PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND ITS INFLUENCING FACTORS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS

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Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 255-262

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.34 255

P

SYCHOLOGICAL

C

APITAL AND ITS

I

NFLUENCING

F

ACTORS OF

E

NGLISH

L

EARNERS

Min Zhang, XiaoLu Mu*

Abstract

The effects of psychological capital of English learners on their English proficiency have not yet been fully revealed. This paper fully analyzes the correlations between English learning strategies and the four influencing factors of psychological capital, namely, self-efficacy, resiliency, hope and optimism, and their impacts on English performance. A group of college students were selected from southeastern China’s

Zhejiang Province to receive a questionnaire survey. The survey data were subjected to statistical analysis and regression analysis. During the analysis, the four influencing factors were taken as dependent variables. The results show that English performance is positively correlated with both psychological capital and learning strategies; each influencing factor of psychological capital has a predictive effect on learning strategies and English performance. The research findings provide guidance to English learners in China on how to improve English proficiency through psychological adjustments.

Key words: Psychological Capital, Academic Performance, Learning Strategy, Influencing

Factors, Questionnaire Survey.

Received: 06-02-19 | Accepted: 13-07-19

INTRODUCTION

With the introduction of psychology in the education field, studies on the application of positive psychology and emotions in the teaching effect of colleges and universities has become a hot topic (Mohammadi, 2014). English teaching is a key bottleneck in the teaching of colleges and universities in China, and the application of positive psychology in English teaching has become a key direction for the English teaching to seek breakthroughs (Almond, 2013). Psychological capital is a concentrated expression of positive psychological power, and each person has different psychological capital status. Psychological capital was first applied in the fields of economics and human resources. In recent years, psychological capital has been applied to the field of English teaching as a typical example of positive psychology (Gale,

Beihua University, Jilin 132013, China. E-Mail: 1062868809@qq.com

Cooper, Deary et al., 2014; Avey, Luthans, F., & Youssef, 2010).

Studies on the correlation between

psychological capital and English teaching effect has already achieved fruitful results: Some scholars compiled positive psychological capital questionnaires in 2010 to realize quantification of psychological capital status in the form of questionnaire survey, and it has been widely recognized by scholars in the industry; Research findings show that psychological capital has negative correlations with learning burnout and learning anxiety, and it has a positive correlation with the academic performance; statistics indicate that English learners with higher psychological capital level have better academic performance in English (Li & Meng, 2015; Mehra & Wah, 1998); In addition, studies also show that psychological capital has a promotive effect on the adolescents’ healthy psychology and their subjective happiness feelings (Marsella, 2010). The positive role of psychological capital in promoting the effect of English teaching has

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MIN ZHANG,XIAOLU MU 256

been self-evident, but the existing studies lack the research on the specific correlation between the various integration factors of psychological capital and the academic performance.

Based on the correlations between the four influencing factors of psychological capital: Self-efficacy, resiliency, hope and optimism, and the learning strategies, this paper further analyzes the correlations between the four influencing factors and the academic performance. This study uses questionnaires to conduct a random survey of college students in Zhejiang Province, and adopts data statistics, correlation analysis, regression analysis and other methods to

analyze the survey data. With English

performance as the adjustment target, English learning strategy as the evaluation indicator, and the influencing factors of psychological capital as the dependent variables, this paper analyzes and concludes the relationships between the three, and summarizes the specific adjustment effects of the four influencing factors of psychological capital on the academic performance. This study has a positive effect on guiding the application of psychological capital in English teaching.

OVERVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL, LEARNING STRATEGIES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Psychological capital

Psychological capital was first proposed by foreign economists in 1997, it refers to the relatively stable psychological tendency of individuals formed in their lives. With the development of positive psychology and other theories, the psychological capital has been

redefined as a collection of positive

psychological states in individuals, mainly including four elements of optimism, hope, resiliency and self-efficacy. Psychological capital is the embodiment of an individual's core competitiveness, and it is the psychological quality that employees in various industries should possess (Carmeli, 2007; Luthans, Avey, & Patera, 2008).

Psychological capital has been introduced into the education field in recent years. Its four elements can be simply explained as: optimism, the student can face learning and life with a positive attitude, and can actively find reasons for failure or success; hope, the student has a clear sense of purpose in learning and adjusts the learning method in a timely manner to

achieve the goal; resiliency, the student can maintain learning motivation when facing learning difficulties or academic pressure, and can learn from experience and grow up after frustration; self-efficacy, the student has the confidence to believe that he/she can succeed when facing academic challenges. Psychological capital differs among individual students. It is mainly influenced by the education level, age, and family education of the learner. The higher the education level, the older the age, and the better the family education, the higher the psychological capital level of the learner.

