Abstract

With the progress of educational philosophy and the development of pedagogy, the focus of teaching has shifted from the teacher to students. Students are encouraged to take an active part in the learning and are in a more and more important position in learning process. Therefore, students’ participation has increasingly become the concern of many researchers. At the end of the twentieth century, the concept of student engagement emerged and has evolved in the field of western education. However, different scholars have different definitions of student engagement. In 2004, Fredricks, Blumenfeld and Paris re-explain this educational concept and define it as having three constituent parts: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement, which is currently the most widely accepted definition of student engagement.

In this paper, the author uses the definition of student engagement proposed by Fredricks et al. as the theoretical framework, in order to survey the current condition of undergraduate English majors’ class engagement and explore how it correlates with core course score. The three research questions of this paper are: (1) what is the current situation of undergraduate English majors’ class engagement? (2) is there any correlation between English majors’ class engagement and their core course score? (3) if correlation exists, does it change over time? This paper mainly adopts questionnaire and SPSS 21.0 as research tools, with 168 junior and senior English majors from the School of Foreign Languages, Soochow University as research subjects.

Through data analysis, the study finds out that: (1) the current situation of English majors’ engagement is positive, with the three constituent parts of engagement all at a high level; (2) for English majors, behavioral engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement in class all correlate with core course score positively; (3) the correlation between English majors’ class engagement and core course score would change over time：behavioral engagement and cognitive engagement remain correlated with core course score positively, but the degree of correlation is getting smaller; the correlation between emotional engagement and core course score disappears.

Based on the research findings, this paper puts forward some suggestions for teachers and students. For teachers, they should recognize students as key players in the learning process, encourage students to engage in class activities and attach importance to students’ learning strategies. Besides, they can try to change their traditional teaching methods and create a harmonious classroom atmosphere, which in turn may help students to reduce negative emotions. As for English majors, they must at first be aware of the significance of class engagement to learning achievement and hold positive attitudes and emotions towards class learning. Furthermore, they are supposed to form and improve their own learning strategies, because a suitable mode would increase learning efficiency and help them achieve learning goals.

Key words: student engagement, class engagement, English majors, core course score

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

1.1 Background of the Study-1

1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study-2

1.3 Structure of the Thesis-2

Chapter 2 Literature Review-4

2.1 Student Engagement-4

2.1.1 Definition of Behavioral Engagement-5

2.1.2 Definition of Emotional Engagement-5

2.1.3 Definition of Cognitive Engagement-5

2.2 Measurement of Student Engagement-5

2.3 Core Course: Comprehensive English-6

2.4 Review of Previous Studies-7

Chapter 3 Research Design-9

3.1 Research Questions-9

3.2 Hypotheses-9

3.3 Research Subjects-9

3.4 Instrument-10

3.5 Data Collection-11

3.6 Data Processing-13

Chapter 4 Data Results-14

4.1 Current Situation of English Majors’ Class Engagement-14

4.2 Correlation between Class Engagement and Core Course Score-14

4.3 Change of Correlation-16

Chapter 5 Conclusion-19

5.1 Major Findings-19

5.2 Implications-20

5.2.1 Implications for Teachers-20

5.2.2 Implications for Students-20

5.3 Limitations and Suggestions-21

References-23

Appendix-25

文献综述报告-27