Contributing Factors and Problems Affecting the English Listening Comprehension Skills of EIC Undergraduate Students at RMUTL Tak

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the significant contributing factors and to discover the existing problems affecting the English listening comprehension skills of EIC undergraduate students at RMUTL Tak. The participants were 46 3rd and 4th year students. The research instrument for this quantitative study was an online questionnaire by which data was gathered and analyzed by calculating the mean (x ̅) and the standard deviation (SD) for each factor. Open coding was used to color code the data and then frequency distribution (f) was used to calculate percentage (%) for the existing problems. The results revealed that an overview of the 4 categories of factors affecting English listening comprehension was at a high level (x ̅ = 3.80, SD = 0.763), and the significant contributing factor which most influenced English listening comprehension skills was the factor relating to a speaker’s influence on listening comprehension skills: the speaker spoke too quickly (x ̅ = 4.10, SD = 0.706). Speakers’ accents were the most outstanding problems affecting English listening comprehension (f = 21, 31%). Furthermore, both the factors and the problems highlighted were crucial information required to remedy and improve students' English listening comprehension skills.