Script

Chapter 1: Introduction

General ?…………………………

Research Purpose
The purpose of this research study is to find out university students’ academic
expectations along with the general experiences at their university whether their needs
are fulfilled or not at one department of one public university.
Statement of Problem
Regarding the research studies related to students’ expectation, there are some
research studies on students’ expectations that are not aligning with university
practices, high school students’ expectations on the effective platform for college, the
expectation between students and teacher at the higher education level, and the
students’ expectations of an e-learning course. However, there are no research papers
related to student’s academic expectations and students’ fulfillment. This research
topic is quite rare, and it can be a challenge for other researchers to do further
research related to this topic. Therefore, we would like to research by collecting the
data and useful information regarding this topic.
Research Question
1. What are the expectations of university students at their university?
2. What are the unmet needs that students want to add in school?
3. To what extent have students’ expectations been fulfilled?
Significance of the Study
The finding of this research aims to provide benefits to universities by
providing data on students' expectations that the school could use those data to
analyze and make some changes to respond to those expectations. Therefore, schools
and students are well-cooperated through their learning journey which can also
decrease students’ dropping rate. In addition, this data would be beneficial to lecturers
as well. Teachers are the ones who work closely with students, so they can ensure the
satisfaction of students toward the learning program. Therefore, due to the
improvement of the university's program and lecturers’ involvement, students can
improve their learning performance and can easily reach their fulfillment.
Chapter 2: Literature review
History
Over half a century ago, Merton (1948) wrote a study about a self-fulfilling
prophecy which was about the expectation that can lead to changes in students’
behaviors and performances. Twenty years later, this concept had been used to do
further research on teachers’ expectations, parents’ expectations, students’
expectations, and the relationship between students’ expectations of their academic
performance and their academic fulfillment.
Current Studies
• According to Crisp et al. (2009), students expected that drafts of their work
would be read, the turnaround time for marking assignments was expected to
be less than a week.
• Another research, which was conducted by Borghi, Mainardes, Silva, &
Management (2016) indicated that students expect more than the faculty
believes them to, including the overall expectations in relation to the course
and to the higher education institution.
• Students experience the instructor’s support and expertise as especially
important for the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competences and for
course satisfaction. (Paechter, Maier, Macher, & education, 2010).
(Meaning although students study through E-learning, instructor does not
become less important because students still expect teachers to teach them.)
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
Research Design
As our research study is about students’ expectations and their fulfillment, we
decided to choose a suitable research approach which was a quantitative research
method as it fits best with our research topic. The study design implemented in our
research study was a Cross-Sectional study design which allows us to collect the data
from the respondents all at once which is time-saving, cheap to undertake, and easy to
analyze.
Population and Sample
The target population of our research study included all year 4 students from
the Department of English at the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL) from every
shift including morning, afternoon and evening. The sample size for our research
study was 350 participants as there were 25 students in each class. The reason why we
chose to survey the only year 4 students is because it fit with our research topic about
students’ expectations and fulfillment. Year 4 students are the senior students at the
university, so they have more experiences and know the impacts of IFL on their
studies, especially their English proficiency how much they have improved compared
to when they first attend the university.
Research Instrument
The questionnaire was employed as a data collecting method to obtain data
from the respondents, for it is a convenient method, cheap to undertake, and time-
saving. The questionnaire items were adapted from various sources that are related to
the research topic, and the main type of our questionnaire was a Likert scale.
Data Collection
Due to the Covid-19 outbreak recently, we could not confront with our
participants in a particular place. Hence, an on-campus survey was prohibited.
Schools were close and we were encouraged to keep social distancing to prevent this
new disease from further infection. Therefore, for our data collection method, we
decided to conduct the survey through an online platform (Google Form). First, we
contacted each class monitor through a phone call to seek cooperation in completing
our survey. Then we forwarded our online questionnaire to them directly and asked
them to help deliver the questionnaire to other classmates through their messenger
chat or Facebook group.
Data Analysis
• Percentage, Mean, Standard deviation / words, excel, SPSS, Google form
Ethical Considerations
The consideration of ethics in research is an important aspect that all
researchers must follow. Therefore, we considered many ethical issues concerning the
participants in our research activity to avoid any unethical acts or harms in anyways.
• Informed Consent
