An investigation into tertiary level Turkish efl students' awareness level of learner autonomy and their attitudes

Abstract

One of the requirements of the global world is to learn English and use it effectively both in written and spoken discourse. Since traditional education system may not, however, ensure one to learn it sufficiently, new notions have been developed. One of the most important notions to be developed is learner autonomy or student autonomy as it is also called. Recently, in our country learner autonomy has also been attempted to be examined and revealed its main avails. However, since workings on learner autonomy are not very satisfactory, it is mandatory to give point to the main notion and to examine how it is perceived and how it should be perceived. This study, then, examined the notion of learner autonomy on the basis of its several dimensions. First of all, it investigated how learner autonomy was perceived by students and revealed their reactions about its main requirements and attributes. Secondly, it underlined the particular outside-the-classroom activities that students performed in an attempt to develop their autonomy level. Thirdly, it examined students? thoughts about its promotion in their learning setting. Data were collected by use of a student questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The sampling group was constructed by selecting students of Karadeniz Technical University in Western Languages and Literatures. Firstly, 70 students, who were selected by purposive sampling, were distributed the questionnaire. Secondly, 6 students were selected using the same sampling technique and they were interviewed. Data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS (15.0 versions) (e.g., reliability statistics, descriptive statistics, means, standard deviations, frequencies, percentages and Chi-square Tests). Data obtained from the semi-structured interview were analyzed by using qualitative analysis techniques (e.g., listening to records, listing, interpretation etc.). The results revealed that respondents are familiar with autonomous learning and attempt to fulfill its requirements. In this respect, it was not seen a significant difference between the respondents? attitudes towards what was researched and their grades. Secondly, it was revealed that the respondents tend to make practice outside the classroom to develop their autonomy. Thirdly, it can be said that the respondents have positive attitudes towards the promotion of learner autonomy in their current educational setting