picture album page 5 of 2005
July
Jeff and AIU students
Guest speaker: Jeff Maggard
Date: Saturday, July 16th, 2005
Title: Comparing Japanese, Cambodian, and Thai University Students: How Racial/Ethnic Attitudes, Intercultural Contact, Study Motivation, and English Ability Interact
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Place: AIU (Akita International University)
Room: D-201, the second floor room in the AIU library
25 people attended the meeting.
The twenty-five participants ranging from university professors to freshmen students greatly enjoyed this informative and entertaining report. Professor Maggard began by giving background information on how he became interested in Anti-racist and multicultural education. He then explained briefly the models he and his fellow researchers used to design their research. They were interested in how English ability related to motivation both instrumental and integrative, student perceived English ability, amount of contact with native speakers and Attitudes toward foreigners (Social Distance). He explained in detail the concepts and the method and instruments used to measure these as well as the social, political and affective variables that effect each of the three studies. One study was on students at 5 Japanese universities in Miyazaki Prefecture and the other two studies were at one university in Thailand and one in Cambodia. In all of the countries the studies showed there was a strong relationship between the five variables and English ability. Of special interest to the audience the Japan study found that Higher English proficiency predicated a higher positive attitude toward non-Japanese and higher contact with non-Japanese. The amount of contact differed among the schools in the Japan study but this independent variable was the strongest predictor of English ability (i.e. it was statistically significant). He concluded with a request for written feedback on the studies and how they might be improved or even changed. Participants spent 15 minutes discussing and responding to four questions. He ended with a short story about an admired researcher that began a talk by apologizing for the last 30 years of research he had done because he said he did not know what he was doing. This has been an inspiration for Professor Maggard in his research. Leave your preconceptions behind and find out what is happening.
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