A survey study of success attribution factors in reading comprehension performance-evidence from Chinese college students of Japanese language majors

Attribution beliefs are important psychological factors that affect students’ reading performance. This paper reports a survey study on Japanese Major students’ success attribution factors in reading comprehension performance through a questionnaire and follow-up interviews. The participants are 160 third-year Japanese language learners from four universities in Jiangsu Province, China. Findings revealed that 1) the Japanese third-year language learners show a tendency of positive attribution style on the whole, with the mean value of Internal Factors (Mean=3.68) higher than that of External Factors (Mean=3.23), which means that most of Japanese Major learners attribute their success to Internal Factors in terms of Japanese reading comprehension performance. 2)There are differences existing between high achievers and low achievers with regard to success attribution factors in Japanese reading comprehension performance, with high achievers’ mean scores higher than low achievers in both Internal Factors and External Factors. The research findings have greatly enhanced our understanding of Japanese language learners’ success attribution beliefs in reading comprehension performance, which will provide educational guidance and recommendation for both teachers and students during the process of teaching and learning Japanese language.