ارتباط بین خودکار آمدی، باور استقلال و موفقیت در درس زبان انگلیسی در دانشجویان دانشگاه علوم پزشکی

the construct of self-efficacy has received increasing attention in research over the past two decades. many studies have been carried out 1.3 significance of the study this study has pedagogical implications since improving students’ self- efficacy and autonomy is important for promoting actual performance on classroom academic tasks. in academic settings, it has been shown that self-efficacy beliefs are related to academic performance and academic persistence (multon, brown, & lent, 1991). both self-efficacy and learner autonomy are related to academic success (tilfarlioglu, & ciftic, 2011). findings give insight to teachers to increase students’ strength of self-efficacy and autonomy beliefs which will ultimately improve academic performances. as teaching and learning are an integral part of education, thus, an investigation of learners’ self-efficacy beliefs and learner autonomy may make significant contributions to both the teaching and learning processes. this study gives language teachers and learners an opportunity to begin thinking about the psychological factors which affect learning a foreign language and academic achievement .teachers can try to improve the psychological factors for successful achievements of the learners. findings of the study will be beneficial to language teachers, researchers, and particularly learners themselves. it gives insight to teachers to increase students’ strength of self-efficacy and autonomy beliefs, which will ultimately improve their academic success. nurturing learners’ self-efficacy and development of autonomy beliefs affect academic successful achievement as teaching and learning are an integral part of education, thus, an investigation of learners’ self-efficacy may make significant contributions to both the teaching and learning processes 1.4 definition of the key terms the key terms used in this study are defined as follows: 1.4.1 self-efficacy self-efficacy in this study is defined as “the beliefs in ones capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (bandura, 1997, p. 3). 1.4.2 autonomy autonomy is defined as “the ability to take charge of ones own learning” (holec, 1981, p. 3). 1.4.3 english achievement english achievement in this study is defined as the student s’ marks on the final english examination of the semester that are used as the indication of english achievement. 1.4.4 esp english for specific purposes refer to the needs of learners in specific fields of study by focusing on the language (grammar, lexis, and register), skills, discourse and activities underlying the training being served (dudley-evans & st john, 1998). 1.4.5 emp emp is one of the branches of esp, english for (academic) medical purposes (dudley-evans & st john, 1998). 1.5 research questions and hypotheses the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between self-efficacy, autonomy and medical learners’english achievement. the study also tries to investigate any differences between iranian medical female and male learners with, regard to their autonomy belief. in light of the goals of the study, the following research questions were posed: q1. is there any significant relationship between medical students’ self-efficacy and their english achievement? q2. is there any significant relationship between medical students’ autonomy and their english achievement? q3. is there any significant difference between iranian medical female and male learners with regard to their autonomy? based on the above research questions, the following three null hypotheses were formulated: h01: there is no significant relationship between medical students’ self-efficacy and their english achievement. h02: there is no significant relationship between medical students’ autonomy and their english achievement. h03: there is no significant difference between iranian medical female and male learners with regard to their autonomy. 1.6 limitations of the study this study involved a small population of learners and this may affect the generalization of the findings. besides, the study was conducted at one university. accordingly, the replication with other populations might or might not support these results. moreover, the study quantitatively assesses the research questions which may generalize the underlying meaning. this quantitative study also does not evaluate the causal relationship. oneself efficacy in the educational settings. there are different definitions of self-efficacy performed by researcher and educators. bandura (1997, p. 3), the founder of self-efficacy, states that “it is the beliefs in ones capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments”. pajares (2005, p. 345) defines it as "learning how to persist when one does not succeed". by the same token, kornilova, kornilov and chumakova (2009, p.597) refer to self-efficacy as “individuals beliefs that affected on successfully academic task”. self-efficacy denotes a process “in which students sense of ability to perform a task influences their success, which in turn contributes to increased effort and persistence” (aliegro, 2006, p.18). one variable that has been found to influence academic performance in a number of settings is self-efficacy (multon, brown, & lent, 1991; chemers, hu, & garcia, 2001; lane & lane, 2001). self-efficacy beliefs are constructed from four fundamental sources of information: “performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states” (bandura, 1977, p. 200). bandura (1997) suggested that performance accomplishments are the most influential source of efficacy information, as they provide the most authentic evidence of an individual’s ability to successfully complete a task. schunk (1995) explained that students when engaged in activities are affected by personal (e.g., goal setting, information processing) and situational influences (rewards, feedbacks). following ellis (2008), individual differences are contributing in learners’ second language performances. learners with diverse backgrounds and achievements come to class attempting to be competent enough to learn l2 in terms of several aspects. learners with individual interests assign goal, direct and control learning process and the result is different performances in the same tasks. according to pajares (2003), self-beliefs are primary factors in learners’ learning, facing difficulties, and achievements. self-efficacy, the most influential self-belief, determines learner’s motivation to act (bandura, 1997). bandura (1986)states that efficacy conception defines one’s choice of activities, motivation and anxiety in executing a task. it is “people’s judgment of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances” (bandura, 1986, p. 391). citeing izadi (2012), believing in capabilities to accomplish a task, self-efficacious learners takes risk and adopts challenging tasks. delcourt and kinzie (1993) note that “perceived self-efficacy reflects an individual’s confidence in his or her ability