English language majoring students’ use of the english language learning strategies vs. their academic achievement: the case of hawassa university students

This research was meant to examine the correlation between English language majoring students’ use of the English language learning strategies and their academic achievement; it is a correlational study. To this end, sixty-one English language majoring students enrolled from 2012/13 to 2014/15 at Hawassa University were made to fill in a five-point scale questionnaire intended to obtain data on their use of each of the six groups of the language learning strategies (memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social), and their CGPA (Cumulative Grade Average Point) was obtained from the university’s Registrar and Alumni Affairs Directorate. The correlations were examined through Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r). To determine the strength of a correlation, the cut-off points suggested by Cohen were applied. Moreover, coefficient of determination was computed to see the extent to which the students’ use of the learning strategies predicts their CGPA. Pearson r demonstrated that there is a strong positive correlation between the English language majoring students’ use of each of the six groups of the English language learning strategies and their academic achievement (r-values > .949, p-value = .000). The coefficient of determination also revealed that the students’ use of the learning strategies predicts their academic achievement by > 90.0601%. Based on the findings, recommendations have been made.