EST: evading scientific text

English for Specific Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
www.elsevier.com/locate/esp
EST: evading scienti®c text
Jeremy Ward
School of English, Suranaree University of Technology, Amphoe Muang,
Nakhon Ratchasima, 30000, Thailand
Abstract
Engineering students in Thailand are charged with the duty of facilitating technology
transfer from the west. But they seem to have great diculty in performing one of the central
tasks in that duty, that of reading textbooks written in English. This study examines some
chemical engineering studentsH attitudes to text and other parts of English language textbooks.
A questionnaire was administered to a group of undergraduates, the results of which seem to
reveal one way in which students get around the problem of textbook reading. # 2001 The
American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: English for science and technology (EST); Reading; Undergraduate; Engineering; Applications
1. Background
Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), a new university near Nakhon Ratchasima in north-eastern Thailand, was created in part to oset a shortage of graduate
engineers within the country. The university yearbook (SUT 1996:10) states that
among the ®ve main purposes of the university are the following:
. the training and production of highly quali®ed scienti®c and technological personnel;
. technology transfer and development towards national scienti®c and technological self-reliance in response to national development needs
Thus, among other things, SUT students are intended to ful®ll this mission of
moving Thailand towards technological self-reliance. Reading English text, in
books, magazines, journals, and electronic media will surely be involved; but, after
teaching here for ®ve years, I had formed an impression that many students were
very poor readers. Engineering lecturers with whom I discussed this problem agreed,
but many of them claimed that students were able to compensate for their poor
E-mail address: [email protected]
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J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
reading by focusing on applications. At ®rst I assumed that by ``applications'' they
meant problems, but in fact the term also covers examples. Engineering textbooks
(ETs) nearly always have, in addition to pages of text explaining new subject matter,
separate, explicitly labelled examples illustrating the text. Pages of problems follow,
usually at the end of each chapter.
I therefore decided to investigate whether it was true that SUT students Ð and by
implication other students with similar reading needs and abilities Ð tended to focus
on applications at the expense of text in their reading.
2. Why is the question important?
It is a commonplace that there is a need for science/technology undergraduate
students in developing countries to read academic textbooks (see e.g. Hassan, Neilson & Thomas, 1986; Johns & Dudley-Evans, 1991). We also know of the diculties
that foreign students have in reading academic textbooks (see for example Cohen,
Glasman, Rosenbaum-Cohen, Ferrara & Fine, 1988: 152; Cooper, 1984; Flowerdew,
1993; Nurweni & Read, 1999; Shih 1992: 290 who cites a number of relevant studies).
These issues are obviously important for students' future careers as well as for
national human resource development policies. However, it is not my purpose here to
show that SUT students fail at EST reading. Rather, I hope to show that students
use the applications (and particularly the examples) to compensate for their failure
to read extended text, and that there are consequences following from this that tend
to vitiate the policy which the university is designed to ful®ll (see Section 6).
3. Procedure
The main enquiry centred around a questionnaire (in Thai), since the concern is to
investigate an overall tendency and a reasonable amount of quantitative data needed to
be acquired. It is accepted that the ®ndings here need to be con®rmed by studies of
individual reading behaviour, like the observational, qualitative studies of Li and
Munby (1996), Adamson (1990) (metacognitive strategies) and Parry (1997) (vocabulary
strategies). This point is discussed further in Section 5.3.
3.1. The questionnaire
In order to check that the distinction between text and applications was salient for
students, two focus groups of chemical engineering students were set up before
writing the questionnaire. Faculty members involved in teaching background engineering and chemical engineering were also interviewed, to ®nd out how they saw
student use of ETs.
Our participants (six male and six female senior students in two separate groups)
were unanimous and emphatic that they have to use ETs. There were a number of
reasons given for this. First, Thai translations (of English ETs) tended to be rather
J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
143
confusing; also mentioned was that there are more examples and problems, in terms
of both quantity and variety, in the English ETs; that English problems are easier
than Thai ones (!!); that ``you can learn more''; that the problems and examples are
very helpful. Participants claimed to use the ETs in the following way. Lectures were
given in Thai, together (often) with the lecturer's notes. Students were asked to supplement the lectures by reading assignments and problems. If students had attended
the lecture, the reading was easier, and whether they had attended the lecture or not
was an important determiner of diculty. Students did not read all the text that the
lecturer suggested, and they tended not to go to lecturers with their problems.
