Multiple Intelligences and English Writing Proficiency Levels among Malaysian Pre-university Students with Rural and Urban Socio-economic Backgrounds: A Comparative Study

Iziana Hani Ismail,Wardatul Akmam Din,Asmaa Alsaqqaf

doi:10.13189/ujer.2020.081238

Abstract

The disparity of the English language performance between the Malaysian rural and urban students remains a crucial issue, yet much is to be known about factors that actually influence the students' English proficiency across levels, especially those who live outside the cities. The objectives of this paper are to identify the Multiple Intelligence profiles and the significant intelligence of the urban and rural pre-university students at a public university in Malaysia, and to investigate whether there is any difference in the English writing test scores between the two groups. A demographic questionnaire, Multiple Intelligence Profiling Questionnaire (MIPQ III) and a Paper 800/4 (Writing) Question 2 of Malaysian University English Test (MUET) March 2016 question were used in this study. Sixty pre-university students were purposively selected for the current research from Preparatory Centre of Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia. The data were collected and analyzed using the Independent Sample t-test. Results suggest that there is a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of Interpersonal, Environmental, and Visual-Spatial intelligences between the urban and rural pre-university students. Unexpectedly, the findings show that the urban students display higher Environmental intelligence compared to the rural group. Additionally, a significant difference is also identified between urban and rural students in their writing scores, as the results show that the urban students performed better in the writing tests than the students in the rural areas. This study calls Malaysian English educators to acknowledge students' differences in learning, thus creating a conducive classroom experience and redesigning the lessons by incorporating all intelligences for the students to actively manifest their preferred learning styles in acquiring English language. Future research would include more language skills to be examined in a bigger number of students.

Highlights

The National Education Blueprint (2013-2025) aspires to raise the standards of Malaysia’s education system by Multiple Intelligences and English Writing Proficiency Levels among Malaysian Pre-university Students with Rural and Urban Socio-economic Backgrounds: A Comparative Study improving its quality to basic education, including developing cognitive skills [18]
Malaysia clearly aims to improve its educational system by constantly implementing educational policy reforms; this transformation seems ineffective in enhancing English language acquisition of most Malaysian students, those staying in rural areas [23]
In the 2013, English Lab under Government Transformation Program conducted by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) of the Prime Minister’s Department conclusively proved that English was the students’ weakest core subject in national assessments, where 25% of candidates failed at Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) or Primary School Achievement Test, 23% at Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR), and 22% at Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) of the same year

Summary

Introduction

The National Education Blueprint (2013-2025) aspires to raise the standards of Malaysia’s education system by Multiple Intelligences and English Writing Proficiency Levels among Malaysian Pre-university Students with Rural and Urban Socio-economic Backgrounds: A Comparative Study improving its quality to basic education, including developing cognitive skills [18]. English teaching and learning has been an extremely heated topic in Malaysia, with national policy-makers and public hotly debating whether to make it compulsory for the students to pass the English language subject paper in Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) from 2016. This broad vision seems impractical to be implemented because most of the Malaysian students are constantly being challenged with poor English acquisition despite years of learning it in schools. This inability to use the language effectively is manifested by the fact that 48 percent of employers rejected students due to poor English [15]

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Conclusion