Title

Listening Strategies used by Asian Students for Understanding Lectures in American Universities

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Department

Curriculum and Instruction

Date of Award

Summer 2014

Abstract

International Asian students encounter difficulty in comprehension of academic listening in classrooms at universities in the United States (Hsueh-Jui, 2008; Huang, 2004). The students can cope with the problem by using learning strategies (Oxford, 1990). The purpose of this study was to explore international Asian students’ listening strategies used to understand classroom lectures at North Texas universities and to examine the relationship between the students’ demographics (age, gender, and educational level) and their use of listening strategies. A survey design with a quantitative method was used for the study. The target samples were male and female international Asian students who were undergraduate and graduate students at two universities in North Texas. A simple sampling technique was used to select the participants. A survey questionnaire adapted from Liu (2009) was employed to collect data. The data were analyzed with percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation, and multivariate analysis (MANOVA). The findings of the study showed that the international Asian students whose genders, ages, and educational levels differed from each other at the universities in North Texas most frequently employed cognitive listening strategies to understand academic lectures in class. Of components of memory listening strategy, listening for keywords; of cognitive strategy, listening and taking notes; of metacognitive strategy, paying attention to main ideas; and of socioaffective strategy, watching English media to improve the English listening skill were most frequently used. In comparison, the students used memory and cognitive strategies more than metacognitive and socioaffective strategies. Moreover, no statistically significant difference existed in the relationship between the participants’ ages, genders, and educational levels and their use of the listening strategies.

Advisor

Jon E. Travis

Subject Categories

Curriculum and Instruction | Education | Higher Education

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