Programas de salud del adulto mayor

The relationship between ESL students’ English proficiency as measured with the EPT and their first-semester GPA can be partially accounted for by the interview responses from the ESL students and content course instructors. This subsection reports test stakeholders’ views on the impact of the EPT decisions on ESL learners’ academic achievement. A key question asked to all the test stakeholders concerned the relationship between English proficiency and academic achievement or course grades.

4.4.4.1. ESL students

Two major themes emerged from ESL students’ responses: close connection between English proficiency and academic achievement, and the challenge of technical terminology in content courses.

Not surprisingly, all the interviewed ESL student saw a close connection between English proficiency and academic achievement. Hua-Chen, the business graduate student in Engl101B, admitted that her low listening ability considerably affected her course performance. She said, “I have to listen carefully and follow closely with the instructor. A slip of mind can cause a lot problems.” Hua-Chen added that her English-speaking ability made the situation even worse because when she did not understand the instructor and wanted to ask questions, her English was not good enough to help her express the ideas. Yuan-Feng, who was placed in Engl101B and Engl101D, stressed the impact of low writing ability on her course performance and took it as her major problem. She thought that taking Engl101B helped her prepare written assignments in content courses, which contributed to a higher GPA.

Peng-Long, the undergraduate student in Electric Engineering, noticed that English ability affected his performance in Chemistry because of his unfamiliarity with the technical terms in that course. In addition, he admitted that he had trouble joining class discussions due to “fear” or lack of confidence. With these experiences, Peng-Long was very appreciative of taking ESL courses and he explained, “If you did not get well prepared, you will easily fall behind. So, I prefer that the EPT is good for my future English learning and to get the English ability.”

Alex was a special case found in the interview. As an undergraduate student in Design, Alex believed that his English level did not affect his performance in content courses. However, he did mention that he had difficulty understanding some assignments when a professor gave too many details about the assignments orally in class. Alex ranked Psychology as a course with a high requirement in English whereas courses like Math and Design only required basic skills in English.

Rasha talked about her motivation for taking ESL courses in the interview. She said, “I was really happy because I already have an A in that course [Engl101B]. In other courses, I got a B-. This grade [A] will help me a lot.” Like Rasha, Hua-Chen as a graduate student regarded the ESL courses as a helpful way from which she could earn a good grade, which could help boost her overall GPA.

Three the interviewed ESL students mentioned that their challenges in content sometimes were the technical terminology. Felicity, an undergraduate student in Design placed in Engl99R and Engl101C shared her experience with “big word” in classes. She said “If they [content course instructors] use very very big words and some words that I’ve never heard of, sometimes, I think ‘what the hell is this word’. … … For example, in my elective course, I do not know what it means, I would go ask my feelings or maybe ask my supervisors.” Peng-Long, an

undergraduate in Engineering placed into Engl99R, Engl99L, and Engl101C, had similar experiences. He said, “It [English proficiency] affects the chemistry course. Like some specific words, there are so many difficult words, like elements in Chemistry.” In addition, Peng-Long talked about how English proficiency limited his participation in classes: “I think I had trouble joining class discussion, some fears. I am not confident in talking to Americans.”

4.4.4.2. ESL instructors

One theme that was emerged from ESL instructors’ responses was similar to the one from ESL students, that is, a recognition of the close connection between English proficiency and academic achievement. In addition, another theme was about the threshold effect of English proficiency on academic achievement.

The close relationship between ESL students’ English proficiency and their academic achievement was also acknowledged by the ESL instructors in the interviews. Adalet believed that “the more proficient they [the ESL students] are, the more successful they would be. Because you express yourself with language in every assignment, so there is a very high correlation.” Echoing this, Rachael said, “I do think there is a connection. My [Engl99L] students who cannot follow the syllabus and cannot follow the lecture, they are foundering and they even did not know that they had to come to class.”

