English Language Achievement as a Function of Learning Style, Motivation, Anxiety and Attitude
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Date
2009-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Different scholars have indicated that learner variables playa significant role in education. The
present study was basically aimed at investigating the effects of selected individual variables in
English language achievement. The variables were motivation, learning style, attitude and
anxiety. Specifically, the objectives of the study were to determine the combined and unique
contribution of these variables to English language variations among students, identify the
fac tor(s) that contribute most to the variance and determine if there were a significant
relationship between learning style and Motivation, learning style and anxiety and motivation
and attitude.
The samples of the study were 210 randomly selected grade ten students in Bishaw W/yohannes
High school in Kafa Zone of South Nations Nationalities and people's Region. For this study,
English language examination was prepared based on the grade nine and ten syllabus. The
attitude, anxiety and perceptual learning style questionnaires were collected from different
literature and modified. On the other hand, motivation questionnaire was designed by the
researcher based on Gardener's motivation concept and finally Group Embed Figures Test
(GEFT) was used to test the students' cognitive style of field-dependence/independence. All the
questionnaires were five scale likert -type. The examination and questionnaire were piloted for
their reliability, difjiculty and discrimination levels before they were used for the main study.
Then, data were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation, ANa VA, Multiple
Correlation and Step-wise Regression. Based on the analysis, all the variables included in the
study predicted 25% of English language achievement variation among the students.
Specifically, motivation (14.2 %), attitude, (4.7%) and cognitive style (3.8%) were found /0
predict English language achievement variation significantly. But anxiety and perceptual
learning preferences were not. On the other hand, only attitude towards seif and attitude towards
plasma were found to be important predictors of achievement variations among the students. The
other finding was that only attitude significantly correlated with motivation. The intercorrelations
among the other variables were generally weak.
Based on these findings, in order that they bridge achievement gaps among students, it is
necessary for the English teachers to foster their learners' self- esteem in learning the language,
encourage efforts and vary the teaching and testing methods.