From the interviews with faculty members, it emerged that most courses had an
assigned ET, but lectures providing the ``essence'' of the material were given in Thai
and students were ``encouraged'' to ®ll in the details for themselves by reading the
textbook. Problems were assigned regularly; these came from the English ETs. Some
examples from ETs were used in class teaching. ET problems would also be used in
the students' ®nal examinations. It was dicult for lecturers to check how much
outside reading was done by students, but they were generally not sanguine about
this. Most students did hand in the assigned problems, although it was not certain
how much copying went on.
On the basis of this input the questionnaire was drafted. An expert translator was
used who worked closely with the writer to ensure accuracy, and back-translation was
carried out with colleagues at SUT. The resulting version was then submitted to the
departmental Research Chair, who suggested various revisions which were discussed
and incorporated.
The problem was that there was not time to follow correct piloting procedures (as
in, for example, Bailey, 1987). One consequence of this was that ambiguities, resulting
from last-minute changes in wording, were noticed too late in certain items. Another
was that no correction was made to the over-emphasis on problems rather than
examples. Notwithstanding these ¯aws, the unequivocal nature of much of the
response in the area of examples leads me to believe that the results merit discussion.
Two dierent types of item were included in the questionnaire: Thirteen particular
statements with a Likert scale of responses (from 1=strongly disagree to
5=strongly agree), and ®ve closed-ended multiple choice questions. These are
shown respectively as S1±13 and Q1±5 below. It was hoped by using dierent item
types, to crosscheck the responses for consistency. For this purpose too, there is
some redundancy within the sections (the same variable was asked about more than
once). However there was no evidence of ``exasperation'' on the respondents' part
because of this (Bailey, 1987: 107).
In three separate chemical engineering lecture sessions the questionnaire was
administered to a total of 106 chemical engineering students. Of these 31 were second
year, 35 third year and 40 fourth year; 47 were male and 59 female. They completed
the questionnaires ``on the spot'', and anonymously. No time limit was imposed but
respondents took between 15 and 20 minutes to complete the (originally slightly
longer) questionnaire.
Students were also asked to ®ll in their GPAX (grade point average) and year of
study.
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J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
4. Results
Results were analysed using SPSS version 7.5. Mean responses (MR) from the 1±5
scale are given (with standard deviations; sd).
. Section 1
S1:
S2:
S3:
S4:
S5:
S6:
S7:
S8:
S9:
S10:
S11:
S12:
S13:
The examples in the ETs help me a great deal to understand the subject
matter. MR 4.64; sd 0.81.
If I have a choice, I prefer to read new subject matter in Thai. MR 3.68; sd
1.19.
If I do not understand new content, I read the text to help. MR 3.59; sd 1.
I can pass by studying lecture notes in Thai and the examples and problems
in English. MR 3.73; sd 1.03.
In the ETs, it is generally easier to study the problems than the text. MR
4.07; sd 1.13.
The text in the ETs helps me a great deal to understand the subject matter.
MR 3.31; sd 1.05.
As I study at a higher level, I need ETs more than previously. MR 4.71; sd
0.83.
The English in the problems is generally easier than the English in the text.
MR 4.08; sd 1.02.
I need to study ETs to pass courses at SUT. MR 3.84; sd 1.03.
The problems in the ETs help me a great deal to understand the subject
matter. MR 3.94; sd 1.05.
Thai textbooks are adequate for study purposes. MR 2.06; sd 1.02.
It is very dicult to understand the text if I have not attended a lecture on
the subject ®rst. MR 4.11; sd 0.91.
It is necessary to study the text in ETs to pass the courses at SUT. MR 3.63;
sd 1.03.
. Section 2
Q1:
Q2:
Q3:
Q4:
Q5:
What proportion of the examples do you read? 57% All; 43% Some; 0%
None.
