Differences in English proficiency test scores between students of social and natural sciences

Abstract

Students of social and natural sciences are expected to achieve different learning outcomes because they employ different language learning strategies and are exposed to different vocabulary. This research was aimed at finding evidence from empirical data to determine whether the differences in learning outcomes are statistically significant. The data for this research were collected by administering the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) to 179 students from four state universities in Aceh, the northernmost province of Indonesia. The results of the test were analysed based on the components in each subtest. There are three parts in the listening comprehension section, 14 aspects in the structure and written expression section, and six skills in the reading comprehension section. The results show that significant differences were only found in part A (the short talk section) of the listening comprehension part and in the main idea skill section in the reading comprehension part. Students of natural sciences performed better when listening to a short academic talk, while social science students had a better general comprehension of non-discipline specific academic texts.