The vocational students' use of vocabulary learning strategies and their vocabulary knowledge

Abstract

The purposes of this study were 1) to identify the vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) 2) to explore the vocabulary levels 3) to investigate the relationship between VLSS and vocabulary levels of 242 first year high vocational certificate students from three fields of study including engineering, accounting, and hotel and tourism in five government vocational colleges in Krabi province in the second semester of the academic year 2014. A VLSS questionnaire, a vocabulary level test, and a semi-structure interview were used as the instruments in this study. The statistics employed to analyze data in this study were mean scores, standard deviation, ANOVA, and Pearson's Correlation. The findings revealed that the students employed all five categories (determination strategies, social strategies, memory strategies, cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies) at the frequency level of sometimes. Social strategies were ranked as the most frequently used. In addition, the use of five out of 39 VLSs was significantly different among the students from the three fields of study. The findings from the Vocabulary Level Test (VLT) showed that the students' average scores of 1000 and 2000-word level were higher than those of 3000, 4000 and 5000- word level. With regard to the relationships between VLSs used by participants and their vocabulary knowledge, there were weak significant correlations between all five strategies categories at the 1000 and 2000-word levels. In addition, the relationships between VLSS and vocabulary level of students in the three fields of study were explored. For the engineering students, it was reported that their 2000-word level knowledge was significant correlated with cognitive and metacognitive strategies at a very weak level. For the hotel and tourism students, it revealed that their 1000-word level knowledge was correlated with determination, memory, and metacognitive strategies at a weak level. Moreover, their 4000-word level knowledge was correlated with determination and metacognitive strategies at a weak level. Conversely, the correlation between these two variables was not found among accounting students. In order to improve student's vocabulary knowledge, teachers might suggest students employ a wider range of VLSS.