Chapter 1 Intr oduction
1.1 Research Background
In the current education system in China, English is a compulsory course in compulsoryeducation. However, English learning has been a major obstacle to students. Therefore, how tohelp students overcome learning difficulties and promote their English learning has become oneof the most important teaching tasks at present.There are many factors that influence English learning, and family background is one ofthe most important factors that cannot be ignored, and this is because the junior middle schoolstudents are in the transition period from dependence to independence, from passivity topositivity. They can be influenced by the family factors greatly. A lot of examples show thatdifferent family leads to children’s differences in English scores, and a large number of studieshave confirmed the impact of family factors on students’ English performance (Burstall, 1975;Zhao Yezhu, 2000; Zou Weicheng, 2005；Kim, Curby and Winsler (2014); Penjak and Karnincic,2015). However, few scholars have ever studied the way in which family factors influencestudents’ English achievement. We speculate that family factors may account greatly for theindividual differences among learners, which are closely related to their English achievementaccording to a large number of studies. Therefore, this research attempts to explore the specificpath along which family factors affect students' English learning, with focus on their influenceon individual students’ learning behavior.
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1.2 Research Significance
On the one hand, this paper has certain theoretical significance; it mainly discusses howfamily factors affect English achievement through the students’ individual differences. Thisstudy can reveal the working mechanism of students’ family factors on English achievement. Onthe basis of theoretical research and empirical research, it is hoped to put forward a constructivereference framework for English teachers in their teaching, and hopefully enrich the theory of EFL in China.On the other hand, it is of great practical significance to study the influence of familyfactors on students’ English learning. Firstly, it will help people raise their awareness of therelationship between family factors and English learning, and hence understand the importanceof family education and promote the cooperation between home and school. More importantly, itmight arouse the attention of both the teachers and the parents to individual differences’influence on students’ English achievement, such as their English learning motivation, learningstrategies and so on, which will provide a powerful guarantee for English education. Thirdly, ifwe can better understand the relationship among the students’ English achievement, theirindividual differences and family factors, it will be helpful for us to stimulate the students’English learning motivation and cultivate their learning strategies and beliefs with support fromboth families and schools.
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Chapter 2 Literatur e Review
2.1 Definition of Related Concepts
The “family factors” is a concept of vague and broad meaning. As for the definition offamily factors, the domestic and foreign scholars have not given consistent views. According toZhao Yezhu (2000, pp. 30-36), family factors include residence, atmosphere of family, parents’occupations, educational background and family economic condition. Robert E (2004, pp.102-105) considers that students have learned much acknowledge, such as language, beliefs,behavior and attitude, and students’ cultural background can be affected by nationality, socialeconomic status, race, sex and so on, all these factors belong to family factors. In this paper,family factors include parents’ occupation, parents’ attitude toward children’s English learning,parenting style and family economic condition.Individual differences were broadly defined by Dornyei (2005, pp. 4) as “dimensions ofenduring personal characteristics that are assumed to apply to everybody and on which peoplediffer by degree. Or, in other words, they concern stable and systematic deviations from anormative blueprint”. IDs are essential parts of the study of language acquisition. IDs mainlyinclude learning beliefs, learning motivation, learning strategies, learning style, personality andanxiety (Dornyei, 2005; Ellis, 2004).
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2.2 Related Studies concerning the Influence of Family Factors on English Learning
Specific studies abroad on the effect of familial factors on learner’s scholasticachievements may be traced back to the 1970s. F. Galton (1874) studied the influence ofparents’ occupations on the scholastic achievement of learners. In the early 30s in the 20thcentury, scholars from more countries have realized there is the strong relationship betweenscholastic achievements and social environment. Since the 40s and 50s in 20th century, therelationship between learners’ education achievements and social environment or family factorsattracted more scholars’ attention. As for family factors’ effect on learners’ foreign languageachievements, overseas researchers began to make detailed studies in the 1970s. However, thereare still so sparse and immature studies so far.Some researches only touch upon the relationship between family economic condition andforeign language achievement. Skehan (1990) made a research on the correlation betweenfamily factors and language achievement in Bristol high school. He believed that compared withstudents of low income families, those from middle income families have higher languageachievement. Oller and Eilers (2002) investigated English achievement of children inkindergarten, the second grade and the fifth grade in Miami city. The result showed that familysocial economic status had positive impact on children’s English achievement, which confirmedSkehan’s view. By researching the English learning situation of American immigrant children,Kim, Curby and Winsler (2014) examined the speed with which low-income DLLs (duallanguage learners) in Miami acquired oral English proficiency. The result indicated that parents’educational background and family economic condition were positively related to children’sEnglish achievement.