What proportion of the problems do you read? 4% All; 93% Some; 3%
None.
How do you read the textual material? In detail 20%; Super®cially 76%;
Not at all 4%.
Mark the sections of the ETs that you ®nd useful. (You may mark more
than one item). Examples: 100% yes; Problems: 70%: yes; Text: 68% yes;
Diagrams: 74% yes.
Rank the items in Q4 from the most useful to the least useful. (Ranked most
useful) Examples: 74%; Text: 15%; Problems: 5%; Diagrams: 6%.
J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
145
5. Discussion
One ®nding emerges very clearly from these results. Students think that applications, and in particular examples, are very useful; they ®nd them more helpful than
text in understanding content.
5.1. The preference for examples
Asked ``What proportion of the examples do you read?'' (Q1) 57% of students said
they read all the examples in their textbook, 43% read some of them, but 0% read
none of them. When asked to mark the sections of the ETs that they found useful,
100% of students marked examples. Nobody failed to say that examples were useful.
Finally, in response to the statement (S1) ``The examples in the ETs help me a great
deal to understand the subject matter'' the mean answer was 4.64 (sd 0.81) indicating very strong agreement.
The vehemence of this response was a surprise to this writer, who (as mentioned
above) anticipated a much greater reliance on problems. In fact on problems the
response is more equivocal, and also more dicult to interpret, since students are
forced to do some of them, and they form the basis of the examinations. Most of the
following discussion will therefore focus on the text/examples distinction. The mean
responses about the usefulness of text and applications show clear dierences:
. (S1) Examples help me a great deal to understand new subject matter: 4.64;
. (S10) Problems help me a great deal to understand new subject matter: 3.94;
. (S6) Text helps me a great deal to understand new subject matter: 3.31.
Similarly, 74% chose examples as being most useful, ahead of text and problems
(Q5). What is more, positive attitudes to examples (as measured by S1) correlated
signi®cantly with positive attitudes to problems (S10) (0.426, P=0.000), but with
non-committal attitudes to text (S6) (0.300, P=0.002); students who found the
examples useful tended not to be keen on the text. In fact, of students who found
examples most useful, nearly half (44%) failed to agree that the text helps them to
understand new material. Only one in ten of these people agreed strongly that the
text is helpful in this regard. The items indicating positive attitudes to applications
all correlated signi®cantly, as shown in Table 1 (P=0.000 except where indicated).
However the ®ve items in Table 1 either do not correlate at all (S4, S5, S8) or only
more weakly (S1, S10) with S6 Ð ``The text helps me a great deal to understand the
subject matter.'' (Table 2.)
This indicates that there is a set of positive attitudes towards applications that
does not extend to the text.
5.2. What about text?
See Table 3. When asked (Q3) ``How do you read the text?'', 20% of students said
they study the text in detail; 76% said they read it super®cially; 4% said they never
read it. Asked (Q4) to mark the parts of the ETs they found useful, 68% of students
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J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
Table 1
Attitudes to applications
S1
S4
S5
S8
S4
S5
S8
S10
0.351
0.402
0.441
0.444
0.305 (P=0.001)
0.716
0.426
0.285 (P=0.003)
0.364
0.505
Table 2
Attitude to text compared with applications
S6
S1
S4
S5
S8
S10
0.300 (P=0.002)
n/s
n/s
n/s
0.214 (P=0.028)
Table 3
Attitudes to texta
S2e
S3b
S13c
a
b
c
d
e
S3b
S13c
S6d
n/s
n/s
0.535 (P=0.000)
À0.301 (P=0.002)
0.472 (P=0.000)
0.481 (P=0.000)
Pearson correlation coecients.
If I don't understand new content, I read the text to help.
It is necessary to study the text in ETs to pass the courses at SUT.
The text in the ETs helps me to understand the subject matter.
If I have a choice, I prefer to read new subject matter in Thai.
marked the text; 32% failed to do so. In response to (S13) ``It is necessary to study
the text in ETs to pass the courses at SUT'' the mean response was 3.63.
However in response to (S6) ``The text helps me to understand the subject matter''
43% were non-committal, with a mean response of only 3.31. Only 38% expressed
agreement, and 19% actually disagreed.
