An analysis of the factors influencing learner autonomy in the Turkish EFL context

In Turkey, individuals generally grow up under the control of their parents who decide on behalf of their children. When they reach school age, this control is passed onto their teachers. Furthermore, although they are never included in the decision-making process of their own learning, the students are expected to learn various school subjects at a reasonable level. This forms one of the problems that prevent long-lasting and meaningful learning from taking place. As a solution to this constraint, practices such as assisting students to gain responsibility, raising their sense of ownership and increasing their self-esteem and self-confidence are recommended. In brief, they should be nurtured as autonomous learners. Since the 1970?s, many researchers have conducted studies on foreign language learner autonomy. Amongst the factors observed influencing this subject are achievement, age, anxiety, attitude, brain dominance, emotional intelligence, experience, gender, language learning strategies, learned helplessness, learning styles, motivation, multiple intelligence areas, parental attitudes, performance assessment, the socio-economic level of the family and whether the participants actually like English. In order to find out what factors influence the autonomy of Turkish learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), some instruments were administered to 116 9th and 10th grade high school students. In accordance with the aim of the dissertation, independent T-test samples, One Way ANOVA and correlation in the package programme named Statistics Programme for Social Sciences (SPSS) were employed to analyse the gathered data.The results of the study show that most of the dimensions of the above-mentioned variables correlate with learner autonomy. This correlation is sometimes negative and sometimes positive. A statistically significant difference is observed between the participants? perception of autonomy and (i) gender for the female participants, and (ii) whether the participants like the English language for those who like it.Keywords: Learner autonomy, Individual differences, Turkish EFL context, Independent learning, In- and out-of-class learning