Author Information
Wenjin Vikki Bo, Singapore University of Social Sciences, SingaporeAbstract
With the increasing demand of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) for not only international students but also domestic students in the English-medium universities, it is essential to design the EAP provisions in a scalable way that can also offer the flexibility of learning needs during the post-COVID era. The present study examines the efficacy of an online asynchronous EAP course that is the graduating requirement for many undergraduates in a Singapore university. It aims to investigate if the completion of the course contributes to improved student performance as indicated by the Semester Grade Point Average (SGPA), and explore the implications for developing such courses in a sustainable way for higher education institutions. With the adoption of a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design (RDD), longitudinal data was collected across four years. The institutional data was used to compare the academic performance of students who completed the EAP course to those who were exempted from the course based on a predetermined English proficiency cutoff score. Results showed that students who completed the online asynchronous EAP course consistently outperformed their academic predictions over time. The structured and self-paced EAP learning course was found to have the potential benefits to students’ EAP development in a more scalable and flexible way, which is increasingly critical in the post-COVID age. It challenges the traditional assumption that the face-to-face EAP training is better and advocates the enhancement of asynchronous EAP provisions in the English-medium universities across different educational contexts.
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress