A Study on the Attitude of English Learning Among Secondary

School Students in China

Lulu Zhan

Foreign Language School, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, Yunnan, China

Keywords: English Learning Attitude, School Students, A Questionnaire Survey.

Abstract: Applying the method of quantitative questionnaire survey and the SPSS 23.0 software program, this study

explored the English learning attitude of 372 elementary, junior and senior high school students in China. The

results show that (1) the participants held relatively positive attitude towards English learning; (2) English

learning attitude was significantly and positively but weakly correlated with English learning achievement:

(3) Attitude to English study and attitude to foreign language and culture are the important predictors of the

participants’ English proficiency. (4) There were significant differences in the participants’ English learning

attitude in regard to gender and English proficiency level.

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The study of foreign language learning attitudes first

began in the 1930s and reached a relatively mature

stage in the 1990s (Tao, 2001). According to Ellis

(1994), learners' attitudes toward learning have a

significant impact on their second language

acquisition level. Ellis (1994) argued that learners'

learning attitudes have a great influence on their

second language acquisition level. The positive

attitudes can promote second language acquisition,

while the negative attitudes can hinder second

language acquisition. In the last decade, there have

been many studies on the relationship between

English as a second or foreign language students'

attitudes and English acquisition or performance

(Rahimi & Hassani, 2012; Ahmed, 2015; Tanda &

Eposi, 2017; Taiwo, 2018; Morales-Ventura, 2019).

Research in China began mainly in the 1990s.

Early researchers (Hao, 1999; Qin, 2002) mainly

studied English learning attitudes in combination

with other factors, such as motivation and affective

factors. Most of them used empirical quantitative

questionnaire survey method. Some researchers focus

on factors affecting English learning attitudes (Tan &

Jiang, 2008), such as various factors in schools,

individuals, and society. Some focus on the

relationship between learning attitudes and academic

performance (Li, 2012); and these studies have been

conducted on a wide range of group subjects,

including primary school, secondary school,

university students, and ethnic minority students

(Peng, 2007; Han & Xu, 2011).

The purpose of this study is to examine the overall

attitudes toward English language learning, the

relationship between attitudes and academic

performance, and the significant differences in

English learning attitude in terms of various

demographic variables and to provide useful

suggestions for improving their motivation and

academic performance.

2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions of this study are:

(1) What is the current situation of English

learning attitudes among the participants in

Southwest China?

(2) Are there any correlations between English

learning attitudes and English achievement of the

participants?

(3) Which English learning attitude factors are

important predictors of English achievement of the

participants?

(4) Are there any significant differences in

English learning attitudes in terms of demographic

variables such as gender, age, grade, ethnicity, home

100

Zhan, L.

A Study on the Attitude of English Learning Among Secondary School Students in China.

DOI: 10.5220/0011898900003613

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education (NMDME 2022), pages 100-104

ISBN: 978-989-758-630-9

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

location and school types?

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study adopted an empirical quantitative

questionnaire survey method (Wen, 2001).

3.1 Sampling

A convenience sample was used and the

questionnaire was administered to 372 students from

35 elementary and secondary schools in China. There

are 161 (43.3%) senior high school students, 193

(51.9%) junior high school students and 18 (4.8%)

elementary students, among whom 116 (44.6%) are

boys and 206 (55.4%) are girls; 286 (76.9%) are Han

the mainstream ethnic group and 86 (23.1%) are

ethnic minority students; 286 (76.9%) are from

villages, 86(23.1%) from townships, and 145(39.0%)

from county seats or above. As for the participants’

self-evaluated English proficiency, 82 (42%)

participants rated poor, 141 (37.9%) of them rated

average, 108 (29%) good and 41 (11%) excellent.

3.2 Instrument

This study used English Learning Attitude Scale

Yichuan Yuan (2007). This questionnaire is

composed of 18 items which belong to four factors,

i,e, attitude toward ethnic identity, attitude toward

foreign language and culture, attitude toward British

and American people and attitude toward English

study. Cronbach’s Alpha of the 18 question items

is .814, which means the reliability statistics of the

questionnaire is very high.

3.3 Data Treatment

SPSS 22.0 was adopted to measure the data, in which

Descriptive Statistics was used to find out the general

situation of the participants’ attitude toward English

learning; Spearman Correlation Coefficient was

utilized to spot the relationship between their English

learning attitude and their English proficiency.

