Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Engineering Sciences Students

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the vocabulary learning strategies and enumerating the number of vocabulary learning strategies used by the participants. The problem investigated in the study is the poor vocabulary of the participants affecting their academic performance. A rich vocabulary is needed to perform well in engineering sciences and on a close investigation, it was confirmed that their repertoire of technical terms is poor. The low-frequency technical terms are important to the participants and their poor vocabulary of technical terms is an issue that even challenge their teachers. Their vocabulary is limited and that hinders their performance. A cross-sectional quantitative study was done and the data were collected through a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 63 strategies and it is a modified version of Schmitt's (1997) Vocabulary Learning Inventory which is used to analyze and enumerate the number of vocabulary learning strategies of second language learners. This Vocabulary Learning Inventory included seven new strategies designed by the researcher to measure the digital strategies used by the participants. Simple descriptive statistical analyses were run on the data. This study is significant as the vocabulary learning strategies of engineering sciences students have not been fully investigated and the number of vocabulary learning strategies has not been documented. This significance motivated the researcher to fully investigate the vocabulary learning strategies of the participants. Findings concluded that digital strategies are used more frequently than the other traditional vocabulary learning strategies. Findings further confirmed that the participants used electronic devices and software programmes to learn technical terms leaving behind the traditional paper dictionaries. The statistical analyses confirmed that technical terms are more crucial than general service words in the participants' specializations