A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH SECOND LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION OF A RELIGION-BASED ASSESSMENT IN TWO DIFFERENT LOCATIONAL CONTEXTS

Abstract

ABSTRACT A Comparative Study of English Second Language Reading Comprehension of a Religion-Based Assessment in Two Different Locational Contexts This study examined two different educational locations which had distinct environments. Both locations were part of the same religious (Christian) denomination and both were in higher education settings. The monolingual context was on campuses of universities and a seminary located in central United States. The multilingual context was a regional seminary campus located in Asia. All of the participants were second language users of English. Two main instruments were administered. One was a C-Test adapted from Babii et al to independently assess the proficiency level of the participants apart from the measures that might have been used for their admission to the various institutions they were attending. The second instrument was a reading comprehension test patterned after the TOEFL but using texts that were compatible with a religious education setting. The two instruments showed a strong correlation with a Pearson r = .748 The results of this study indicate that there is no significant difference between the reading comprehension scores of students studying in a multicultural educational context and students studying in a monolingual educational context. The main predictor of reading comprehension scores was the students’ level of proficiency. A lesser predictor was whether they were graduate students or undergraduate students. Additionally, the country or area of origin seemed to have a small measure of predictability for the reading comprehension scores.