Turkish EFL Learners’ Attributions for Success and Failure in Speaking English

Year 2017, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 39 - 47, 15.12.2017

Yusuf Demir

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Attribution theory, success and failure, EFL learners, speaking skill

References

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