An investigation of general and ESP tests for first year students at Mahidol University

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between general and ESP tests. The factors underlying them as well as their predictive power to forecast students' academic success were also examined. One hundred first year students with different language proficiency levels studying at the Faculty of Science Mahidol University were selected by stratified random sampling technique. All subjects had already taken the 1988 University English AB Entrance Examination, the general test used in this study. Two Months after the beginning of the first semester, they were administered the ESP test developed by the investigator. It consisted of three subtests: Sentence-Fill In, Writing a Summary in the Native Language and Writing Based on a Diagram. At the end of the first semester, the scores on the ESP achievement tests developed by the Department of Foreign Languages (excluding the listening part and SRA) as well as the GPA of individual subjects were collected. Pearson product moment correlation as well as factor and regression analyses were carried out. It was found that the ESP tests correlated significantly and moderately strong with the general test, indicating the similarity of the students' scores regardless of the content. Concerning the relationship between GPA and both types of tests the results showed that the relationship between the ESP test and GPA was strong than that between the general test and GPA. This was confirmed by the predictive results determined by regression analyses. That is, the ESP tests predicted the students' academic success better than the general test. When the underlying patterns of interrelationship among the general, ESP tests and GPA were investigated, the results revealed that there was a common factor underlying all the educational tests (general, ESP tests subject matter knowledge tests determined by GPA) and some specific factors associated with some of the tests. Among the three subtests developed in this study, Writing Based on a Diagram was the best instrument for assessing the ESP