This paper is about some Brazilian undergraduate students’ attitudes and beliefs. Thus, it presents some data of a qualitative study, whose objective was to verify the existence of a relationship between ‘attitude’ and ‘belief’. The data emerged from a questionnaire applied with 91 undergraduate students, from a Brazilian university, who studied English compulsorily. To support the study, some categories of analysis were elaborated: 1. Attitudes hold or integrate beliefs and 2. Beliefs emerge as a justification of an attitude. The data analysis pointed the existence of an intrinsic relationship between attitude and belief. The relevance of this study lies in the need to understand this issue even more, since as far as one is concerned, until now, only few researches have proposed to reflect on this relationship as well as the understanding of this relationship can contribute to the improvement of the teaching/learning of English.
Este artigo é sobre as atitudes e crenças de alguns estudantes universitários brasileiros. Assim, apresenta dados de um estudo qualitativo, cujo objetivo foi verificar a existência de uma relação entre atitude e crença. Os dados emergiram de um questionário aplicado com 91 estudantes universitários, de uma universidade brasileira, que estudavam inglês compulsoriamente. Para subsidiar o estudo, foram elaboradas categorias de análise: 1. Atitudes sustentam ou integram as crenças e 2. As crenças emergem como uma justificativa das atitudes. A análise dos dados apontou a existência de uma intrínseca relação entre atitude e crença. A relevância deste estudo reside na necessidade de entender ainda mais esta questão, já que, pelo que se sabe, até agora, apenas poucas pesquisas têm proposto refletir sobre essa relação assim como a compreensão dessa relação pode contribuir para a melhoria do ensino e da aprendizagem da língua inglesa.
Este artículo trata sobre las actitudes y creencias de algunos estudiantes universitarios brasileños. Así, presenta datos de un estudio cualitativo, cuyo objetivo era verificar la existencia de una relación entre actitud y creencia. Los datos surgieron de un cuestionario aplicado a 91 estudiantes universitarios, de una universidad brasileña, que obligatoriamente estudiaban inglés. Para apoyar el estudio, se desarrollaron categorías de análisis: 1. Las actitudes apoyan o integran creencias y 2. Las creencias emergen como una justificación para las actitudes. El análisis de datos señaló la existencia de una relación intrínseca entre actitud y creencia. La relevancia de este estudio reside en la necesidad de comprender esta pregunta aún más, ya que, hasta donde sabemos, hasta ahora, solo unas pocas investigaciones han propuesto reflexionar sobre esta relación, así como la comprensión de esta relación puede contribuir a la mejora de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje. del idioma inglés.
In the last decades, more intensively, applied research has given support to the educational field. Researchers have figured out more accurately the educational setting, mainly based on what students and teachers thinking and believe about the environment they are involved to learn a subject. In this context, the understanding of attitudes and beliefs have shed light as well to problems concerning the teaching/learning process. Thus, the way students and teachers react and perceive reality is an alternative to improve the educational process.
In this line of thought, this paper is about learners’ attitudes and beliefs in the English language classroom. It aims at showing the intrinsic relationship between both. Therefore, this paper is based on a research conducted with some Brazilian undergraduate students, from a public university, who studied English compulsorily. Thus, it was used a questionnaire to collect the data, which proved the hypothesis of the existence of a relationship between attitude and belief.
The relevance of this study lies in the need to understand even more this issue, joining to other researches which reflect on this relationship (SCHEYERL, 2019,
The main purpose of this paper is to evidence the intrinsic relationship between belief and attitude. There are many works in this perspective. Many of them treating these elements separately. To figure out beliefs and attitudes, I think it is proper to start by sharing some concepts of them. First, I share concepts concerning beliefs and later on attitudes.
Thus,
Concerning specifically beliefs about language learning,
In this perspective,
For
Beliefs are views, propositions, and convictions one dearly holds, consciously or unconsciously, about the truth value of something. They are mostly acquired through such disparate means or personal experiences, family’s ties, educational encounters, cultural transmission or public propagation (
Spawa and Hassan (2013) put that ‘belief’ is what influences teachers’ pedagogical practices. ‘Beliefs’ are the way they think they should act in classroom based on what they believe. They also say ‘beliefs’ affect behaviors and also the teaching/learning outcomes for both teachers and students.
