The relationships between autonomy perception, reading comprehension achievement and classroom behaviors of learners learning English as a foreign language

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationships between autonomy perception, reading comprehension achievement and classroom behaviors of students learning English as a foreign language. Descriptive research was used in the study. Intermediate level English learners attending Preparatory Classes in School of Foreign Languages at Dokuz Eylül University formed the population of this study. Proportioned random sampling was used to choose the sample of the study. The sample included 503 undergraduate and 57 graduate students. 238 of these students were females and 322 of them were males. This sample represented the 33% of the whole population. The data of the research were gathered with Autonomy Perception Scale, Reading Comprehension Test and Classroom Behaviors Scale. Mean, Standard Deviation, t-Test, Analysis of Variance, Pearson Correlation Technique and Scheffeé Test were used to analyze the data. The results of the study indicated that English language learners had high autonomy perception in general. There were statistically significant relationships between autonomy perception and reading comprehension achievement. The higher perception related to autonomy the students had the more successful they were in reading comprehension. In addition, there were statistically significant relationships between autonomy perception and classroom behaviors of students. Significant relationships were found between taking language learning responsibility and using metacognitive strategies subscales and classroom behaviors of students. Students having higher autonomy perception had more positive behaviors compared to students having lower autonomy perception. The difference between these two