This paper uses the Positive Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PPCQ) compiled by Zhang Kuo to quantitatively evaluate the psychological capital (Wu, Xie, & Guo, 2015). An excerpt of the psychological capital questionnaire is shown in Table 1. The content of the questionnaire was graded according to the 5-point Likert scale, and higher score indicates higher degree of conformity, lower score indicates lower degree of conformity (Shin, Smyth, Ukimura et al., 2018).

Table 1.

Positive Psychological Capital

Questionnaire (PPCQ)

Order Question Ranking

1 Many people appreciate my talents 1,2,3,4,5

2 My opinions and abilities are more

than ordinary people 1,2,3,4,5

3 I have confidence in my ability 1,2,3,4,5

4 I always do a great job. 1,2,3,4,5

5 A bad experience will make me

depressed for a long time. 1,2,3,4,5

6 I will calmly seek a solution when I

encounter difficulties. 1,2,3,4,5

7 I am willing to take on difficult and

challenging work. 1,2,3,4,5

8 In the face of adversity, I will try

different strategies. 1,2,3,4,5

9 I actively study and work to

achieve my dreams. 1,2,3,4,5

10 I am working hard to achieve my

goals. 1,2,3,4,5

11 I pursue my goals with confidence. 1,2,3,4,5

12 I have a certain plan for my own

study and life. 1,2,3,4,5

13 I know exactly what kind of life I

want. 1,2,3,4,5

14 I don't know what my life goal is. 1,2,3,4,5

Learning strategies and academic performance

Learning strategies

English learning strategies refer to all kinds of strategies that contribute to English learning, including relatively systematic learning methods,

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PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND ITS INFLUENCING FACTORS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS 257

measures and adjustment methods adopted by the learners for the purpose of achieving certain learning goals and improving learning quality and efficiency during specific English learning activities. English learning strategies mainly include five aspects of memory strategy, cognitive strategy, compensation strategy, affective strategy and social strategy (Roche & Harrington, 2013).

Table 2.

Strategy Inventory for Language

Learning (SILL)

Order Question Ranking

1

I will think about the connection between the new knowledge I have

learned in English and my existing knowledge.

1,2,3,4,5

2

In order to remember new words, I try to use new words to make

sentences.

1,2,3,4,5

3

I write down the new words on the card to better remember the

words.

1,2,3,4,5

4 I try to speak English like a native

English speaker. 1,2,3,4,5

5 I often practice the pronunciation

of English. 1,2,3,4,5

6 I use the English words I have

mastered in a variety of ways. 1,2,3,4,5

7

When I encounter a new word, I usually think about which words

correspond to Chinese.

1,2,3,4,5

8 I would like to summarize the

English content I heard or read. 1,2,3,4,5

9

When reading English articles, I will not check the meaning of each new

word.

1,2,3,4,5

10

If I can't think of an accurate word to express, I use a word that is

close to it.

1,2,3,4,5

11 I improve my English by realizing

my mistakes. 1,2,3,4,5

12 When someone speaks English, my

attention is very concentrated. 1,2,3,4,5

13 Whenever I make progress in

learning English, I reward myself. 1,2,3,4,5

14 When I speak English, I ask others

to correct my mistakes. 1,2,3,4,5

15 I often ask for help from an English

teacher. 1,2,3,4,5

Academic performance

Academic performance not only includes the student's learning performance, but also refers to the student's acquisition of knowledge in the learning process and the changes in the level of ideological quality in the learning process. Academic performance is an important criterion for examining students' learning situation and measuring the quality of education (Noroozian

Lotfi, Gassemzadeh et al., 2002; Van Den Hurk, Wolfhagen, Dolmans et al., 1999).

The implementation of learning strategies is closely related to the academic performance of students. The better the students apply the learning strategies, the better their academic performance. The learning strategies can be qualitatively measured by the learning strategy scale, so it can be used as an indicator for the

quantitative evaluation of academic

performance. The quantitative evaluation of learning strategies mainly refers to the SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) table proposed by Rebecca Oxford in 1990. Table 2 shows part of the SILL, and the rating of the questionnaire is the same as Table 1 (Fazeli, 2012).