For
At last, but not least, I want to share my own conception of ‘belief’, which is a perception one might have of the reality, of the facts, of the things, of someone else. This perception is only possible because of the ability one might have to receive, process and understand, in a personal perspective, things that surround us. Applying this concept to the English language classroom, ‘beliefs’ are perceptions on the teacher, on the language, on the book and on everything related with the teaching/learning process. I suspect this perception may work as a kind of reason, a justification to evaluate a referent, what is an attitude, that is why I also think there is a relationship between ‘attitude’ and ‘belief’.
Concerning ‘attitudes’,
However, I regard as a seminal work, the one of
In this line of thought,
For Eagly and Chaicken (1993), ‘attitudes’ are psychological tendencies materialized when one evaluates a particular referent, with certain level of approval or disapproval. That is to say, for them, ‘attitudes’ work as a judgment, based on tenets of rejection or assent.
Once again, I want to share here my own conception, now of ‘attitude’. For me, ‘attitudes’ are an excessively favorable or unfavorable position towards something or somebody, which can be applied to the educational setting. Concerning this, students might evaluate, judge the teacher, the book, the language they are learning and everything related to this setting.
These arguments support this study. However, I could not finish this section without saying some few words about the intrinsic relationship between ‘attitude’ and ‘belief’, since my intent with this study was to verify the existence of a relationship between them. Initially, I assume that an ‘attitude’ holds a ‘belief’ or the former is part of the latter, that is to say beliefs might have an evaluative component. I want to show the evidence of my assumption with some answers of the participants of the research I conducted. Besides that, I suspect that a belief might emerge as a justification for a certain attitude and an attitude is held by a belief. Initially, I was not sure about these assumptions, but I was quite interested in investigating them to validate or discard them.
Regarding the relationship between ‘attitude’ and ‘belief’, for
Regarding this, M.
Connor and Halligan (2015) mention the fact that for many philosophers, a ‘belief’ is a ‘propositional attitude’, opening space to understand the relationship between both. But it was only an assumption. It has not gone beyond that. The fact is that none of them explain clearly this relationship.
I finish here this section. Next, I briefly describe the method and the instrument of data collection and, then, I present the data.
For this research, I used the tenets of a qualitative study, which made it possible to immerse in the phenomenon I was interested in. A fundamental tenet was based on the interpretation of the events. First, by using a questionnaire, I intended to investigate the occurrence of learners’ attitudes. Later, as I was interested in investigating ‘beliefs’ as well, I started analyzing the data looking for both ‘attitudes’ and ‘beliefs’. In fact, these data are part of my PhD thesis, at Bahia Federal University, Brazil.
With the objective quite clear in my mind, I analyzed the answers students provided me with, based on the categories of analysis. I was looking for answers which could meet these categories, to validate them or not. In fact, I was interested in interpreting the environment I was in, by observing and analyzing the answers to questions that raise the emergence of attitudes and beliefs on the part of the participants of this research.
Thus, through a questionnaire, with twenty questions, I tried to identify the ‘attitudes’ and ‘beliefs’ of a group of 91 undergraduate students, from Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia. All of them were students of the Interdisciplinary Bachelorship in Health, who studied English from the second to the fourth semester.
This study followed the formal requirements to conduct a research in Brazil, and, thus, it was protocoled at Plataforma Brasil, where a commission gave its assent. This research is registered at Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), which number of certification is (CAAE) 59915516.7.0000.5531. The proceedings adopted in this research obey the ethic criteria concerning research with human beings, according to the resolution CNS N° 466 de 2012.
I proposed to share the analysis based on the data collected from the questionnaire. Therefore, I took as basis three research questions: 1. Is there, in fact, a relationship between belief and attitude? 2. How might beliefs and attitudes together explain the teaching and learning process on the part of the students? And 3. What do learners’ beliefs and attitudes express on the teaching and learning process?