Mengqi shared a slightly different opinion on the relationship between English

proficiency and academic achievement, saying, “If their proficiency isn’t ‘appallingly’ low, that is, unable to comprehend written or oral input in classes I actually would like to positively conjecture that they will actually be fine with their academic achievement.” Mengqi continued, “May not for their first few semesters, but after that they should be OK.”

4.4.4.3. Content course instructors

The input from content course instructors also shed light on the relationship between ESL students’ English proficiency and academic achievement. Content course instructors are usually in a better position to comment on the relationship between ESL students’ English proficiency and their course performance because the instructors have direct contact with both ESL students and native English-speaking students. The major themes from the content course instructors’ responses were the important role of English proficiency and possible disciplinary difference in the levels of English proficiency requirement.

Feng-Chun, a non-native English-speaking instructor in the Department of Mathematics, said, “Actually, I don’t think my math classes are demanding in English. English for us is just a tool. Most times, we use numbers.” Feng-Chun also commented, “But, we also need to

communicate” and “if they [ESL students] had better English skills, it would be easier for them to follow the lectures. They can get the idea fast. … It takes a little bit time for them to follow.” This advantage of having better English proficiency was also mentioned by the instructors of engineering-related courses and computer science courses. Joseph, a post-doctorate associate who teaches fundamental courses in Civil Engineering, observed, “International students usually struggle more” and commented, “if they had a better English proficiency, they would probably do better. For example, on a test, they may understand the questions better. If they are not proficient, they may have a harder time.” Joseph also believed that “as long as they [ESL students] try hard and apply themselves to the work, it should not be an issue. It just seems like how much effort students are willing to put to work.” Ganliang, a non-native English-speaking associate professor in Computer Science, regarded his computer science courses to have a low English requirement because they were just computer programming and did not have writing.

However, like Feng-Chun, Ganliang also highlighted the essential role of communication in his classes because students needed to talk to teaching assistants and classmates. In terms of the relationship between English proficiency and academic achievement, Ganliang’s view was less affirmative. Ganliang said, “I do not see a quite correlation even I can see English can hinder students’ understanding English or doing assignments well.” This may be related to his observation in classes that personality affected students’ performance in a more salient way especially when students had similar English proficiency levels.

The close relationship between English proficiency and academic achievement was revealed in the Psychology courses taught by Kathleen, who claimed that these two were “pretty correlated because it [psychology] is such a verbal area.” She said, “A student who is pretty dedicated can do a lot in her own time, even [if] her English proficiency is not high. … It is definitely going to be harder, and it takes longer.” With regard to students’ course grades,

Kathleen assumed that “probably the [ESL] students could not get an A. They may receive a B or possibly a C, instead. So, there is a relationship between these two areas.”

As shown above, the interviewed content course instructors acknowledged the close connection between ESL students’ English proficiency and their course performance. On the other hand, the content course instructors noticed other characteristics of the ESL students in general that can help them succeed in classes. For example, Feng-Chun, the mathematics instructor, praised the international students in her classes and said, “I think they are more hardworking. Compared with American students, Asian students and international students are self-paced. They barely miss classes, but they are quiet.” This characteristic was also mentioned by Kathleen, the instructor in Psychology. Kathleen mentioned that “General strength is their [ESL students’] dedication. I wish all the students are as dedicated as my international students.”

Taking the mentioned factors into account, it is less surprising to see a weak, but statistically significant relationship between ESL students’ EPT performance and academic achievement. 4.4.4.4. Academic advisors

Academic advisors are another group of test stakeholders who may have an indirect evaluation of the relationship between English proficiency and academic achievement since they have access to students’ grades and assist students in course registration. Like most of the

content course instructor interviewees, academic advisors also assumed a noticeable connection between the two and two academic advisor reported particular strategies in guiding ESL students in need of ESL instruction.

