Students' Orientations, Personal Characteristics and Attitudinal Variables in the Learning of English Language in Four Boarding Schools in Kedah and Perlis

The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between the students’ orientations, attitudes, and personal characteristics and the English Language achievement, as measured by the PMR (Lower Secondary Evaluation) English Language examination results. A total of 355 form four students f...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Samsiah, Bidin
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
eng
Published: 2003
Subjects:
Online Access:https://etd.uum.edu.my/1125/1/SAMSIAH_BT._BIDIN.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/1125/2/1.SAMSIAH_BT._BIDIN.pdf
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Summary:The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between the students’ orientations, attitudes, and personal characteristics and the English Language achievement, as measured by the PMR (Lower Secondary Evaluation) English Language examination results. A total of 355 form four students from four boarding schools in the state of Kedah and Perlis were taken as the subjects for this study. The research tool used was in the form of a questionnaire. There were four scales that were adapted from Gardner and Lambert (1972) and Vathana (1993). The measurement of student’s achievement was based on their PMR English examination scores. To test the reliability of the instrument, a pilot test was conducted, and the data analysis yielded a reliability value that was statistically acceptable. A correlational research design was used to test the hypotheses in this study. Analysis of the orientations and achievement data using the descriptive statistics - mean and standard deviation scores revealed that the students were more instrumentally than integratively oriented when learning English Language. To test the students’ attitudes and their achievement. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used. The analysis exposed that there is no significant relationship between the students’ attitudes toward learning English, peers and those people who speak English, and the target language group and culture and their English Language achievement. The t-test and ANOVA were used to test the personal characteristics variables. The results obtained reported that gender, parents’ total monthly income, parents’ education level and the frequency of using English showed the existence of significant differences as related to the English Language achievement. Other Personal characteristics variables did not show any significant differences.