Revisiting Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy: a quantitative study

ABSTRACT

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy beliefs, the relation between their autonomy beliefs and autonomy practices, and the major obstacles against their autonomy.

Design/methodology/approach

In this quantitative study, a survey questionnaire was administered to 350 (N=350) students in the English Language Center of a public university in Saudi Arabia. The SPSS version 26 was used to conduct the statistical analysis of the data. Pearson’s correlation analysis and the Paired t-test were used after the normality test of the studied data, and the percentage analysis was used to gauge the major obstacles for Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy.In this quantitative study, a survey questionnaire was administered to 350 (N=350) students in the English Language Center of a public university in Saudi Arabia. The SPSS version 26 was used to conduct the statistical analysis of the data. Pearson’s correlation analysis and the Paired t-test were used after the normality test of the studied data, and the percentage analysis was used to gauge the major obstacles for Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy.

Findings

The findings revealed that Saudi EFL learners are autonomous. A paired t-test showed that there was no significant difference between the autonomy beliefs and autonomy practices among the participants. In addition, Pearson’s correlation test detected a statistically significant positive relationship between Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy beliefs and autonomy practices. The study also identifies the following major obstacles against Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy: over reliance on their teachers and on their test results, lack of opportunity to express their opinions about learning and not discussing how they work out their learning tasks.

Originality/value

Autonomy studies conducted in the Saudi EFL contexts have adopted only the dichotomous view of learner autonomy in which learners are categorized either autonomous or non-autonomous. No reported studies seem to explore the ‘Alternative view’ (Little, 2011) of learner autonomy, which challenges this dichotomous view and looks beyond the categories of autonomous and non-autonomous language learners. Similarly, it also appears that examining the relation of Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy beliefs and autonomy practices has been overlooked. Therefore, the current study aims to present an in-depth understanding of Saudi EFL learners’ autonomy with sound theoretical underpinning and methodological rigour. Adopting Little’s (2011) alternative view of learner autonomy as its theoretical framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Alternative view
• autonomy beliefs
• autonomy practices
• learner autonomy
• Saudi EFL learners

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Prof. Habib Abdesslem at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia and Dr. Larisa Nikitina at University of Malaya, Malysia for their valuable and constructive suggestions during the development of this research work.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Md Mahmudul Haque

Md Mahmudul Haque earned his BA and MA in English from University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. He also completed his CELTA from The British Council, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Currently, he is pursuing his doctoral degree in Education at School of Education, North Dakota State University, USA. He was a Fulbright exchange scholar at University of Georgia, USA and taught English in Faculty of Language and Translation, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia. His research interests include learner autonomy, metacognition, critical pedagogy, and adult and community education.

Hasan M. Jaashan

Dr. Hasan M. Jaashan is an associate professor (applied linguistics) at the Dept. of English, Faculty of Languages and Translation, KKU, Saudi Arabia. In 2011, He was a visiting professor at the Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Qatar University. From 2006 to 2011 he was an assistant professor at the Dept. of English, Almahweet college of Education, Sanaa University, Yemen. His areas of interest are stylistics, discourse analysis, ELT, creative writing, and translation.

Md Zobaer Hasan

Dr. Md Zobaer Hasan is currently a lecturer at the School of Science, Monash University Malaysia (MUM). He obtained his BSc (Hons) in Statistics and MSc in Statistics from Shahjalal University of Science & Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh. He then undertook his PhD in Financial Statistics at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. Currently, he is engaging in some Public Health and Biostatistics related research works, which will be analyzed using statistical tools. He wants to establish sound quantitative research in different statistics disciplines, mainly Applied Statistics and Biostatistics.