著者

田崎 勝也

出版者

フェリス女学院大学

雑誌

フェリス女学院大学文学部紀要 (ISSN:09165959)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.38, pp.A123-A135, 2003-03-01

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The aim of this study was to gain more knowledge about college students' beliefs about english learning. With an aid of correspondence analysis that helps us to comprehend visually underlying relationships among categorical variables, this study particularly focused on exploring patterns in english learning beliefs and its relations to english proficiency. Fifty-eight first-year college students, who enrolled in an introductory english course, completed a questionnaire regarding beliefs about english learning. As a result of correspondence analysis, four clusters of english learning beliefs emerged. The first cluster consisted of three beliefs, "persistence," "interests in foreign cultures" and "goals." Such beliefs as "experiences of studying abroad" and "current conditions of learning english" formed the second cluster. The third cluster included two beliefs of "starting age of learning english" and "memory." "Quality of teachers," "past conditions of learning english" and "good sense of language" were the three beliefs constituting the last cluster. Furthermore, the group of students with high english proficiency was close in space to the first and second clusters where internal factors of learners and positive attitudes toward learning seemed to be emphasized. The group of students with low english proficiency was closely located to the third and fourth clusters in which external, uncontrollable factors in learning english appeared to be stressed. These results indicated that learning beliefs possessed by high english proficiency students were different from those possessed by low english proficiency students. Although the nature of correspondence analysis did not allow the author to draw any conclusion regarding the causal effect of these beliefs on english proficiency, this study showed a possibility that a type of learning beliefs promoting english proficiency might exist.