Mike of the College of Liberal Arts and Science said, “Obviously, your ability to read and understand the language is going to have a huge impact in your other academic areas. I think, for some students, the effects are universal. It [the content] is not as language-based, but its explanation is English.” The same opinion was expressed by Mary of the College of Business. She said, “it [English proficiency] really does [affect students’ performance in content courses] because for them to understand what the instructor is saying, to keep up with the readings, colleges have a lot reading.” Todd of the College of Engineering had some representative comments:

I would just reinforce the fact that their English proficiency is one of the key elements to determine their success. I know it costs a lot of money to come here. Nobody wants to take extra time. Please take some extra time to become English proficient and that will help you become successful here.

Considering the importance of English in students’ academic achievement, two academic advisors mentioned general strategies used for students to enroll in appropriate courses in terms of English requirement. For example, Mike explicitly explained how he recommended his advisees to select courses based on their English proficiency:

If we see a student taking a reading course for example, we might guide them away from general education requirement that has a lot reading at least initially in the first semester until they completed Engl99R. So, it is not only helpful with English placement classes, it is also helpful to guide students to classes that they will be more successful initially as well.

This strategy is supposedly beneficial to ESL students because it may help mitigate the impact of English proficiency on academic performance through steering the students away from certain linguistically demanding courses in the first few semesters. A similar strategic course- taking was reported by Fox (2009) who identified a strong relationship between this type of strategic decisions and ESL students’ academic performance in a university-level EAP program in Canada.

4.4.5. Summary

The questionnaire items for academic self-efficacy and motivation showed acceptable to good reliability in the Rasch analyses. However, the items for self-regulated learning strategies did not perform as expected and thus were excluded from the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The SEM analysis of the relationship among the EPT results, GPA, and the motivational constructs revealed that the initial English proficiency as measured by the EPT had a direct impact on undergraduate students’ first semester GPA while it did not affect graduate students’ first semester GPA. Undergraduate students’ EPT results did not affect their academic self-efficacy whereas graduate students’ academic self-efficacy tended to be affected by their EPT results. Academic self-efficacy was found to have a strong relationship with motivational factors, which in turn, did not exert much influence on first-semester GPA. The close

relationship between ESL students’ English proficiency and academic achievement was

content course instructors, and academic advisors), despite the frequently mentioned notion that different content courses may have different demands of English proficiency.

4.5. Chapter summary

This chapter presented the analysis results in the order of research questions. The first research question regarding the relationship between the EPT and two external criteria was answered with the results in the multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) analyses. The EPT was found to have moderate relationships with the TOEFL iBT and weak to moderate relationships with the self-assessment. The EPT showed some convergent evidence as well as discriminant evidence based on the MTMM correlation coefficient matrix as well as the parameters in the correlated trait-correlated uniqueness (CTCU) model. The second research question on test stakeholders’ perception of the EPT placement decisions was answered through the qualitative analyses of the interviews with four groups of test stakeholders. The qualitative findings suggested that ESL student interviewees and ESL course instructor interviewees held a positive view of the

placement decisions. ESL student interviewees showed their appreciation of the ESL courses in helping them improve English proficiency. All the test stakeholders were cognizant of the close connection between English proficiency and academic achievement at Iowa State University. The third research question about the impact of the EPT placement decisions on ESL students’ English learning was answered through analyzing the data from a pre- and posttest design, i.e. ESL course performance data collected at the beginning and the end of the course in Engl99L, Engl101B, and Engl101C classes. ESL students in Engl99L made statistically significant progress in terms of score gain on the same listening test administered at two time points. However, only nine out of 38 ESL students made satisfactory progress with reference to the

course standard. Students in Engl101B and Engl101C did not show much progress in terms of lexical complexity, syntactic complexity, and grammatical accuracy, while the Engl101C students on average wrote longer essays at the end of the course. Nonetheless, the English 101B and 101C students showed different levels of satisfactory progress in these two classes. The last research question regarding the relationship between the EPT performance and academic achievement was answered through the SEM analysis. It was found that ESL students’ EPT performance had significant and direct impact on their academic achievement. What’s more, students’ EPT performance predicted their academic self-efficacy and affected extrinsic goal orientation. However, these motivational factors did not have direct impact on academic achievement.