EMPIRICAL EXPERIMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Design of the empirical experiment

A total of 500 sophomores and first-year postgraduates from a university in Zhejiang Province were selected to participate in the

empirical experiment. SILL and PPCQ

questionnaires were sent to the respondents and they were asked to choose the scores suit themselves best. In the returned questionnaires, 240 valid questionnaires were from the sophomores and 238 valid questionnaires were from the first-year postgraduates, and the statistical analysis of the questionnaires was conducted using SPSS 24.0.

Figure 1

.

Differences in psychological capital

based on grade

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Table 3.

Correlation between English learning strategy and psychological capital

Correlation Self-efficacy Resiliency Hope Optimism Psychological capital Memory strategy 0.396** 0.143** 0.346** 0.345** 0.407**

Cognitive strategy 0.424** 0.173** 0.404** 0.371** 0.430**

Compensation strategy 0.329** 0.160** 0.363** 0.322** 0.365**

Affective strategy 0.372** 0.085** 0.315** 0.302** 0.341**

Social strategy 0.382** 0.130** 0.382** 0.363** 0.395**

Learning strategies 0.491** 0.183** 0.501** 0.445** 0.501**

Correlation between psychological capital and learning strategies

Psychological capital of college English learners

The average scores of the four influencing factors (self-efficacy, resiliency, hope and optimism) of psychological capital of the respondents are shown in Figure 1.

It can be seen from the figure that the survey scores of the four influencing factors of the postgraduates’ psychological capital are higher than those of the sophomores. It indicates that the growth of English learning years is conducive to the accumulation of students' psychological capital. At the same time, for the postgraduate English learners, after the postgraduate entrance examination, they have accumulated more confidence in learning, and their learning pressure is smaller, so they exhibit better psychological capital status.

Application situation of college English learners’ learning strategies

The application situation of the learning strategies of the respondents was obtained through statistics, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

.

Differences in learning strategies

based on grade

It can be seen from the figure that in terms of the five learning strategies, the scores of the application situation of higher grade English learners are better than those of lower grade English learners, meanwhile the total average scores of the learning strategies of the respondents were 3.01 and 2.74 respectively, and the postgraduates’ score is higher than the sophomores’ score.

Correlations between psychological capital and learning strategies

SPSS 24.0 was adopted to conduct correlation analysis on the data of psychological capital scores and learning strategy scores, as shown in Table 3.

According to the correlation coefficients in Table 3, it can be seen that there are positive correlations between various influencing factors of psychological capital and different learning strategies. After mastering different learning strategies, students can better use their skills to learn English, so that they can have confidence in English learning and maintain an optimistic and positive attitude towards English learning during study planning and other activities.

Regression analysis of psychological capital and academic performance

According to the English test scores of the previous semester, the sophomore respondents were divided into several groups, those in the top 20% were classified as high English score group, those in the middle 50% were classified as medium English score group, and those in the bottom 30% were classified as low English score group. The survey results of each group were taken as samples of the regression analysis. The four influencing factors of psychological capital were taken as the independent variables, and the English learning strategies were taken as the dependent variables to predict and analyze the academic performance.

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Table 4.

Regression analysis with memory strategy as dependent variable

Moderator Variable Predict Variable R R2 _Stg.(p) _B _t

High English score group

Self-efficacy,

0.608 0.369 0.001

-0.041 -0.275

Resiliency 0.624 -3.663**

Hope 0.399 -1.8476

Optimism 1.497 3.771***

Medium English score group

Self-efficacy,

0.430 0.185 0.003

0.380 2.576*

Resiliency 0.065 0.421

Hope 0.506 3.026**

Optimism -0.600 -1.641

Low English score group

Self-efficacy,

0.410 0.168 0.005

0.150 0.802

Resiliency -0.133 -0.613

Hope 0.097 0.388

Optimism 0.233 0.451

Table 5.

Regression analysis with cognitive strategy as dependent variable

Self-efficacy,

0.663 0.436 0.002

0.075 0.457

Resiliency -0.645 -3.485**

Hope -0.284 -1.214

Optimism 1.474 3.405**

Self-efficacy,

0.411 0.174 0.001

0.275 3.020

Hope 0.239 1.532

Optimism -0.126 -0.375

Self-efficacy,

0.289 0.088 0.136

0.160 0.877

Hope 0.051 0.212

Optimism 0.02 0.003

Memory strategy

The p-values of the high-score group, medium-score group, low-score group were all less than 0.01, the regression effect is significant, indicating that the significant relationship between memory strategy and psychological capital has a predictive effect on academic performance.

