University Students' Attitudes Towards Arabic and English in Higher Education
Alani, Salman H.
Indiana University
2020
163
Ph.D.
Indiana University
2020
The aim of this study is to provide valuable information that could assist language-in-education planning in Saudi Arabia. It focused on the use of Arabic and English as two languages of instruction for scientific fields of study in Saudi universities, the context of the study. Also, the study sought to measure attitudes toward the two languages. 272 undergraduate students from three campuses and different academic majors took part in the study. The study used two methods of investigation. First, the study employed the matched guise test (MGT) to reveal the participants' attitudes subconsciously. The participants listened to a total of 6 audio recordings by 3 bilingual speakers (3 in Arabic and 3 in English) and they were asked to evaluate each speaker based on his/her personal characteristics for each language using a five-point semantic differential scale. Second, the questionnaire was used to reveal the participants' conscious attitudes toward Arabic and English which was divided into four sections. The first section sought to explore how Arabic and English are actually used in university classrooms. The second and third sections of the questionnaire attempted to reveal the participants' attitudes directly toward the use of Arabic and English in university education and used a five-point Likert scale. The last section explored the participants' level of agreement with the current and prospective language planning and policy in Saudi universities. The findings of the study have implications that would assist in contributing to language-in-education planning in Saudi universities.