There are signi®cant correlations between nearly all these items, as shown in
Table 3.
In addition, correlating the above with Q3 (Pearson chi-square, since Q3 cannot
be treated as an interval variable) produces Table 4.
People who read the text in detail tended to say that it is necessary, that it helps
them to understand new subject matter and that they can use it when they don't
understand new content.
This indicates that there is a body of students who have what we would call
``desirable'' attitudes to text Ð it helps them understand, they think it is necessary
and useful. So it would be gratifying to think that we were at least creating a group
of elite students, who often read the text in ETs, have in consequence a much better
grasp of their subject, and succeed academically as a result. But that does not seem
J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
147
Table 4
How text is read
How do you read the text? (in detail, super®cially,
not at all).
S2
S3
S13
S6
n/s
32.1
(P=0.000)
16.6
(P=0.035)
17.7
(P=0.023)
to be the case. ``Good'' attitudes towards text (as opposed to applications) do not
correlate signi®cantly with higher GPAXs nor with seniority. Although seniors say
they need ETs more, they do not seem to ®nd text or examples more useful. Seniors,
it seems, think in this respect like freshmen. Their university education does not
change their attitude.
The strong agreement with S12 (``It is very dicult to understand the textual
material if I have not attended a lecture on the subject ®rst'') (MR=4.11) and the
weak agreement with S3 (``If I do not understand new material, I read the textual
material to help'') (MR=3.59) may indicate that many students are using text to
con®rm what they already know from the lectures rather than using the textbooks to
®ll out the content delivered in lectures. For these learners, understanding text
depends on a prior lecture, and text does not help much if the content is new. Now
most people would intuitively say that acquiring new knowledge requires careful
reading with attention to detail, but 76% of all respondents confess to reading the
text ``super®cially''. They do ®nd the text useful (see Q4) but not for understanding
new content (S6). This type of reading would seem more suited to a purpose such as
``checking information'' (for one example matching of reading purposes with types
of reading, see Hoey, 1991: 224).
The struggle that students have with text and the preference for examples would
be predicted by research which suggests that L2 reading problems are primarily linguistic and that below a certain ``threshold'' students will ®nd diculty in using their
L1 background knowledge (i.e. what they have learnt from the Thai lectures) and
reading skills (e.g. Alderson, 1984; Carrell, 1988; Lee & Schallert, 1997).
5.3. Do these results accurately re¯ect actual behaviour?
The responses here are not the result of students' trying to portray themselves as
model learners, or of them answering in the way the researcher wanted or expected.
Bailey (1987) lists various factors in questionnaire design that might give rise to
``erroneous information'', of which the sensitivity/anonymity issue appears most
relevant here. This was presumably at work in the question about GPAX, which 14
students declined to divulge. However it is hard to see how any of the other information requested can be thought of as sensitive, especially since the questionnaire
was administered anonymously. No more than one student missed any other item.
Incidentally Q2 gives an opportunity for the student to be caught giving ``erroneous'' information, since it would be impossible for any student to read all the
thousands of problems in ETs. Only 4% made such a claim.
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J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
There is however a problem with what appears to be the ``acquiescent response set''
(de Vaus, 1995: 89), where ``F F F some people agree with the statements regardless of
their content.'' This can be seen in the reponses to S4, which suggest that reading the
text is unnecessary (MR=3.73) and S13, indicating agreement that reading the text is
essential (MR=3.63). These two items correlate at P=0.000. Thirty-eight students
agreed (four or more on the 5-point scale) with both, although they contradict each
other. There is, I am assured, no ambiguity in the two statements in Thai.
Now unless students are merely answering randomly, which, in view of the consistency in responses, generally would seem unlikely (see discussion in Sections 5.1
and 5.2), this indicates that the 3.00±4.00 mean responses to other questions might
not be signalling much, if any, agreement at all. What appears to be quite unequivocal is the predilection for applications and examples in particular.