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Chapter 3 Research Design and Methodology....... 19
3.1 Research Questions ..... 19
3.2 Research Design .......... 19
3.3 Methodology ............... 19
3.3.1 Participants ....... 19
3.3.2 Research Instruments.... 20
3.3.3 Data Collection Procedure........ 24
3.3.4 Data Analysis.... 24
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion............... 25
4.1 The Influence of Family Factors on Junior Middle School Students’ IDs ...... 25
4.2 The Influence of Individual Differences on Junior Middle School Students’ English LearningAchievement.......... 31
4.3 The Influence of Family Factors on Junior Middle School Students’ English Achievement.............. 33
4.4 The Influence of Family Factors on Junior Middle School Students’ English Achievement via IDs.......35
4.5 Discussion ....... 36
Chapter 5 Conclusion and Implications..... 405.1 Conclusion....... 40
5.2 Implications..... 40
5.3 Limitations of the Research..... 42
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 The Influen ce of Family Factors on Junior Middle School Students’ IDs
Multiple linear regression was conducted to determine the best linear combination ofparents’ occupation, parents’ educational background, parents’ attitude toward children’s Englishlearning, parenting style, family economic condition and learning beliefs for predicting theinfluence of students’ family factors on learning beliefs. In this analysis, residuals have normaldistribution, predicated variables and residuals have non-linear correlation (Figure 4-1). Themeans, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients could be found in Table 1. Theregression method of “enter” showed that parents’ educational background and parenting stylepredicted students’ learning beliefs, F(5,136) = 3.454., P<0.05. Parenting style can contribute tothe prediction(β=0.258，P< 0.05) (Table 4-2). The Beta value of parents’ education backgroundis 0.276, which does not reach significant level (t=1.943, df=1362, P﹥0.05).The Beta value ofparents’ occupation is -0.046, which does not reach significant level (t=-0.354, df=1361, P﹥0.05). The Beta value of parents’ attitude toward children’s English learning is -0.020, whichdoes not reach significant level (t=-0.208, df=1363, P﹥0.05). The Beta value of family economiccondition is -0.049, which does not reach significant level (t=-0.515, df=1365, P﹥0.05). It meansparents’ education background, parents’ occupation, parents’ attitude toward children’s Englishlearning and family economic condition have no obvious influence on the students’ learningbeliefs. The R square value was 0.071, which indicated that 7.1％of the variance in students’English learning beliefs was explained by the model. The standardized regression formulation islearning beliefs = 0.276 × parents’ educational background + 0.258 × parenting style-0.084 ×parents’ occupation-0.043 × parents' attitudes toward children’s English learning-0.110 ×family economic condition.
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Conclusion
Based on the quantitative statistics, some tentative conclusions can be drawn as follows:,(1) Family factors can indirectly influence the students’ English achievement via individualdifferences. Among them, parents’ educational background and parenting style can positivelyaffect students’ English achievement via learning strategies, while family economic conditioncan negatively affect students’ English achievement via learning strategies.(2) Family factors can also directly affect students’ English achievement, in particular,parents’ educational factors and parents’ attitude toward children’s English learning can bothdirectly affect students’ English achievement.The present research on the influence of family factors on English learning via individualdifferences provides us with a clear influencing path from a new perspective. According to theabove findings, it’s also possible to give a conclusion and some implications to families, schools,students and further study.
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References (abbreviated)
