Examining the roles of self-efficacy beliefs, self-regulated learning and foreign language anxiety in the academic achievement of tertiary efl learners

Abstract

This quantitative study investigates the potential relationships among foreign-language self-efficacy (FL self-efficacy), self-regulation, foreign-language anxiety (FLA), class attendance and academic achievement in English language. The participants were 344 EFL learners who were enrolled in a one-year preparatory programme at a state university in Turkey to improve their overall English proficiency. Criterion sampling was used to select the respondents. The results indicate that class attendance significantly predicts the overall academic achievement of students. It is also striking to see that FL self-efficacy played the most significant and positive role in predicting EFL learners’ academic achievement. Moreover, FLA was a negative predictor of students’ academic performance. Therefore, students’ FL achievement decreases as anxiety increases. The study shows that class attendance is still a strong predictor of academic achievement in foreign language learning. In addition, self-regulated learning (SRL) reflected a significant increase in class attendance. The findings also confirm the correlations among the three constructs. The analysis yielded a medium negative correlation between FL self-efficacy and FLA in addition to a small positive correlation between FL self-efficacy and SRL. Given the growing role of blended and online learning, we advocate for the publication of more studies with longitudinal research designs examining the inter-relations among SRL, academic performance and attendance in online and ‘traditional’ classrooms. The implications of the findings for teachers and language learners are also discussed.