Besides that, I elaborated some categories of analysis, so that I could better meet the objective of this study, of verifying the existence of a relationship between ‘belief’ and ‘attitude’. They are: 1. Attitudes hold or/and integrate beliefs and 2. Beliefs emerge as a justification of an attitude.
With this in mind, I started the analysis, which the results I share from now on. To a better understanding, as I came to the conclusion that behind beliefs might be a teaching/learning logistic factor, which is related with positive or negative attitudes toward learning English, the data are shared according to them. Let us start with the negative attitudes and beliefs they had. Thus, one of the questions was:
Logistic factor: heterogeneity of the group
It is possible to say, based on these answers, that both A25 and A73 have negative attitudes toward the learning process. And their attitudes are justified by the belief that the heterogeneity of the group, they were part of, made them feel demotivated to learn English. This way, I may say as well that behind their beliefs it is a logistic factor (the heterogeneity of the group) and that their beliefs emerged as a justification of an attitude, what allows me to frame their answers in the category 2.
Logistic factor: Teaching method
Both A31and A39 have negative attitudes toward the learning/teaching process. This attitude is justified based on the perception (belief) that the method applied by the teacher was not suitable. Concerning A31’s answer, I may say that it is related with categories 1 and 2, because when he reveals not to feel motivated to learn English (negative attitude), this attitude is held by the belief that the classes are ‘mechanic’, ‘boring’. At the same time, when he complements saying that the university teaches a ‘mechanic English, boring’, (‘mechanic’ and ‘boring’ are evaluative reactions, which now hold and integrate a belief). A39 as well reveals not to feel himself motivated to learn English, which is an evaluative reaction (attitude), and he justifies his attitude with the belief that there are not attractive methods. Once again, it was possible to verify that behind the belief was a logistic factor: the teaching method. Thus, I ratify the notion that ‘belief,’ as an opinion an individual has, influences his attitude to learn as well.
Another question used was:
Logistic factor: Teaching method
A64 says he does not feel himself motivated to learn English (attitude) and he ascribes this reaction to the way the professor teaches (belief). Thus, it is possible to realize that his answer is related with category 2, only because the fact of believing that the professor does not teach for students from the basic level is a justification not to feel motivated. And A81 says that the way the professor teaches, generally, does not motivate him to learn English (attitude) and this is related with the fact that the classes are ‘unattractive’ and ‘decontextualized’ (belief). Thus, first, the belief emerges to justify his attitude, however, when he uses the qualifiers ‘unattractive’ and ‘decontextualized’, what denotates an evaluative reaction (attitude), this allows me to say that these attitudes hold and integrate his belief as well.
Logistic factor: reduced class load
At the university where this research took place, the English language, as a subject, is offered with a load of 1 (one) hour per week. Taking this fact into consideration, these participants do not feel themselves motivated to learn English either. They ascribe their attitudes to the reduced class load with which the English language is offered, what denotates their beliefs, which influenced their negative attitudes toward the learning/teaching process.
Next, I present some answers related with positive attitudes and beliefs.
Question used:
Logistic factor: Teaching method
Both A2 and A3 have positive attitudes toward learning English at the university. Their attitudes are related with the belief that the teaching method works well. A2’s answer allows me to say that it is related with both the categories 1 and 2. It is related with category 1, because the qualifiers ‘interesting’ and ‘dynamic’ are evaluative reactions (that is to say, an attitude) toward the teaching method, which holds or integrate A2’s belief (she is motivated to learn English because the teaching method is interesting and dynamic). At the same time, A2 justifies her attitude, of being motivated to learn English, upon classifying the English classes as ‘interesting’ and ‘dynamic’. Thus, her belief, concerning the fact of the English classes be ‘interesting’ and ‘dynamic’, justifies her attitude, therefore related with category 2 as well.
