The impact of autonomous learning on graduate students' proficiency level in foreign language learning

The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of autonomous learning on graduate students' proficiency level in foreign language learning. This study is based upon two types of research conducted at Balıkesir University in the academic years of 2014-2015. The first one is survey analysis on the graduate (Master of Arts) students' foreign language learning styles and strategies to find out what extent they are autonomous. The second one is an experimental study which compares the exam results of two groups of graduate students to find out the instructed and non-instructed learning differences. Two kinds of questionnaires were administered. The first one was learner autonomy survey questionnaire developed by Zhang and Li (2004), which was administered to investigate how autonomous the participants were in learning English as a foreign language. The second one was the perceptual learning style preference questionnaire (PLSPQ) developed by Reid (1987). The two questionnaires were administered to 750 graduate students enrolled in the Institution of Social, Science Institution and the Health Institution at Balıkesir University in the academic years of 2014-2015. Only 504 graduate students responded the questionnaires. Then it was announced that there would be two types of English YDS preparation courses for the participants enrolled at Balıkesir University, Institute of M.A programs. 30 participants applied to join the courses. The participants are assigned to two groups, as instructed (control group) and non-instructed (research group) on voluntary bases. The instructed group attended English classes but non-instructed group worked for YDS exam in their free times, on their own and did not receive any lectures. During the study, one more questionnaire SILL (Oxford, 1990)(the learning strategy inventory for language learners' survey) was also administered to the instructed and non-instructed groups of students (30) to see the learning and strategy differences of both groups. The duration of the study was six months. The results of data analysis showed that most of the participants preferred to learn English in class. But few students believed that they would be successful by self-study. The learners did not use strategies in high level (M:3,5-5.00) but they used them in medium (M:2,9) level. The findings revealed that there is not a significant difference between the instructed and non-instructed classes based on the results of the sample language proficiency tests (YDS) and real YDS scores. The mean of last formal YDS exam of the experimental group is 47, 25 and the mean of the control group is 48, 03. We can, thus, come to conclusion that YDS exam preparation is more teacher dependent than individual autonomous study.