Turkish EFL Learners’ Attributions for Success and Failure in Speaking English
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Keywords:
Attribution theory, success and failure, EFL learners, speaking skillAbstract
This study aims to investigate Turkish EFL learners’ attributions for success and failure in speaking English, and to find out whether gender and department variables exert any impact on their attributions. The attributions were analyzed and compared in terms of the four dimensions: locus of causality, external control, stability and personal control. The data were gathered through Causal Dimensions Scale adapted to Turkish by Koçyiğit (2011). The sample consisted of 104 tertiary EFL students studying one-year-long English in the preparatory program of a state university. Descriptive statistics were utilized to analyze the emergent data as well as independent samples T-tests and ANOVA to test significance between/among the variables. The results indicated that personal controllability and internal reasons—a lot more apparent in attributions for success than for failure though—were the two leading factors which were ascribed to both success and failure in speaking English. In addition, the students’ attributions for failure tended to be less stable and more externally controllable in comparison to success. The gender variable had no significant effect on attributions for success and failure. With reference to the department variable, a significant difference was observed not in the attributions for success but those for failure, and only between English language teaching and Civil aviation management departments, in terms of locus of causality dimension.
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