Scale Development and Causal-Effect Studies of Self-Regulation in English Language Learning

[[abstract]]Self-regulation has become a widely-discussed subject in education for it facilitates learners’ ability to master their own learning. The study aims to develop a solid measurement scale for learners’ self-regulatory capacity in English language learning in order to investigate each individual learner’s self-regulatory capacity for pedagogical application; and to further explore the causal-effect relationships of learners’ self-regulatory capacity with gender, grade-level, expectancy-value motivational strength, and self-perceived English proficiency. An item pool for the self-regulatory capacity in English learning scale (SRClang) was first developed, and 179 first-year high school students participated in the pilot study. The result of the pilot study showed that the construct of self-regulation in English language learning appeared to be unidimensional. The questionnaire adopted in the formal study included the participants’ background information, the revised SRClang scale, and the choice motivation measure. A total of 528 first-year and second-year high school students were recruited in the formal study. Factor analysis was adopted to explore the underlying traits of self-regulation in English learning; multiple regression was operated to investigate the predictability of self-regulation in self-perceived language proficiency; and a 3-way MANOVA was computed to inspect the causal-effect relationships among gender, grade-level, motivational strength, self-perceived language proficiency, and self-regulation. The findings suggest that the underlying construct of self-regulation in English learning is unidimensional, which confirmed the result of the pilot study. The decisive factor of human’s volition solely commands his self-regulatory capacity in the domain of second language learning. Learners’ self-regulation was proven to positively predict their self-perceived language proficiency. Furthermore, all gender, grade-level, and motivational strength showed significant main effect with self-perceived language proficiency, and significant interaction effect with self-regulation. With the development of the SRClang scale and the findings of the causal-effect studies, it is hoped that EFL teachers can have a clearer view on how to aid the learners to empower their learning performance, and eventually master their own learning.