Adjunct Language Instruction For English As a Second Language Engineering Students In The Writing Of Physics Laboratory Reports
This study investigated the extent to which adjunct language instruction (ALI) was effective and identified the factors that influenced the effectiveness. In exploring the effectiveness, this study attempted a study on engineering students in UiTM using customized lab report writing instructional...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2005
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5860/1/FBMK_2005_7IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | This study investigated the extent to which adjunct language instruction (ALI)
was effective and identified the factors that influenced the effectiveness.
In exploring the effectiveness, this study attempted a study on engineering
students in UiTM using customized lab report writing instructional materials.
A needs analysis was conducted and it showed that engineering students
preferred learning report writing to personal essay writing. The students'
preference for learning report writing set the stage for further exploration.
Sixty students were instructed lab report writing in content-based writing
using genre-based materials based on the students' actual Physics lab
experiments, called Physics Adjunct Language Instruction (PALI). The
results showed that the students' grades of lab report writing improved.
Another test was carried out to find whether teaching writing in an ALI
approach was able to meet the writing needs of engineering students. This
test used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) as an analytical tool. As SEM
requires a sample size of 200 to 300 respondents, another instruction using
similar materials, PALI, was carried out on 260 engineering students. The
structural model showed that there were two factors that influence the
improvement of the students' lab report writing in PALI. The factors were the
teaching conduct and the preference for materials.
In summary, the research revealed three main findings. First, the type of
writing needed by engineering students in UiTM was report writing. Second,
the PAL1 led to an improvement in the engineering students' lab report
writing (t = -8.01, p = .000). Third, PAL1 provided two factors or conditions
necessary for its success: the way the lab report writing was taught (/3=
0.451) and the preference of materials which are related to the learners'
content subject (/3= 0.419). These two necessary conditions contribute 69.9
% (R* .699) to meeting the success in lab report writing of these engineering
students |
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