Regarding A3’s answer, it allows me to say that it is related with categories 1 and 2 as well, because whereas he assures to feel himself motivated to learn English (attitude), he complements by saying that the classes are ‘dynamic’, what is an evaluative reaction too (attitude), which forms his belief (the classes are dynamic), but also a justification of his attitude of feeling himself motivated to learn English.
Question used:
Logistic factor: Teaching method
These participants said to feel themselves motivated to learn English. A25 ascribes his attitude (to feel motivated) to the fact of the classes be ‘dynamic’. Thus, this is related with category 2, beliefs emerge as a justification of an attitude. Besides that, when he states “the classes are dynamic”, ‘dynamic’ is also an evaluative reaction (attitude), which holds and integrates his beliefs, that the classes are dynamic, ratifying again my hypothesis that attitudes hold and integrate beliefs (category 1). A53 also feels himself motivated to learn English and justifies this attitude due to the teaching method used (sentence repetition) by the professor (belief), what allows me to state that his answer is related with category 2, since it is a justification of his attitude.
Other occurrences of attitudes and beliefs
Another questioned used was:
Both participants had negative attitudes toward this question. When A12 says to feel himself ‘unable’ and ‘damaged’, this is his attitude about himself. He ascribes this attitude to the fact that he has not had an opportunity for that (belief), which is a justification for his attitude (category 2). And A24 said to feel himself ‘illiterate’, what is an evaluative reaction and a self-perception as well, since the use of the qualifier ‘illiterate’, allows me to state that this attitude both holds and integrates his belief (category 1). Also, when A24 uses “sad”, this denotates his attitude that holds and integrates his belief for not have learned English yet.
Question used:
A29 reveals a certain instability concerning her motivation to learn English. This self-evaluation (attitude) is related with her belief that she does not like the method used by the teacher, what allows me to state that her attitude is justified by her belief (therefore, category 2). And A90 was straightforward, saying that he does not feel himself motivated to learn English and he ascribes this reaction to the fact that he knows just a little of English. It worth noticing the use of the word ‘because’, working as a link of the justification of his attitude (category 2).
I finish here the data analysis and next I present some final words for now.
This study is anchored in the three research questions, which guided the development of the two categories of analysis. Concerning the research questions, I may say, after analyzing the data, that there is, in fact, a relationship between ‘attitudes’ and ‘beliefs’: the former holding and integrating the latter or the latter emerging to justify the former. Regarding the second research question
I have to say as well that from the data analysis, I came to the conclusion that behind attitudes and beliefs there are logistic factors, which are part of the educational setting, such as the reduced class load, the heterogeneity of the group and the teaching methodology. Next, I share
Another information, I cannot help saying, is that it can be difficult to understand the threshold between ‘attitudes’ and ‘beliefs’, what only with a detailed analysis it is possible to identify and to distinguish them from one another. This difficult might occur exactly because attitudes might hold and integrate a belief, what might provoke a confusion.
The first impression one may have is that, first, an individual develop an attitude and later a belief emerges, which justifies the attitude. However, it seems reasonable to say that a belief emerges first and that it justifies the attitude emergence. This seems to happen because attitudes might appear first in our speech and beliefs come immediately after. For example, when someone says “I feel myself motivated to learn English because the methodology is dynamic”, the first part of this sentence (I feel myself motivated) is an attitude, and the second part (the methodology is dynamic) is a belief, but inside this belief there is an attitude as well (dynamic), that is why I assume that an attitude holds and integrates a belief, ratifying my hypothesis.
Thus, among other things, what this research can offer, through the lens of attitudes and beliefs, is the need to rethink the English teaching/learning process in contexts such as the one I investigated, since the participants signaled that their negative attitudes and beliefs were related with some improper logistic factors, such as reduced class load, improper teaching method, the heterogeneity of the group etc. With these data in hands, it is possible to plan strategies to interfere in the educational setting, in order to change a scenario where, for some reason, learning is not occurring as it should, what, automatically, justifies researches on attitudes and beliefs.
How might beliefs and attitudes together explain the teaching and learning process on the part of the students?