I.
Introduction
In recent year there has been an increasing the
number of students who apply for entrance exam to study at Institute of Foreign
Languages (IFL), from about 3500 in 2009 to roughly 8000 in 2011, from which
500 students, for free paying students and 80 students, for scholarship ones,
have been admitted to study there. A vast majority of the students, who are studying
at IFL, during their first academic year, say that they face many difficulties. Everything, in their university life, is completely different from what they
have undergone in their previous life in high school. The environment in which
they are studying, learning styles, subjects, and many other things are strange
to them.
Going
to specifics, different changes are happening in the lives of college freshmen.
It may mean wonderful for them when they enter the college or university for the first
few weeks because they can make new friends, acquire new knowledge, enter to
exotic culture and life style, become more independent, enjoy new challenges,
and the like. However, they will find it difficult adjusting to college life. Adjusting
to college life requires the overcoming of several concerns. It can also be
very pressured and stressful. A lot has to be achieved in the limited time
available. The differences in adjustment difficulties between males and females
and the young age and the old are also presented in this research because of
the fact that the sex and generation gaps are one of the factors that are
attributed to the changes in their learning attitudes. I, therefore, want to
find out how they deal with this problems, sex differences and generation gap.
Some of them come from
rural areas throughout the country while others from the areas that are
proximity to Phnom Penh, so the difficulties they face are not the same.
Financial problem is one of the main factors to be considered in this research.
As we know, approximately 80 percent of Cambodian people are farmers, so
financial issue is an important factor to add to this research. In addition to
the previous factor, I also include the others factors, all of which are the
decision to study in two universities simultaneously, the decision to work a
part-time jobs, the change of their lifestyle and learning environment,
procrastination, and plagiarism. Most of the students at IFL who study in two
universities or have another work make up the majority of the freshmen students
at IFL who study in the evening shift.
Reports in the literature and conversations with
many freshmen students at IFL confirm that the strategies they use to deal with
their academic difficulties and to help their learning more effective vary from
individual to individual. Therefore, some strategies may be applicable for some
persons whereas other ones work well for different kinds of individuals.
II.
Purpose
of study
The intent of the proposed study is to learn about
the effective strategies that freshmen students at IFL use in order to tackle
with difficulties they face in their academic year. The focus will be on
selected adult undergraduates who are enrolled full time at Institute of
Foreign Languages of Royal University of Phnom Penh (freshmen students of
Department of English, both scholarship students and fee-paying ones) during
the academic years of 2010-2011 and 2011-2012.
Who are these adult students? What are the
difficulties they face during their academic years? How does different
environment in which they study affect their learning attitude? What support do
they have from family and friends? How has their relationships with family and
friends affected their study? Is financial issue one of the problems they have
to deal with? Are these students study in only one university or more than one?
And finally, how they deal with those problems?
These are the central questions of the study. I will
not be hesitant to add more questions as I proceed through the research process
in order to bring clarity to my research subject. Since what I am planning to
do is a qualitative research, the focus will be on the freshmen’s perspectives.
I will ask them to share their problems relating to study and how to deal with
those problems so that we can apply those strategies and use them in the
purpose to improve freshmen academic achievement by providing them useful
techniques in tackle with academic problems.
The proposed study follows a qualitative research
approach, involving the use of the semi-structured interview as the primary
method. It involves a preliminary descriptive examination of the perceptions
and experiences of IFL’s freshmen students. It
will be limited to no more than 15 questions because of the time constraints
involved in interviewing and subsequent data analysis.
III.
