Effectiveness of the Intensive English Summer Bridge Program: A Case Study

Abstract

An alarmingly high percentage of recent high school graduates are not prepared to succeed in college-level courses, and the impact of this educational shortcoming is substantial. Underprepared college students incur a monetary cost of re-enrolling in courses. Furthermore, since majority of the Thai students avail of government loans to pay for their tuition fees, the result is that the taxpayers are burdened to subsidize much of the overall cost of education.In addition, underprepared students are less likely to graduate from college and meet the nation's economic need for a more highly educated workforce. One approach to reducing the need for developmental education is the high school-to-college-bridge program.This research paper looked into the Intensive English Summer Bridge Program of St. Theresa International College.This study focused on the performance of incoming first year of St. Theresa College in the Summer Bridge Program during the academic year 2015-2016. It assessed their performance on the following aspects: Reading and Writing, and Listening and Speaking. Specifically the research had the following objectives:1. To measure the performance of the students in Reading and Writing, Listening and Speaking in terms of their mean scores in the Pre-test.2. To measure the performance of the students in Reading and Writing, Listening and Speaking in terms of their mean scores in the Post-test.3. To determine the effectiveness of the Program in terms of the incremental value between the Pre-test and the Post-test.The findings showed that the Summer Intensive Bridge Program has increased the post-test mean scores of the students in both Reading and Writing and Listening and Speaking, except for the students of the Faculty of Air Traffic Control.