A Study of selected predictors of english reading test performance in consumer product marketing of fourth-year university students

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to investigate )1) the relationship between scores froma Reading Test of English in Consumer Product Marketing (RT-ECPM) and the three selected test takers' variables namely formal content study, English language attainment and overall academic achievement, (2) the extent to which the three variables individually or in combination predict the RT-ECPM scores, and (3) the test takers' attitude towards the RT-ECPM. The population was fourth-year students from the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy majoring in Business Administration at Chulalongkorn University of 2005 academic year. The samples consist of 133 students from the population. Two research instruments were developed to collect data in this study. A Reading Test of English in Consumer Product Marketing was formulated using the combined effort of the face-to-face interviews with the subject experts, corpus compilation and content analysis of related text books. A questionnaire for test takers was developed to collect data on test takers' variables and their attitude towards the RT-ECPM. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to explore the strength and the significance of the relationships between the three variables and the RT-ECPM scores. Multiple regression analysis was employed to study the predictability of the three independent variables on the performance in the RT-ECPM. Descriptive statistics using mean score was carried out to reveal the test takers' attitude towards the test. The findings revealed that (1) there were significant relationships between each of the three independent variables and the RT-ECPM scores at .05 level, i.e., English language attainment and the test score with r = .537, p<.01; overall academic achievement and the test scores with r[superscript 2] = .335, p<.01; formal content study and the test scores with r = .246, p<.01, (2) Only English language attainment is found to be the significant predictor of the performance in the RT-ECPM with r = .297, p< .05. Formal content study and overall academic achievement were not found to be significant predictors of the RT-ECPM scores, and (3) The grand mean score of 3.38 from the 4-point scale on the test takers' questionnaire indicated that the test takers have positive attitude towards the RT-ECPM. The findings provided more insight into the predictors of the reading test performance in English for specific Purposes particularly in the business area. The study also presented a detailed procedure in developing an ESP test which could be useful for future research.