Psychological Factors Affecting the Communicative Competence of Freshmen Students at a Private University in Thailand
Abstract
This study was basically descriptive-correlational research which determined the level and identified the psychological factors of the communicative competence of 102 freshmen students at a private university in Thailand. The current study sought to determine the profile of the freshmen students at a private university in Thailand in terms of the psychological factors used in the study; self-concept, cognitive style, language anxiety, motivational intensity and individual learning techniques. It further determined the psychological factors that best predict the students' communicative competence in English.
It was found out in the study that the students at a private university in Thailand have average communicative competence in English. The study disproved the hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between students' communicative competence and the psychological factors. Results revealed that inventory learning techniques of compensating the missing knowledge and overall strategy have a high correlation with the communicative competence of the learners. Furthermore, it rejects the hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between the students' communicative competence and each of the predictor variables. Individual learning techniques on using the mental senses can predict listening competence. The strategy inventory on using all the mental senses and managing the emotions came out as predictors of students' reading competence. However, there was no variable that could predict the writing competence of the freshmen students.
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