chapter 4 part 2

Table 4
Mean Frequency, Standard Deviation, Maximum and Minimum Scores in Different
Levels of the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) by Social Science (N= 49) and Natural
Science (N=49) groups Morphological Identification Morphological Structure Programs MN SD Min Max MN SD Min Max Social Sc 4.45 .50 4 5 10.80 3.59 0 16 Natural Sc 4.51 .74 2 5 13.47 3.32 3 18 Total 4.48 .63 2 5 12.13 3.69 0 18
Note. Morpheme Identification (5 items), Morphological Structure (20 items). Independent group t-tests revealed that for the Morpheme Identification scores,
t (96) = .48, so is not significant. For the Morphological Structure scores, t (96) = 3.83,
p = .000 (two-tailed). This shows that the Natural Science students performed significantly better on the Morphological Structure test. 4.2.2. Students’ Perceptions of the Morphological Awareness Test To judge the students’ perception on the morphological awareness, there were two questions asking their opinions about 1). The difficulty level of the two types of the tests, and 2). Their preferences for one of the two types. These perceptions give insight into the relative difficulty of the two types of morphological awareness. As shown in Table 5, more than one-third of the students considered that the Morpheme Identification test was neither difficult nor easy. In addition, there were approximately 3% more students who considered this task easy compared with students 30 who found it a difficult test. On the other hand, approximately 39% of the students thought that the Morphological Structure test was a difficult test. Approximately 65% of the students preferred the Morpheme Identification to the Morphological Structure test. These findings are consistent with the ceiling effect evident in the results of Morpheme Identification test. Table 5
The Percentages of Students’ Perceptions on the Difficulty of the Two Types of
Morphological Awareness Test Difficulty of the test 1 2 3 4 5 Pref Morpheme Identification 11.34 25.77 37.11 11.34 14.43 64.58 Morphological Structure 3.16 35.79 29.47 12.63 18.95 35.42
Note. Scale for difficulty of the test: 1 = very difficult, 2 = difficult, 3 = moderate, 4= easy, 5= very easy, Pref = students preference in the two task types, N = 98. 4.3. The Relationship of the VLT to the Morphological Awareness Test The third question concerned the relationship between the English morphological awareness and the vocabulary knowledge of the EFL learners in the study. The mean scores of the VLT and the two Morphological Awareness tasks for the whole group (98 participants) were correlated to assess the strength of association between the tests. Also, the correlation of the 2 groups’ performances (Social Science and Natural Science) in the VLT and the two Morphological Awareness tasks was analysed. 31 4.3.1. The Intercorrelations between the VLT and Morphological Awareness Test For the group as a whole, both Morpheme Identification and Morphological Structure tasks were significantly correlated with the VLT, although the strength of association was not high. The correlation of the Morpheme Identification test and VLT scores was comparatively higher compared than that of the Morphological Structure test and the VLT results (Pearson r are .388 and .376 respectively at p < .01, all tests twotailed). In addition, there was a small but significant association between the two morphological awareness tests (Pearson r is .234, p < .05), indicating the two measured different kinds of morphological knowledge. Of course, these correlations must be interpreted with caution, due to the uniformly high scores obtained in the Morpheme Identification task. However, the results show a different association pattern between the two groups (Social Science and Natural Science). As shown in Table 6, the Morpheme Identification scores obtained by the students from the program of Social Science were significantly correlated with the scores of their VLT. However, their scores in Morphological Structure test were only slightly associated with their scores in the VLT. On the other hand, the Natural Science students’ scores in the VLT were strongly correlated to their Morphological Structure scores, but not to the scores in Morpheme Identification test. 32 Table 6
Intercorrelations between the VLT and Morphological Awareness Test across the Groups Morpheme Identification Morphological Structure Social Sc Natural Sc Social Sc Natural Sc Nation’s Social Sc .707** -- .214 -- VLT Natural Sc -- .183 -- .607**
Note. ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). The pattern of results is difficult to explain. The Social Science group scores on the Morpheme Identification test correlated (r = .71) with the VLT performance, but the Morphological Structure scores did not. The opposite result was obtained for the Natural Science group. The ceiling effect in the Morpheme Identification test and the similar scores on the VLT for both groups makes the correlation for the Social Science group difficult to interpret.