TY - JOUR T1 - University Students’ Perceptions of Their Failures in Learning English as a Foreign Language TT - University Students’ Perceptions of Their Failures in Learning English as a Foreign Language AU - Yılmaz, Figen AU - Kahyalar, Eda PY - 2017 DA - December JF - International Journal of Languages' Education and Teaching JO - IJLET PB - Bilim Eğitim Kültür Akademi Derneği WT - DergiPark SN - 2148-2705 SP - 440 EP - 449 VL - 5 IS - 4 LA - en AB - The main purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate university students' perceived failure attributions in learning English as a foreign language at a preparatory school. The participants were 118 undergraduate students who failed at the end of a preparatory year and had to attend the repeat program. Each participant was asked to write about their perceived causes of failure in learning English. Students' responses were analyzed based on Weiner's (1983, 1985) Attribution Theory, and the emerging themes were linked to the locus of control, stability and controllability dimensions. The qualitative nature of the study provided in-depth information about the content of each dimension. The results suggest that students mostly attributed their academic failure in learning English to external and uncontrollable factors, which are in line with the findings of similar studies conducted in other university settings. KW - Attribution theory KW - preparatory class KW - foreign language learning KW - failure attributions CR - 1. Augoustinos, M. (2005). Social cognition : An integrated introduction. New Delhi: Sage Publication. CR - 2. Banks, M. & Woolfson, L. (2008). Why do students think they fail? The relationship between attributions and academic self-perceptions. British Journal of Special Education, 35(1), 49-56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8578.2008.00360.x CR - 3. Boruchovitch, E. (2004). A study of causal attributions for success and failure in mathematics among Brazilian students. Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 38(1), 53-60. Retrieved from www.psicorip.org/Resumos/PerP/RIP/RIP036a0/RIP03807. CR - 4. Brown, R. A., Gray, R. R., & Ferrara, M. S. (2005). Attributions for personality achievement outcomes among Japanese, Chinese, and Turkish university students. Information and Communication Studies, 33, 1-13. CR - 5. Bruning, R. H., Schraw, G. J., Nordby, M. M. & Ronning, R. R. (2004). Cognitive Psychology and Instruction (Fourth edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Merrill Prentice Hall. CR - 6. Dong, Y., Stupnisky, R. H. & Berry, J. C. (2013). Multiple causal attributions: An investigation of college students learning a foreign language. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 28 (4), 1587-1602. CR - 7. Genç, G. (2016). Attributions to success and failure in English language learning: The effects of gender, age and perceived success. European Journal of Education Studies, 2 (12), 25-43. Available at www.oapub.org/edu UR - http://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ijlet/issue//1425839 L1 - http://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/3684725 ER -