4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.1 General Situation of English

Learning Attitude of the

Participants

Table 1 shows the result of the mean value and std.

deviation of the Descriptive Statistics of English

leaning attitude.

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics result of English learning attitude

Facto

N Minimu

Maximu

Mean Std. Deviation

ethnic identity 372 2.33 5.00 3.9014 .46063

attitude to foreign culture and

language

372 1.00 5.00 3.5484 .68213

attitude to British and American

people

372 1.00 4.50 2.8817 .64620

attitude to English study 372 1.00 5.00 3.6317 .77276

Valid N (listwise) 372

As is shown in Table 1, the mean of the responses

to ethnic identity (mean=3.90, SD=.46 on 5-point

scale) among the subjects is the highest, and the mean

of attitude to English study (mean=3.63, SD=.77 on

5-point scale) is the second highest; the attitude to

foreign culture and language (mean=3.55, SD=.68 on

5-point scale comes the third; the mean of attitude to

British and American people (mean=2.88. SD=.64) is

the lowest. It means that the subjects’ ethnic identity

is strong; their attitude to English study and attitude

to foreign culture and language is relatively good, but

attitude to British and American people is moderate.

4.2 The Relationship between English

Learning Attitude and

Self-Evaluated English Proficiency

The result of the Spearman Correlation Coefficient

between English learning attitude and English

achievement by the participants is displayed in Table

A Study on the Attitude of English Learning Among Secondary School Students in China

101

Table 2 Spearman Correlation Coefficient between English learning attitude and English achievement

self-evaluated

English

proficiency

ethnic

identity

attitude to

foreign culture

and language

attitude to British

and American

people

attitude to

English

study

Spearman's

rho

self-evaluated

English

proficiency

Correlation

Coefficient

1.000 .139

.303

.132

.320

Sig. (2-tailed) . .007 .000 .011 .000

N 372 372 372 372 372

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is si

nificant at the 0.05 level

(

2-tailed

)

As illustrated in Table 2, English achievement is

significantly, positively but weakly correlated with

attitude to English study (r=.320, p=.000) and attitude

to foreign culture and language (r=.303, p=.000), and

very weakly with ethnic identity (r=.139, p=.007) and

attitude to British and American people (r=.132,

p=.011). This result indicates that English

achievement and all the four factors of English

learning attitude affect mutually but weakly.

The result of Model Summary of Linear Stepwise

Regression of important attitudinal predictors of

English proficiency between English learning

attitude and English achievement by the participants

is displayed in Table 3.

Table 3 Model Summary of Linear Stepwise Regression of important attitudinal predictors of English proficiency

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate

1 .325

.106 .104 .88296

2 .342

.117 .112 .87879

a. Predictors: (Constant), attitude to English study

b. Predictors: (Constant), attitude to English study, attitude to foreign culture and language

Table 3 displays the result of Linear Stepwise

Regression in terms of English learning attitude. Self-

evaluated English proficiency was used as dependent

factor and the four attitude factors were employed as

independent factors. As shown in the table, two

factors entered the Model Summary, i.e., attitude to

English study and attitude to foreign culture and

language. The first factor explained 10.4% of English

proficiency and the second factor affected 0.8% of

English proficiency, and altogether these two factors

contributed 11.2% of English proficiency.

4.3 The Significant Differences in

English Learning Attitude in

Terms of the Participants’

Demographic Variables

The result of Independent Sampling T-test result of

English learning attitude by sex among English

learning attitude by the participants is displayed in

Table 4.

Table 4 Independent Sampling T-test result of English learning attitude by sex

Factor

Males Female F-value p-value

Mean SD Mean SD

1. Self ethnic identity 3.89 .50 3.91 .43 2.97 .76>.05 NS

2. Attitude to foreign language and

culture

3.51 .76 3.58 .61 9.03 .300>.05 NS

3. Attitude to British and American

people

2.83 .66 2.92 .63 2.18 .153>.05 NS

4. Attitude to English study 3.54 .83 3.70 .72 6.63 .048< .05 S

Table 4 shows the result of Independent Sampling

T-test in English learning attitude related to gender.

