The present study was situated in two technological universities in Taiwan. These two universities, marked as School A and School B, had quite similar student backgrounds and English graduation benchmark policies. School A, formerly a private five-year junior college, was upgraded into a technological university which recruited mostly vocational high school graduates for its four-year undergraduate program, with an increasing enrollment of high school graduates in recent years. There was not an English Department in School A and all the students (appropriately 2500 students) majored in engineering-related subjects in three colleges. School B was a public technological university, which used to be a five-year junior college as well. There was an Applied English Department in School B (whose students, however, were not the targets of this study, since this present study focused on non-English majors only), but the majority of the students in this school majored in engineering-related subjects like School A. The total number of students in School B was around 8000.
In addition to the four-year undergraduate program, both schools also had a two-year undergraduate program which recruited five-year junior college graduates.
However, the two-year undergraduate program would sooner or later become history, because five-year junior colleges would no longer exist in Taiwan’s higher education and there was no need keeping a two-year undergraduate program. Students graduated from either the four-year or two-year undergraduate program are awarded a bachelor’s degree.
Both schools had similar graduation benchmarks for English. They both required their students to pass the first stage of the GEPT Intermediate test (or other equivalent tests, see Appendix A). However, there were some differences between the two schools’ make-up measures. In School A, freshman students in the four-year undergraduate program were required to take an internal test (equivalent to the first stage of the GEPT Intermediate test), serving as an exit test and held twice a year, if they hadn’t passed the graduation benchmark by the time the test was held.
Sophomores, juniors and seniors in School A might choose to take the test with the freshmen. In School B, all the freshman and sophomore students in the four-year undergraduate program and all the junior students6 in the two-year undergraduate program had to take an English proficiency test (each covering five pre-scheduled GEPT mock tests on the school’s website) right after their mid-term and final exam.
Students’ scores on the two English proficiency tests accounted for 30% of the overall grades for the required English course7 in that semester.
Students in both schools had to take a one-semester make-up course8 to fulfill the graduation benchmark requirement if they still had not passed the English exit exam later in their college life. In school A, the make-up course was offered in the
6 Students in the first and second year of the two-year undergraduate program are equivalent to junior and senior students respectively in the four-year undergraduate program.
7 In school B, the required English courses for the freshman and sophomore students in the four-year undergraduate program and for the junior students in the two-year undergraduate program are Freshman English, English and Practice, Intermediate English and Practice respectively.
8 The course title of the make-up course in School A is English Tutorial and in School B is Practical English.
first and second semester of the senior year for the four-year undergraduate program students; in school B, the make-up course was offered in the second semester of the junior year for the four-year undergraduate program students and in the first semester of the junior year for the two-year undergraduate program students. In addition, for students to take the make-up course in School B, the prerequisite was that they must have already taken the external GEPT test (the first stage of the Intermediate test) and gained a total score no less than 80 points on listening and reading. To pass the make-up course in School B, students also had to take the English proficiency test (as mentioned earlier) after the mid-term and final exam and must gain from the two tests an average score of over 60 points on the listening and reading component respectively. In both schools, if students did not pass the make-up course, they would have to re-take the course until they pass it.
School A had implemented the policy on only its four-year undergraduate program students since the 2004 academic year, while School B on both its four-year and two-year undergraduate program students since the 2003 academic year, with continuing changes over the years to the above-mentioned latest version.
Staffed with six full-time and 15 part-time English teachers, School A required students to take Freshman English (6 credits / 6 hours) and Aural-oral English (2 credits / 4 hours) during their freshman and sophomore year respectively. Junior students in School A were required to fulfill a one-year internship outside the school, during which they must self-study the pre-assigned materials before coming back to school for the final exam in each semester (4 credits). There were five elective English courses for students to take in School A. Compared to School A, School B had a much larger faculty (20 full-time and 34 part-time English teachers) and a heavier English load on their non-English majors. In School B, non-English majors in the four-year undergraduate program were required to take Freshman English (4
credits / 4 hours) and Oral-aural Training in English (0 credit / 2 hours) during their freshman year; English and Practice (2 credits / 4 hours) and Oral-aural Training in
English (0 credit / 2 hours) during their sophomore year. For those in the two-year
undergraduate program, they were required to take Intermediate English and Practice (2 credits / 4 hours) during their junior year at school. There were no elective English courses for students to take in School B. A brief description of School A and School B is shown in Table 2.Table 2. A brief description of School A and School B General facts
School A School B
Student number 2500 8000
Student majors Mostly engineering-related Mostly engineering-related
English department No Yes
English faculty 6 full-time teachers 15 part-time teachers course based on the scores of the internal proficiency test)
English courses
(for programs related to the present study)School A School B
4-year program 4-year program 2-year program Freshman Freshman English
-English and Practice
(2 credits / 4 hours / one
-Make-up course:
-Free GEPT mock tests on the school’s website (to be tested in the English proficiency test after the mid-term and final exam)
-An elective course tutoring the above GEPT mock tests (evening sessions) sponsored by the MOE’s Teaching and Learning Excellence Project
Instruments and Participants
In order to answer the three research questions proposed in Chapter One, several research instruments were developed for different groups of stakeholders based on the following plan.
The general plan for the research instruments and participants
Since the washback phenomenon and students’ English language needs in the educational context are complex and elusive, the researcher decided to use different research instruments and techniques to collect both quantitative and qualitative data.
The purpose of adopting a mixed methods approach was not only for gathering and reconciling data from several sources and/or modes, namely, for what is called
“triangulation” (Webb et al., 1966; Denzin, 1970), but also for incorporating the strengths of both the quantitative and qualitative paradigms (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004) with respect to the underlying research questions.
The general plan of the research instruments and participants is presented in