to perform the behavior required to produce specific outcomes” (p. 36). similarly, dornyei and ushioda (2011) argue that individual beliefs in their abilities are central to their actions and attainments. in this regard, heidari, izadi and vahed ahmadian (2012) explored the possible relation between learners’ efficacy belief and vocabulary learning strategy use. assessing learners’ belief in their vocabulary development,the study indicated that learners highly believe that they achieve good results proving significant employment of vocabulary learning strategies. learners with higher faith in their abilities “show more motivation and engagement in the classroom and better academic performance” (ibid, p. 177). likewise, pajares and valiante (1997), testing writing self-efficacy, reported the contributive role of self-efficacy in predicting writing performances. in another study, mills, pajares and herron (2006) examined self-efficacy and anxiety in relation to learners’ reading and listening performances. while reading anxiety was not related to french reading proficiency, learners’ efficacy in their reading skill resulted in astonishing reading accomplishments. on the other way around, female self-efficacious listeners revealed significant results in listening performances, while both female and male anxious listeners demonstrated similar effects with regard to their listening tasks. bandura (1997) stated “self-efficacious learners, expressing faith in their capabilities, show longer persistence in face of difficulties”( p. 102). following perseverance, learners need to control and direct their learning. it’s vital that learners take the responsibility of their own learning, assign goal and organize learning processes, to be named autonomous. autonomy roots in holec’s (1981) theorization which denotes “the capacity to take charge of one’s learning … to have and to hold the responsibility for all decisions concerning all aspects of this learning, … determining objectives, defining the contents and progressions, selecting methods and techniques to be used, monitoring the procedures of acquisition, and evaluating what has been acquired” (p. 3). according to lazar (2013, p. 461), autonomous learners “learn by doing, as they plan and implement aspects of the learning process, and by reflecting upon their progress through peer or self-assessment”. autonomous learners make decision about their learning which entails learning how to learn. it is capacity for critical reflection, decision-making and independent action. little (1999) assumed the learners will advance a particular kind of psychological relation to the process and content of their learning. autonomous learners intend to uphold effective learning and to promote autonomous learners, better prepared to involve actively and responsibly in their communities. xhaferi and xhaferi (2011) analyzed learners’ diary on their capacity to monitor their own learning. they reported that autonomy is a key factor in learners participation and achievements. in his review, lazar (2013) denotes that romanian students have high autonomy in their abilities to speak in a foreign language. assessing the effect of autonomy in relation to learners vocabulary size and retention, dam and legenhausen (1996) report that promoting learner autonomy is a key indicator in learning. dafei (2007) investigated an exploration of the relationship between learner autonomy and english proficiency. the results of the study indicated that the students’ english proficiency was significantly and positively related to their autonomy. mineish (2010) investigated east asian efl learners autonomous learning, learner perception of autonomy and portfolio development: in the case of educational contexts in japan. the finding showed that learners, autonomy and academic success are interrelated. nunan (1995) also conducted a project to investigate the effect of an autonomous learning environment on learners learning process for over a twelve-week period. during this process learners took part in a language designed with different modes such as co-operative learning, whole class work, pair and group work, learning beyond the classroom and individualized learning. at the end of this process, several changes were observed in students learning behaviors. they became more communicative than before, preferred a more process-oriented approach to language learning rather than a product-oriented approach and began to take the control of their own learning. also, they became more successful in their english courses than before. in short, it is clear from the study that autonomous learning environment affects students learning in a positive way. the present study is an attempt to investigate whether there is any significant relationship between self-efficacy and autonomy beliefs and learners’ english achievement. another aim of this research is to find out whether there is any significant difference between iranian medical female and male students with regard to autonomy. this study will help language teachers and researchers to recognize the roles that learners’ personal factors paly in their academic achievement. 1.2 statement of the problem and purpose of the study most of the studies mentioned above have proved that self-efficacy and autonomy beliefs have crucial role in academic achievement. tilfarlioglu and ciftic (2011) investigated on supporting self-efficacy and learner autonomy in relation to academic success in efl classrooms .the result showed there is a positive correlation between self-efficacy and learner autonomy on academic success. so, learners are expected to be able to control and direct their learning process. meanwhile, teachers and instructors must pay enough attention to these personal traits such as self-efficacy and autonomy beliefs to help the learners become successful in language learning. communicating in english is one of the necessities with which medical students have always been faced. reading original texts and using english terms are indispensible part of medical studies and their prospective careers. fostering english language unquestionably uplifts english for medical purposes (emp) learners’ functioning and performances. lack of studies concerning emp learners’ language improvement stimulates this study to delve into the possible association between efficacy beliefs and autonomy with emp learners’ language attainments. since, there is no study on the relationship between emp learners, self-efficacy, autonomy beliefs and their english achievement in iran, this study aims to investigate whether there is any significant relationship between emp learners, self-efficacy, autonomy beliefs and their english achievement. furthermore, the study tries to find out whether there is any significant difference between iranian medical female and male students with regard to their autonomy beliefs. the findings will shed light on the significance of incorporating these psychological constructs in teaching and learning english as a second or foreign language.