Communication Strategies of Engineering Students at a Private University Institute in Bangkok in the Academic Year of 2015
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Abstract
The objectives of this research are 1) to identify oral communication strategies (CSs) employed by first-year engineering students at a Private University Institute in Bangkok in the academic year of 2015, and 2) to investigate the differences of CS use according to gender and self-perceived English speaking ability of the students. An adapted Metcalfe and Noom-Ura’s Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI) 2013 was used to collect quantitative data from 361 first-year engineering students whose age ranged from 17 to 29 years from Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology and Mahanakorn University. Stratified random sampling technique was applied. Statistics used for analysing the data were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, T-test, F-test or ANOVA, and Scheffe test. The results of this study show that the students applied all nine oral communication strategy groups (social and affective, fluency-oriented, negotiation for meaning while speaking, accuracy-oriented, message reduction and alteration, nonverbal, message abandonment, attempt to think in English, and circumlocution strategies) at a moderate frequency of use. The most frequently used strategies were message reduction and alteration whereas the least frequently used strategies were accuracy-oriented. The use of overall oral communication strategies reported by male students and female counterparts was not significantly different at a confidence level of .05. Additionally, there were significant differences at a confidence level of .05 found among the students with different self-perceived speaking ability.
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