Literature
review
4.1 In developing complex accounts of the conditions
that affect student engagement in learning, researchers have shifted focus from
the needs of individual learners (effective motivational tasks or activities,
and acquisition of explicit meta-cognitive learning strategies) to a broader
view of affective and contextual factors that contribute to developing learner
perspectives, capacities and scope for independence. These include not just
students’ beliefs about their capabilities, and their views about what is worth
learning, including volitional strategies to sustain effort (Corno, 2001), but
also a focus beyond the individual learner to pedagogical, classroom and other
contextual dimensions. These include the role of domain-specific knowledge
(Perry, 2002), peer pressure influence on motivation and effort (Sullivan,
McDonough & Prain, 2005), possible co-regulatory strategies modelled by
teachers to support learning (Hadwin Wozney, & Pontin, 2005), and the
broader classroom organisation of learning experiences (Boekaerts &
Cascallar, 2006), including appropriate “material resources” (Prosser, et al,
2008, p. 21). While noting that diverse factors influence student effort at
school, we consider, like many other researchers (Ames, 1992; Boekaerts, 1999;
Grinsven & Tillema, 2006; Zimmermann, 2001; Zimmerman & Pons, 1988),
that a key element in engaging junior secondary students is promoting their
capacity to self-regulate their own learning. An extensive longstanding
literature from the 1980s and 1990s (Ames & Archer, 1986; Pintrich & De
Groot, 1990; Zimmermann & Pons, 1988) has defined self-regulated learning
as the development of independent learning skills
4.2
All levels of education are struggling with the daunting challenge of how to
improve the learning process (Alan, 2004, p. 90). One approach to learning does
not fit all and imposes rigidity and loss of creativity. We live and learn and
eventually we may learn to live (Alan, 2004, p. 89).
4.3
Bean and Eaton (2000) used attitude-behavior theory to emphasize the importance
of student characteristics to success in college. “Be flexible- and you will
control the environment you are in” (Adam with Stuart, 2004, p37). Simple
common sense is your best ally when you need to achieve certain tasks within a
pre-determined period of time (Ronal, 1989, p86). Taking absolute
responsibility gives us the power to change our circumstances (Adam with
Stuart, 2004, p84). The only way we will achieve anything as if we are
committed to making it a must (Adam with Stuart, 2004, p63).
4.4
Whatever your grade level, whatever your grades, whatever your major, whatever
your ultimate career goals, your all have one thing in common: the classroom
experience.(Ronald, 1989, p. 109). When students are expected to work hard,
academic achievement, class attendance, and their sense of responsibility all
increase (Berliner 1984, Cashin 1988, Marsh 1984).
4.5
All college students-and some high school students-are able to pick and choose
courses according to their own schedules, likes, dislikes, goals, etc. (Ronald,
1989, p. 51). Students learn more from courses when they are given feedback
that is both supportive and corrective (Cross 1987; Kulik Kulik, and Cohen
1980, Mckeachie 3t al. 1986, Menges and Mathis 1988). Learn as though you would
never be able to master it; hold it as if you would be in fear of losing it
(Ronald, 1989, p. 10).
4.6
Most agree that for students to succeed in college, they must learn to
negotiate foreign environments and interact effectively with strangers (Kuh and
Love, 2000). Successful individuals experience more resourceful states on a day
to day basis (Adam with Stuart, 2004, p158). Creative intelligence can be as
grand as producing a world-renowned masterpiece, or as mundane as knowing how
to solve a routine problem (Alan, 2004, p. x).
Finally, the above effective strategies to deal with
difficulties in their academic year are useful for precollege students. among
the many strategies, which are flexibility, work hard, time management,
commitment, responsibility, students will be knowledgeable to eliminate what
they face in academic year. I believe that with these priceless strategies
students can determine what they expect from new environment in college.
IV.
Method
1.
Conduct a
literature review on how students study both in school and at home.
2.
Observe the
group five hours per week for five weeks, focusing mostly on conversations at
team meetings, especially those conversations in which the group addresses
changes to their work processes and issues of team relationships and identity.
3.
Participate in
extracurricular activities, which are arranged by IFL, with those freshmen
students in order to learn about their attitude of study.
4.