Table 4 indicates that there were no significant

differences in ethnic identity(p=.76>.05), attitude to

foreign culture and language(p=.300>.05), attitude to

British and American people(p=.153>.05) for both

male and female subjects, which signifies that no

matter whether they were boys or girls, they had the

same/similar attitudes toward ethnic identity, attitude

to foreign culture and language and attitude to British

NMDME 2022 - The International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education

102

and American people. But significant differences

were found in terms of attitude to English study

(p=.048<.05) for both sexes. This means that boys

and girls held significantly different attitude toward

English study. As illustrated in Table 4, both the

female (mean=3.70) and male (mean=3.54) students

held a relatively good attitude to English study, which

means the female subjects had a better attitude to

English study than the male subjects.

The result of Mean value, F-value and P-value of

different English proficiency level of the participants’

English learning attitude in English learning attitude

by the participants is displayed in Table 5.

Table 5 Mean value, F-value and P-value of different English proficiency level of the participants’ English learning attitude

English

proficiency level

Poor Average Good Excellent F-value P-value

P-

value

Factor Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Ethnic identity 3.73 .47 3.95 .44 3.97 .44 3.92 .50 5.151 .002 <.05

Attitude to

foreign language

and culture

3.20 .81 3.52 .61 3.78 .60 3.74 .55 14.003 .000 <.05

Attitude to British

and American

2.67 .72 2.95 .57 2.98 .63 2.82 .68 4.629 .003 <.05

Attitude to

English stud

3.17 .88 3.63 .70 3.89 .63 3.89 .71 217.343 .000 <.05

Table 5 indicates that there were significant

differences in ethnic identity(p=.002<.05), attitude to

foreign culture and language(p=.000<.05), attitude to

British and American people(p=.003<.05) and

attitude to English study (p=..000<.05)for the four

groups of participants of self-evaluated English

proficiency, which means they all had significantly

different attitudes toward English learning attitude.

As is indicated in Table 5, as for ethnic identity,

significant differences existed among the four groups

of poor, average, good and excellent. According to

Table 5 in terms of ethnic identity, the good group got

the highest scores (mean=3.96, SD=0.44), the

average group had the second highest (mean=3.95,

SD D=.44), the excellent group scored the third

(mean=3.92, StD D=.50), and the poor group scored

the lowest (mean=3.73, SD D=.47). This result means

that as for ethnic identity, the good group had the best

attitude, the poor group had the poorest attitude

among the four groups, and the excellent group and

average group came out in between.

As is indicated in Table 5, as for attitude to foreign

language and culture, significant differences existed

among the four groups of poor, average, good and

excellent(p<.05). According to Table 4 in terms of

attitude to foreign language and culture, the good

group got the highest scores (mean=3.78, SD=.60),

the excellent group had the second highest

(mean=3.74, SD =.55), the average group scored the

third (mean=3.52, StD D=.50), and the poor group

scored the lowest (mean=3.20, SD=.81). This result

means that as for attitude to foreign language and

culture, the good group had the best attitude, the poor

group had the poorest attitude among the four groups,

and the excellent group and average group came out

in between.

As is indicated in Table 5, in terms of attitude to

English study, significant differences existed among

the four groups of poor, average, good and excellent

(p<.05). According to Table 4 as for attitude to

English study, the excellent group and good group got

the same highest scores (mean=3.89, SD=.71;

mean=3.89, SD=.63), the average group scored the

second (mean=3.63, SD=.70), and the poor group

scored the lowest (mean=3.17, SD D=.88). This

result means that as for attitude to English study, the

excellent group and the good group had the best

attitude, the poor group had the poorest attitude

among the four groups, and average group came out

in between.

No significant differences in English learning

attitude in terms of school type, ethnic group, grades

and home location were found.

5 CONCLUSION

In general, the participants’ English learning attitude

is generally positive except for attitude to British and

A Study on the Attitude of English Learning Among Secondary School Students in China

103

American people. Besides, there is a significant and

positive but weak correlation between the

participants’ English proficiency and English

learning attitude. Attitude to English study and

attitude to foreign language and culture are the

important predictors of the participants’ English

proficiency. Significant differences are found in

English learning attitude in terms of gender and

English proficiency level. Hopefully, this study will

provide some helpful suggestions to improve school

students’ English learning attitude and motivation as

well as their English proficiency.

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