Components of engineering-English reading ability?

Abstract

This study explored variables which may contribute to the ability to read engineering English. A test of engineering-English reading comprehension ability and a cloze test of general English language proficiency were administered to four groups of graduate students ( n = 29 for each): (1) American engineers, (2) Americans in TESL, (3) Chinese engineers and (4) Chinese in TEFL. The cloze test had 50 items with a seventh-word deletion pattern. The engineering reading test contained 60 items based on three passages. The results indicated that the engineering reading test significantly ( P <0.01) separated the mean performance of Chinese engineering and non-engineering students—thus supporting previous study of the validity of that measure. In addition, a clear-cut pattern emerged in the mean performances of the four groups which was also further found to exist for each and every one of the ten different item types (including both linguistic and engineering factors) on the engineering test. finally, it appeared that as much as 62 percent of the variation in scores on the engineering reading text was accounted for by general English language proficiency rather than by components specific to engineering English. The discussion includes many questions that arose from these results.