations related to the attitude The affective component refers

to the emotions that one has towards an object, which in this case is foreign language learning, such as “likes” or “dislikes”, “with” or “against” Lastly is the behavioral component, which means that certain attitudes tend to prompt learners to adopt particular learning behaviors In the second language acquisition field, researchers have mostly paid attention to two types of attitudes: attitudes towards the learning of the language, and attitudes towards the community of the target language While the first set of attitudes is educational, the second one is more social Attitudes towards language learning also seem connected to the context where learning takes place Students must have high motivation and a positive attitude towards the target language because many linguists have proven that motivation and attitude are closely related to determining the success of second language learning Higher levels of motivation and a positive

attitude will produce more successful language learners and vice versa Brown (2000) states that

a language learner benefits from a positive attitude and that a negative attitude may lead to a decrease in motivation, input, and interaction; consequently, it leads to unsuccessful attainment

of proficiency

Many studies have been conducted to explore the nature of students’ attitudes towards learning a foreign language in the UAE and other different countries all over the world For example, Musa (1985) investigated the EFL students’ attitude toward studying English in the United Arab Emirates using a five-point scale questionnaire The findings underline that students had positive attitudes and extreme eagerness towards learning English; they valued English language efficiency in daily life In another contribution, Al Bassam (1987) concludes that achievement in the English language significantly correlated with the student’s attitude, motivation, and satisfaction with the curriculum Besides Musa, Suliman (2006) studied the students’ attitudes towards and motivation for learning English in the UAE state secondary school The findings reveal that the UAE students had a higher degree of instrumental motivation and that students had unfavorable attitudes towards learning certain areas of the language Contrary to other findings of other studies Gorham & Christophel (1992), Keblawi (2005) difficulties with the target language aspects such as vocabulary, spelling, and structures were found to be the first place to demotivate learners in the UAE Interestingly, the study also reveals that there was disagreement and uncertainty in viewing learning English as a means to value British/American arts and literature Regarding the teacher's role, 30 % of the respondents referred to the teacher's personality as a de-motivator and a similar picture was revealed in students’ interviews While the findings of the previous studies and many others such as Vijchulata & Lee (1985) in Malaysia; Benson (1991) in Japan; Mahboob's (2001) and Moussu (2002) in the USA, Arani (2004) in Iran, and Karahan (2007) in Turkey show positive attitudes towards English language and its learning, the findings of Momani (2009) shows that the Jordanian High School students had neutral positive attitudes toward learning English Also, there was a strong correlation between the students’ attitudes toward learning English and their achievements in reading comprehension However, Zainol Abidin, Mohammadi, and Alzwari (2012) investigated Libyan secondary school students’ attitudes toward learning English and concluded that the participants showed negative attitudes toward learning English The same finding is echoed in Lasagabaster (2007) who studied students’ attitudes in the European context and maintains that students’ attitudes toward English were not so “positive” in Europe mainly in Spain

In brief, attitude toward language learning plays a quintessential role, so teachers need to recognize students' attitudes and try to assist them to have a positive attitude toward their language studying process For instance, many students valued English as a tool in their daily life So, the teacher's role is to support them in learning English that would make an impact in a realistic situation, as many aspects of English can be seen as a de-motivator for many students

In short, students mostly have a positive attitude toward learning English Teachers should take into consideration what factors that impact their student’s attitudes the most and find the most suitable way to keep students motivated

2 4 Relationship between attitude and academic achievements

The research's main contribution is to recognize the link between attitude and English results Several previous studies have come to certain findings According to McKenna, Kear, and Ellsworth (1995), as cited in Hoda Sarkhoush (2013), attitudes have some effect on English achievements “students who showed a positive attitude towards writing are more eager to involve in writing task than their peers who hold negative attitude on the same task” The same results have been reported by Sarwar, M., Bashir, M., & Alam, M (2010) “Attitudes and achievement go side by side with each other.” In addition, learning attitudes have an important role in learning or any educational setting, which was reported in the research conducted by Bakar, Tarmizi, Mahyuddin, Elias, Wong, and MohdAyub (2010) They also illustrated that an attitude toward learning is important for high achievement Some other research also agrees with this report, Crow and Crow (1999) reported that “the learning experience formulates study attitude” as well as successful learners adopt positive study attitudes (Bokhari, 1996)

In addition, when conducting the research, Sarwar, M., Bashir, M., & Alam, M (2010) found out that there is a relationship between gender, background factors, family factor, and attitude as well

as academic achievements As cited in Sarwar, M., Bashir, M., & Alam, M (2010), Hamachek (1998) reported that “academic achievement and attitude of older siblings are passed on to the younger brothers and sisters” and it certainly predicts younger siblings' results This research also illustrated those male and female students had different attitudes toward learning Female students tend to have a better study attitude, compared to their male peers Meanwhile, Ansari (1983) reported that "there is no significant difference in the study attitudes of girls and boys In terms of background factors, for more specific, living environments, there is a recognized difference that rural students have better learning attitudes than urban students