Cognitive strategy

The p-values of the high-score group and the medium-score group were both less than 0.001, the regression effect is significant, indicating that the significant relationship between cognitive strategy and psychological capital has

a predictive effect on the academic

performance. While for the low-score group, the p-value was 0.136 (p>0.01), indicating that the psychological capital has no predictive effect on academic performance.

Compensation strategy

The p-values of high-score group and

medium-score group were both less than 0.001, while the p-value of the low-score group was 0.078 (p>0.01), indicating that the predictive effect of the compensation strategy is consistent with that of the cognitive strategy.

Affective strategy and social strategy

From the data in Tables 7 and 8, it can be seen that the predictive effect of affective strategy and social strategy is consistent with that of cognitive strategy.

Relationship between the influencing factors of psychological capital and academic performance

According to the regression coefficients from Table 4 to Table 8 and the t-test of regression coefficients, we can further analyze the relationship between the factors affecting

psychological capital and the academic

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Table 6.

Regression analysis with compensation strategy as dependent variable

Self-efficacy,

0.515 0.265 0.004

0.107 0.525

Resiliency -0.723 -3.132**

Hope -0.495 -1.686

Self-efficacy,

0.341 0.118 0.002

0.055 0.260

Hope 0.401 1.682

Optimism -0.022 -0.041

Self-efficacy,

0.326 0.103 0.078

0.261 1.174

Hope 0.211 0.701

Optimism -0.195 -0.321

Table 7.

Regression analysis with affective strategy as dependent variable

Self-efficacy,

0.523 0.275 0.000

0.353 1.802

Resiliency -0.538 2.419*

Hope 0.003 0.012

Self-efficacy,

0.413 0.171 0.001

0.156 0.895

Hope -0.170 -0.854

Self-efficacy,

0.311 0.099 0.101

0.240 1.601

Hope 0.164 0.567

Optimism 0.051 -0.081

Table 8.

Regression analysis with social strategy as dependent variable

Self-efficacy,

0.613 0.367 0.000

0.305 1.502

Resiliency -0.585 -2.552*

Hope 0.105 0.372

Self-efficacy,

0.411 0.168 0.000

0.188 1.057

Hope -0.034 -0.171

Self-efficacy,

0.211 0.041 0.602

-0.113 -0.430

Hope -0.052 -0.161

Self-efficacy

There is a positive correlation between self-efficacy and academic performance. Self-self-efficacy can affect students' choice of learning strategies,

while students with better academic

performance are better at choosing learning

strategies to improve their academic

performance.

Resiliency

The resiliency of the high-score group has a

significant predictive effect on academic performance, while the resiliency of the medium-score and low-score groups has no predictive effect on academic performance, this result may be related to the negative psychology such as anxiety and impatience of the low-score group students when facing learning stress.

Hope

In terms of the memory strategy and cognitive strategy, the hope factor has a

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significant predictive effect on the academic performance, learners with higher psychological capital can better adjust their pressure and actively seek strategy and help to deal with the problems.

Optimism

The predictive effect of the optimism factor on the academic performance of high-score group students is better than that of the medium-score and low-score groups, indicating that the learners with better academic performance can better maintain an optimistic attitude during English learning which can

improve their learning efficiency and

effectiveness.

CONCLUSIONS

The research on the correlation between psychological capital and English learning effect has become a hot topic in the field of English teaching. This paper innovatively started from the four influencing factors of psychological capital to analyze the relationship between these influencing factors and the academic

performance. Using correlation analysis,

regression analysis and other methods, this paper studied the correlation between the psychological capital status of college students and their academic performance through empirical experiment, then after statistics and analysis of the survey results, it concluded the relationship between the influencing factors of the psychological capital of English learners and their academic performance. The research results and the significance of this paper are as follows:

(1) The English learners’ psychological capital level is positively correlated with the English learning years and the English academic performance.

(2) Regression analysis shows that there are different correlations between the influencing factors of psychological capital of English learners and the application of learning strategies. In general, for the high-score group which has better academic performance, the correlation is more significant, and the psychological capital has a predictive effect on the academic performance.

(3) English psychological capital plays a key role in the reform of English teaching in colleges and universities in China, so guiding students to

cultivate the influencing factors of psychological capital is of great significant to promoting the English teaching quality of colleges and universities.

Acknowledgement

Office of Teaching Affairs of Beihua University, Assessing System of the Effectiveness of Practice Basement of Full-time Graduates XJZD2018038.

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