• Anonymity
• Confidentiality
• Voluntary Participant
Chapter 4: Results
Expectation
Students were asked to rank all 10 items from 1-5 to indicate the level of
agreement on their academic expectations before entering and during studying at the
university. The response shows that 92.1 % of students strongly agreed that their first
expectation of studying at the university is to improve their English proficiency,
followed by 88.1% wanted to enhance their soft skills and 87.5% of them expected
the learning courses to be in-depth and useful in life.
Experiences
The research finding in tables below shows how year 4 students frequency
engaged in using the library, campus facility, course learning, and computer and
information technology. The result depicts 54.6% of respondents always use a
computer or word processor to prepare reports or papers, while 36.2% never go to
find and borrow some interesting books from the library to read.
Language Needs
Table above highlights what students need English language for. The response
shows that among 152 participants, 78.3% study English because they want to speak
to international peers.
Additional needs
This table illustrates the additional needs that Year 4 students wish their
university to provide. Among 9 choices provided in the survey, Wi-Fi was mostly
chosen by the majority which is accounted for 66.4%.
Fulfilment
Year 4 students were asked to specify their fulfillment on 7 various skills
included in the survey namely speaking, writing, listening, reading, critical thinking,
tech skill, and communication skill. The result reveals that 18.4% of the participants
chose communication skill as a skill that is fully fulfilled, whereas 6.6% of them
chose tech skill as a skill that is not fulfilled at all by the university.
Chapter 5: Discussion
This chapter mainly focuses on the validation and comparison of the
similarities and differences between the previous research findings and the results
found in this research study.
Corroboration and Comparison
 • The findings found in a research study by Hassel and Ridout (2018) concluded
that over 75% enrolled in the university for they wish to find a good future
career. This result also shows consistency with our research study. Our
findings unfold 85% of students continue their degree at the university as they
want to prepare themselves to find a good job after graduation.
• Research finding that was conducted by Borghi, Mainardes, Silva, &
Management (2016) highlighted the relation between what the faculty believe
the students to expect and the actual expectation of the students entering the
university. The result revealed that students wanted to access all academic and
non-academic course information through online tools and a bond relationship
between students and professors in the teaching and learning process. This
also aligns with our research findings, as students also shared their frequent
participation in class discussion by the use of online tools such as email and
social media. Moreover, the respondents also expressed their wishes for both
teachers and students to be well cooperated.
Extension of the Literature
After analyzing the data and comparing the similarities of our research
findings with other previous studies, we have also spotted the differences between
the results found in two pieces of research:
• According to Sander, P., Stevenson, K., King, M., & Coates, D. (2000),
students expected their teachers to hold a more formal lecture and private
study. On the other hand, our findings revealed the opposite results. It
showed that the most desire teaching style that was mostly chosen by the
students was “the teacher gives lecturer and provides me with the
opportunity to practice.” This can be inferred that although they needed
their professors to help them with their studies, they still wanted to have
their freedom in choosing their style to study and practice what they have
learned.
• Students chose reading skills as the most important among the four
academic skills in learning English (Moiinvaziri, 2014). However, our data
showed that students chose speaking as an important skill in learning the
English language followed by writing and listening, whereas reading was
chosen as the least importance and they did not wish to develop much from
 this skill.
Chapter 6:
Conclusion
Base on the findings, we can conclude that most students expect to improve
their proficiency, their soft skills, and the learning courses to be in-depth and
useful in their life. Among four academic skills, students wanted to develop their
“speaking” skills the most as they wanted to speak to international peers.
Moreover, Wi-Fi was needed for doing research in the classroom. At the same
time, the result has also shown that students were mostly fully fulfilled in
communication skills, while tech skill is not fulfilled at all by the university.
Recommendations
After finishing this research project, there are several recommendations for
future researchers to consider if they want to further explore this topic. As quantitative
data was used in this research procedure already, future researchers are highly
suggested to implement another method which is a qualitative approach to find out in-
depth information related to this topic. Moreover, there are more areas that are not
carefully studied in this research paper such as the general point of view of students
towards the university’s curriculums, lecturer teaching methods, school fees, school
administration, school facilities, factors affecting students learning process, and
possible causes that change students’ expectations while studying at the university.
Therefore, there are many possible areas that future researchers can further
investigate. The ideas presented may be useful to the other researchers who want to
explore any areas that are related to this field, for the data can be used as reference
points to help them expand their understanding.