Is TOEFL compulsory for Indonesian university students? A correlational study between TOEFL scores and students’ academic achievement  

Oleh:

Herlina Karjo, Clara ; Andreani, Wiwik

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: KOLITA 16: Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan Atma Jaya Keenam Belas Tingkat Internasional, page 111-115.
Topik: TOEFL; English proficiency; graduates; GPA; correlation
Fulltext: 111-115 Clara Herlina Karjo - Wiwik-OK.pdf (336.03KB)

Isi artikel

Many private universities in Indonesia compel their students to attain certain TOEFL scores as one of the requirements for graduation. TOEFL scores have been regarded as the only parameter for measuring the English competence of the university graduates. The choice of TOEFL is based on the fact that TOEFL is most well-known criterion reference test for foreign language learners, especially in Indonesia. The issues that we want to address are: (1) whether TOEFL entry test’s scores can predict the students’ final TOEFL scores and GPA scores? And (2) whether there is a correlation between the students’ TOEFL scores and their GPA. To answer the research questions, we conduct a survey research towards our university graduates. The participants for this study were 90 fresh graduates of English Department Bina Nusantara University. The data were in the form of the students’ TOEFL scores gained from their entrance test, and the TOEFL scores obtained as the graduation requirement, as well as their final GPA. The data were processed quantitatively using SPSS program to find the predictive validity of the entry TOEFL scores and also the correlation between the students’ TOEFL scores with their final GPA. GPA was chosen to represent the students’ academic achievement during their study in the university. The results of this study revealed that the entry TOEFL scores have a moderate predictive power to the final TOEFL scores. However the pre TOEFL scores do not have enough predictive power for the academic success of the students as measured by their final GPA. There are other factors that determine the academic achievement of the students such as students’ motivation for studying English. The findings imply that the application of TOEFL as the compulsory requirement for graduation should be revised. There will be other options that might be more suitable to the students’ needs.

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