The Importance of Multilevel Analysis, Thesis Paper Example

The Association between Learning English at a Young Age and Success in Additional Academic Subjects

Research Questions

• Do students that begin learning English at age 6 rather than age 10 receive higher grades in non-English academic subjects including science, math, and history?
• Are students able to gain more proficient English speaking skills if they begin at age 6 rather than age 10?

Statement of the Problem

Students that are in private school begin learning English at 6, which means they are 4 years ahead of their colleagues by age 10, when public school students begin learning English. It is important to learn English in order to read some of the English language publications that are written by different academics around the world. Many individuals need to know English later in life to be able to communicate for their jobs. It is important to consider that it may be beneficial for public school students to begin learning English as age 6 as well, and it is possible that these students may not be accessing many of the advantages that their counterparts do in terms of the critical thinking skills they can use in other aspects of their schooling.

Outline of the Thesis

• The first section of the thesis will compared the grades of individuals who began learning English at age 6 rather than age 10
• The English speaking skills who learned students at age 6 rather than age 10 will be compared

Purpose of the Study

Learning English is becoming increasingly more important because it contributes to an individual’s ability to be able to understand one of the most commonly spoken languages around the world. As a result of the influence that English has had, many colleges and universities are offering courses in only English and many professional academic disciplines are choosing English as their primary language of communication. Since English is very important, many schools have chosen to teach this language at a younger age to ensure their students will be able to communicate fluently when they reach adulthood (Stern, 1969).

Despite the clear importance of the English language, public schools begin teaching English at age 10 even though private schools begin teaching at age 6. Therefore, there is a clear education gap between these two groups of students. It is possible, therefore, that this delay in learning in public school students creates an even greater education gap in terms of their ability to understand other academic subjects (Li, 2013). Learning English is beneficial not only because it is a widely spoken language across the world, but because it allows young students to think critically about a different language from an early age (Abbott, 2000). This may improve their problem solving ability, which would contribute to their ability to gain a greater understanding of other school subjects, especially those that are taught in English in other parts of the world.

It is important to ensure that students who attend public school are gaining a good education compared to the students who attend private school. It is therefore necessary to determine whether there is a real advantage to learning English at age 6 instead of at age 10. It is possible that this three-years period is a large educational delay that prevents these young children from being able to catch up to their peers that started learning English earlier. Therefore, it is necessary to determine whether students that begin learning English at age 6 rather than age 10 receive higher grades in non-English academic subjects including science, math, and history, whether students able to gain more proficient English speaking skills if they begin at age 6 rather than age 10, and whether students able to communicate more effectively with students and teachers if they begin learning how to speak English at age 6 instead of age 10. It is likely that students who begin learning English at age 6 instead of age 10 will perform better than their peers in all of these aforementioned aspects.

This study will be potentially useful because it could alter the educational practices that are currently occurring in the public schools. Private schools teach children English at the age of 6 because they believe that it will contribute to their ability to succeed in future schooling and in life,especially that most of the Saudi students are interested to join king Abdullah program for scholarship where they must have a good English language (Murray, 2013). Besides, most of the majorities in the university requires a good English language background as well as in practical life. It would therefore be valuable to demonstrate that there isevidence behind these practices so that we may convince public school administrators to begin teaching English to their students at an earlier age. The ultimate goal in education should be to provide a means to teach the children in our country more so that the standing of the country as a whole can be pushed forward.

Limitations of the Study

This study will require the utilization of data that has already been collected, making this a retrospective study. It would be useful to conduct a longitudinal study of this trend, but there is no indication that these results will be valuable and worth the time and resources unless this preliminary study is conducted. However, doing so would be valuable to compare the change in the academic standing of public school students if they are given English to learn at an earlier age. It is possible that a study of this type would pave the way for longer and more intricate studies like this in the future.

An additional limitation of the study is that the study size that is ideal may not be achievable because doing this depends on the ability of the researcher to collaborate with schools, who may not be willing to disclose the information of their students. Therefore, the study could be conducted with any amount of data from students, although it is preferable to keep this number above 100 to ensure that the study has the highest statistical power. However, the more students that could be included in the analysis means that there will be more likely a higher degree of external validity, meaning that the results can be considered to be true for a larger percentage of students in the country.

Hypothesis

The students in private school that begin learning English at age 6 will perform better in non-English academic subjects than the students who begin learning English at age 10. Students will be able to gain more proficient English speaking skills if they begin at age 6 instead of age 10. Students will able to communicate more effectively with students and teachers if they begin learning how to speak English at age 6 instead of age 10.

Methods

-Method should be divided into data analysis and data collection parts (including tools ,participants ,procedure sections)

Data Collection

Participants

Data from approximately 30 private school students and 30 public school students will be retrieved. All students recruited to the study should be at age 15 because this will allow a determination of their English speaking ability after the public school students have had the opportunity to learn English for at least 5 years, and thus be able to use their language in their daily lives. The records retrieved should reflect their performance from age 6. Schools will be contacted and will need to give permission to access these records for them to be included in the study. The names and identifying information from the students will be removed to ensure that all information retrieved and examine respects the privacy of these individuals.

Procedure/Data Analysis

The first part of the project will compare the current non-English academic subject scores of the individuals who went to private school and public school. A comparison will be made to test the null hypothesis stating that the test scores will be equal. Descriptive statistics will be used to calculate the mean, median, mode, range, and standard deviation of these numbers for each group. A student’s t-test will be used to determine if there is any variance between the two groups. This process will be repeated to look at the grades that both groups received at age 6 to determine whether the difference can be accounted for learning English at a different time or whether the public and private school educations are too different to be compared.

Next, English writing samples will be acquired from each group and assessed based on a new scoring system, conducted by the researcher to ensure that each paper is scored using the same rubric. They will then be analyzed quantitatively by generating the mean, median, mode, range, and standard deviation of these scores and comparing them between groups. A comparison will be made to test the null hypothesis stating that the writing will be equal, which will reflect their English communication ability. A student’s t-test will be used to determine if there is any variance between the two groups. This will determine whether the English comprehension of private and public school learners are different and to what extent. This test will also be used to predict whether students able to communicate more effectively with students and teachers if they begin learning how to speak English at age 6 instead of age 10.

For all statistical tests, a p-value of less than 0.5 will be considered statistically significant, which will reject the null hypothesis. If the p-value is above 0.5, then the null hypothesis will be accepted. A paired t-test for equal variance will be used.

Tools

The mathematics will be performed by hand and verified by utilizing Microsoft Excel. Macros commands will be used.

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