Journals Information
Universal Journal of Educational Research Vol. 8(12), pp. 6737 - 6744
DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.081238
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Multiple Intelligences and English Writing Proficiency Levels among Malaysian Pre-university Students with Rural and Urban Socio-economic Backgrounds: A Comparative Study
Iziana Hani Ismail 1, Asmaa AlSaqqaf 2,*, Wardatul Akmam Din 1
1 Preparatory Centre of Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, 88400, Malaysia
2 Faculty of Psychology and Education, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, 88400, Malaysia
ABSTRACT
The disparity of the English language performance between the Malaysian rural and urban students remains a crucial issue, yet much is to be known about factors that actually influence the students' English proficiency across levels, especially those who live outside the cities. The objectives of this paper are to identify the Multiple Intelligence profiles and the significant intelligence of the urban and rural pre-university students at a public university in Malaysia, and to investigate whether there is any difference in the English writing test scores between the two groups. A demographic questionnaire, Multiple Intelligence Profiling Questionnaire (MIPQ III) and a Paper 800/4 (Writing) Question 2 of Malaysian University English Test (MUET) March 2016 question were used in this study. Sixty pre-university students were purposively selected for the current research from Preparatory Centre of Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia. The data were collected and analyzed using the Independent Sample t-test. Results suggest that there is a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of Interpersonal, Environmental, and Visual-Spatial intelligences between the urban and rural pre-university students. Unexpectedly, the findings show that the urban students display higher Environmental intelligence compared to the rural group. Additionally, a significant difference is also identified between urban and rural students in their writing scores, as the results show that the urban students performed better in the writing tests than the students in the rural areas. This study calls Malaysian English educators to acknowledge students' differences in learning, thus creating a conducive classroom experience and redesigning the lessons by incorporating all intelligences for the students to actively manifest their preferred learning styles in acquiring English language. Future research would include more language skills to be examined in a bigger number of students.
KEYWORDS
English Proficiency, Urban, Rural, Multiple Intelligences, Pre-university Students, University Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia
Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Iziana Hani Ismail , Asmaa AlSaqqaf , Wardatul Akmam Din , "Multiple Intelligences and English Writing Proficiency Levels among Malaysian Pre-university Students with Rural and Urban Socio-economic Backgrounds: A Comparative Study," Universal Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 8, No. 12, pp. 6737 - 6744, 2020. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.081238.
(b). APA Format:
Iziana Hani Ismail , Asmaa AlSaqqaf , Wardatul Akmam Din (2020). Multiple Intelligences and English Writing Proficiency Levels among Malaysian Pre-university Students with Rural and Urban Socio-economic Backgrounds: A Comparative Study. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 8(12), 6737 - 6744. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.081238.