5.4. Are these results generalisable?
The student sample is fairly representative of Thai science/technology undergraduates. Our students come from various parts of the country and almost exclusively
from state secondary schools, where the curriculum is largely determined on a national
basis. They all chose science and mathematics as their option after three years' secondary education. Thus as a body, they have a fairly standard background in learning
English and science, shared by other Thai science/technology undergraduates.
Are the students in this sample representative of such undergraduates in other
developing countries? The problems encountered in reading ETs are certainly shared in
other regions (the works cited in Section 2 above are about Africa, the Middle East and
Asia) and indeed in Britain and the US (e.g. Guzzetti, Shwu, Skeels & Williams, 1997). I
am not aware of any evidence that the coping strategy described here is used elsewhere,
but this is precisely the reason I undertook the study Ð because it seemed so plausible.
6. Consequences
If students are graduating by reading applications, particularly examples, rather
than text, this may have a number of consequences for them.
6.1. Background knowledge
Studying engineering involves studying physical systems. By reading text students
learn about these physical systems as wholes and as parts of larger physical
systems Ð that is, they learn about their individual characteristics, about how they
resemble and dier from each other, and about what limitations must be applied to
the (general) statements made. This knowledge cannot be gained just by doing the
applications. Applications deal with particular sets of circumstances. If students do
not understand the relationship between the whole physical system described in the
text and the application they are doing then they do not understand the general
principles behind the application (Laurillard, 1979).
J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
149
We might call knowledge of these general principles ``background'' knowledge.
There are other types of background knowledge Ð e.g. how a particular procedure
evolved, how it relates to similar procedures, how it draws on knowledge from other
related disciplines Ð that also can be found in the textual sections but not normally
in the applications.
Failure to read text will of course have cumulative eects as the student progresses
through the university. Content and formal schemata (Carrell, 1983) will become
increasingly inadequate; the student will lack both the background knowledge
necessary to read more advanced text (content), and the exposure to ways of presenting information other than the problem/solution format of applications (formal). Similarly cognitive psychology provides much evidence for the importance of
``F F F domain knowledge F F F as a determinant of information processing eciency''
(Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993: 211 has a list of sources for this.).
A graduate who has not studied text will thus be a long way behind his/her foreign
counterpart who has. US engineering undergraduates for example, quite apart from
reading their assigned textbooks, will probably have been required to look into
professional journals and research literature in the course of their studies.
Graduates who have diculty reading English text will obviously be severely disadvantaged in terms of graduate education, since they will be cut o from vast
amounts of information that they need. On the other hand, if they enter the workplace they will also remain uncompetitive with other graduates who can read English text, since the latter will be much more easily and fully aware of what is going on
in their ®eld. The poorly-read graduate is more likely to work as an ``underling'', or
in places that are below the cutting edge of technology transfer here in Thailand,
and he/she will have to rely on other people's (frequently unreliable) translations of
technological literature.
Similarly, poorly-read graduates will be at a huge disadvantage when it comes to
research and innovation. By studying applications they are learning only how to use
technologies, rather than create, amplify or adapt them. And if they are unable even
to reproduce the background scienti®c and engineering knowledge which underlies
their approaches to particular technical problems, there is little possibility of them
adopting any kind of critical attitude to this knowledge.
6.2. Mathematics
In a sense mathematics students do not need quite as much ``language'' to understand applications. One reason for this is that applications tend to involve more
mathematics than the text itself. In the case of the examples, this is usually obvious
at a glance. However it is in the ``textual'' sections of ETs that learners gain an
understanding of what the mathematics (in the applications) is trying to achieve,
what the limitations or assumptions are in the mathematical procedures. Students
who do not read the text risk treating problem-solving Ð in academic or professional life Ð as merely following a set procedure. Moreover, if students do not fully
understand the signi®cance of the mathematical procedures then this is quite likely
to lead to incorrect uses of those procedures.
