Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation as the Predictors of Use of Oral Communication Strategies in EFL Contexts

Hamideh Abbasi,Mania Nosratinia

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.7n.4p.14

Abstract

The present study aspired to systematically investigate the relationship among EFL learners’ Self-Regulation (SR), Self-Efficacy (SE), and their Use of Oral Communication Strategies (UOCS). To this end, 367 male and female undergraduate students, within the age range of 20 to 30 (Mage = 25) were selected based on convenience sampling strategy. They were asked to fill in three questionnaires, namely the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (Nakatani, 2006), the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991), and the SE Questionnaire (Sherer, Maddux, Mercadante, Prentice-Dunn, Jacobs, & Rogers, 1982). Both parametric and non-parametric formulas were conducted to inspect the significance of the relationships. The results revealed that there was a significant and positive correlation between SR and UOCS, SE and UOCS, and SE and SR. Furthermore, a regression analysis revealed that only SR makes a strong statistically significant unique contribution to predicting UOCS (β = 0.682, t = 15.3, p = 0.0005). SE did not turn out to be a significant predictor of UOCS scores. The study concludes with a discussion on the obtained results followed by presenting some implications for EFL teachers, learners, and syllabus designers.

Highlights

This study was an attempt to systematically inspect the way self-efficacy, self-regulation, and use of oral communication strategies, as major factors in learning (Luszczynska, Gutiérrez-Doña, & Schwarzer, 2005; Skantze, 2005), interact with one another
As EFL learners are always faced with a myriad of limitations when it comes to oral second language (L2) production, affecting the accuracy and fluency of the spoken L2 production (Mitchell & Myles, 2004), techniques and strategies have been in use which enable the L2 speakers to compensate for the limitations they suffer (Ellis, 2008; Nakatani, 2005)
Regardless of the group to which each strategy belongs, they are all the components of the mental construct which, by nature, correlates with and is affected by the unique cognitive, metacognitive, and personality characteristics of each single individual (Fahim & Zaker, 2014; Marashi & Moghaddam, 2014). Many of these internal factors are subject to change and manipulation (Fahim & Zaker, 2014; Zaker, 2016a), making it reasonable to attempt to develop and strengthen a construct indirectly and through other related constructs. It might enhance our knowledge of oral communication strategies and provide us with the chance to indirectly manipulate it if we study the way this construct interacts with other constructs

Summary

Introduction

This study was an attempt to systematically inspect the way self-efficacy, self-regulation, and use of oral communication strategies, as major factors in learning (Luszczynska, Gutiérrez-Doña, & Schwarzer, 2005; Skantze, 2005), interact with one another. It is no longer unbeknownst to TEFL experts and scholars that the main function of language is to enable individuals to communicate ideas and information with other speakers of the language while highlighting comprehensibility and clarity (Lightbown & Spada, 2013; Mitchell & Myles, 2004). This awareness has been contemporaneous with the growing endorsement of the social constructivist theory which favors the active construction of language competence through a social and experiential process, highlighting the role of active and planned communication (Ashton-Hay, 2006; Zaker, 2016a, 2016b). These strategies help EFL learners obviate communicative problems (Bialystok, 1990; Dörnyei, 1995)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion