6.2.3 Participants’Background Information.................
In the qualitative part of the study, all the 16 students’first language is Mandarin
Chinese. They are from two different colleges and majors. The participants from the
first tier school type major in management with English as the second degree and
the other participants from the second tier school type major in English. Here, one
thing is important to note that the university aims at molding the undergraduates
into interdisciplinary talents and the students majoring in management are also
required to reach the same English proficiency level as English Majors, with the
pass of TEM 8 as a strong indicator. In this case, all the participants regardless of
their major need to participate in TEM 8 test and preferably obtain a pass or above
grade to fulfill their four-year learning target in terms of English language
proficiency.
The table of participants’demographic background (see Table6.3) shows they
are of the similar age cohort with the average age of 21.56 (from 20 to 23), but the
length of English learning varies from 9 years to 15 years with the average learning
period of 11.63 years. It is also noticeable that the cohort is not balanced in terms of
gender. Females are dominant in number, altogether 12, and males are the minority,
only 4. Since the gender ratio in the university is not balanced either, a compara-
tively larger group of female participants is reasonable and acceptable. All the 16
participants’detailed individual information is listed in Table6.4, including their
names (not their full names for ethical reasons), gender, age, English learning time,
grade, school type, TEM 4 score and two TEM 8 Mini-lecture and Gap-filling
scores.
6.2.4 Research Instruments.............................
In the qualitative part of the study, we used two actual TEM 8 Mini-lecture and
Gap-filling tasks (2010 test and 2013 test, see Appendix 4 and 5) as the elicitation
tool to tap into test-takers’cognitive processes. As is stated in Chapter 4 , TEM 8
Mini-lecture and Gap-filling task is an academic listening assessment tool to
measure students’academic lecture comprehension ability. Students who can pass
TEM 8 are not only expected to understand authentic conversations in various
social situations, foreign radio or TV feature reports on language and culture-related
topics, but also to comprehend speeches related to those topics, and be able to ask
Table 6.3 Participants’
demographic background
(N = 16)
Minimum Maximum Mean
Age 20 23 21.56
English learning time 9 15 11.63
Gender Female 12
Male 46.2 Participants in the Qualitative Part of the Research 71