I am going to
conduct a pre-study. Interview team members to clarify and provide insight into
conversations. I will ask them about their learning styles. While the interviews will not be formal or
structured, the kinds of questions I will ask include the following.
-
What is your
attitude toward study?
-
Do you face any
difficulties in your academic performance?
-
What are the
problems you face during your first year in university?
-
How do you deal
with those problems?
-
Are all
strategies you use effective?
-
Amongst all of
the strategies you use, which ones best work for you?
5. After
conducting a case study, I am going to contact those groups of freshmen
students at IFL and arrange suitable date and place for interviewing by using
semi-structured interview procedure.
6. Write
a research report that combines my understanding of the relevant theory and
previous research with the results of my empirical research.
5.1
Timetable
A.
Prepare proposal
by 4 June
B.
Complete
literature review by 16 June
C.
Complete
fieldwork by 20 July
D.
Complete analysis
by 30 July
E.
Give
presentation on 5 May
F.
Complete final
report by 15 August
5.2 Research Design and Procedures
I have chosen freshmen students at
Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL) of Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP)
as my study population of my research study. I am going to conduct 24
interviews, 4 of which will be conducted in each shift- morning, afternoon and
evening shift at IFL. In addition, I am going to conduct the interview a second
time with a dozen of those students I have interviewed in order to clarify the
validity and reliability after I have completed some data analysis and obtained
a beginning understanding of the findings.
All interviews
will be tape-recorded, and based on four pilot interviews already conducted, the
interviews are expected to vary in length from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. The
interviews will be informal and open-ended, and carried out in a conversational
style. Additionally, I will
not use structured interviews in order to minimize my obtrusiveness and my
influence on the team members.
I will write field notes, follow-up
interviews, observation an interaction while interviewing. In addition to this,
I sincerely hope to obtain other data throughout the study such as comments
from administrative and teaching staffs at IFL, papers or other materials
subjects that I get from Self-Access Center (SAC) at IFL, and ongoing
literature review. I anticipate that ongoing data analysis will take place
throughout the study. All of the field notes I have written will be
entered into computer files. I will use SPSS, a software program.
V. Ethical
Issue
To conduct this research, I have, while
preparing my data collection, rigorously considered whether there are any
possible ethical problems associated with my research methods and my approach
to contacting people. Also, I am going to ask confirmation from IFL, IFL’s
lecturers who are responsible for the class I am going to take part in
obtaining information, and the participants from which information I obtain.
The utmost of care of the code of conduct must be considered in our research
study to make sure that our stakeholders may not be harmed. Firstly, we are
going to justify the relevance and usefulness of our research study. We do this
to make sure that our participants will not feel that they are wasting their
time on the useless topic. To achieve so, we, at the beginning of our
interview, will be showing how we intend to deal with them so that we can
demonstrate our understanding of the research process. We will be stating
clearly that this study is aiming to know the difficulties of freshmen in order
to find solution to deal with all of the obstacles and improve quality of
learning English at IFL of the next generation. Secondly, all kinds of
questions that we are going to ask are certainly far away from getting sensitive
information that provokes the participants to feel embarrassed or upset. The
questions like: “Do you grow up from a family with serious domestic violence?”
or “Are you a bottom-listed student in high school?” are not appeared in our
interview schedule. These kinds of questions may directly or indirectly affects
to the respondent privacy. Remarkably, all the information that we obtain from
the respondents must be kept confidential and anonymous. Thus, in our research
paper, we will not publish or disclose any of the respondents’ personal identities.
VI. References
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Corno,
L. (2001). Volitional aspects of self-regulated learning. In B. J. Zimmerman
& D.
Schunk
(Eds.), Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theoretical
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Adam
Kho with Stuart Tan (2004). Master Your Mind Design Your Destiny. Proven
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Alan
J. Rowe (2004). Creative Intelligence. Discovering the Innovative Potential
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Cross,
K. P. (1987, February). Teaching "for" Learning. Paper
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Marsh,
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