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J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
6.3. Summary
One way to summarise Section 6 is by saying that by reading the text, students
study theory and acquire knowledge which is more general, whereas the applications, practically by de®nition, deal with the practical and particular. There is no
claim here that it is impossible to come to an understanding of the general through
the particular. For example, one very widely used chemical engineering textbook
(Himmelblau, 1996) contains the following advice to the reader (p. xvi): ``Some
people, those who learn by reading concrete examples, should look at the examples
®rst, and then read the text.'' (my emphasis). Nor would I claim that it is beneath a
good scientist's dignity to use mathematical formulations to clarify what is in text
(indeed Guzzetti et al., 1997: 710, describe an eminent physics teacher in the US who
``F F F emphasized mathematical problem solving to discover a concept..''). Of course
there are ways of using the applications to enhance understanding of text. But it
cannot be inferred that these students in general are doing this; whatever individual
exceptions may exist undetected by this methodology, 76% say they read text
``super®cially'' and 62% will not agree that it helps them understand new subject
matter. A more plausible explanation of why they use the examples is that it enables
them to ful®l course requirements by helping them through assignments and
examinations Ð i.e. by helping them solve problems (see Section 7.2).
All of Section 6 suggests, ironically, that far from becoming self-reliant (see Section 1), students will be perpetually dependent on others' ability to interpret scienti®c knowledge in English.
7. Why do they prefer the applications?
I would like to suggest two factors which contribute to students' recourse to
applications, in particular to examples, rather than text.
7.1. Relative diculty
The text is just too dicult. The applications are the only parts of the book within
the range of our students' abilities. The problem±solution structure of the applications minimises discourse structure problems (Davey, 1988: 67±68) and, as the same
author points out, ``highly imageable, concrete passages should be easier to recall
and comprehend than more abstract passages'' (p. 68), a comparison that seems to
mirror that between examples and text.
7.2. The eect of examinations
An absence of perception of need equals an absence of external motivation. As
one chemical engineering professor (Haile, 1997: 214) writes, ``F F F transitions
(between levels of technical understanding) are motivated when we realise that mastery at the current level is not su®cient for our current 5majority of our learners seem
J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
151
unaware or uncaring of the consequences described in Section 6, and are perhaps in
this respect unmotivated. But what of examinations?
The examinations are very much based on problems. The examples explain how to
do problems, by working through some of them. The question is, are students
reading the examples so that they can do the problems so that they can pass the
examinations? Or are the examples a sort of inductive path back into the theory
explained in the text? Again, the results here suggest that most students may have
the former purpose (see Section 6.3).
Hawkey and Nakornchai (1981) discuss a number of characteristics of Thai students studying in Thailand. Of particular relevance here is the ``F F F ®rmly entrenched
tradition of teaching towards tests and examinations which directly re¯ect the contents of the set-books'' (p. 72). This in itself has been thought to lead to a ``surface''
approach to learning (see the discussion in Biggs, 1979: 382) which occurs when students ``F F F perceive that there is an excessive amount of material to be learnt F F F and
that the assessment system requires the reiteration of information.'' (Gow, Kember &
Chow, 1991). If examinations here involve the reproduction of knowledge, and if the
knowledge required by examinations in a ®eld like chemical engineering is of applications, then the question is whether the applications (problems) in the examinations
actually test students' ability to synthesise knowledge for purposes of problem-solving,
or just their memory of particular applications (examples or problems). This requires
an observational study, but it is dicult to see how students can master the theory
without reading the text carefully Ð something most of them explicitly deny doing.
8. Conclusion
This paper presents evidence that science and technology students in foreign language settings compensate for their diculty in reading English language textbooks
by concentrating their attention on the applications, and especially the examples,
given in those textbooks. This results in failure to address adequately the textual
material in the textbooks, which means that one central purpose of the curriculum Ð
to develop national self-reliance in technology Ð is unlikely to be achieved.
If the conclusion were con®rmed by qualitative studies of actual behaviour and by
more detailed research into the place of examples in students' reading, and if it were
shown that the coping strategy described here is widespread, then this would have
important implications for the appropriacy and practicality of EST reading for
undergraduates in developing countries.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Dr. Olga Moudraia of Walailak University for her
assistance in the data-gathering phase of this project, the anonymous reviewers at
ESP Journal for their comments on earlier drafts, and Suranaree University of
Technology for their support.
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J. Ward / English for Speci®c Purposes 20 (2001) 141±152
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