Students' English language proficiency and its impact on the overall student's academic performance: An analysis and prediction using Neural Network Model

摘要

English has become one of the most effective global medium of communication today. The significance of English is highly emphasized in many countries as it is now the medium of communication in international business and technology based trading industries. This paper present the results of an investigation that compares the performance in English courses of male and female students of a bachelor level engineering programme at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia. In addition, the research then investigates the impact of a student's English ability and capability on the overall engineering academic performance using Neural Network (NN) prediction model. The study was conducted on batches of students from two entries namely Matriculation and Diploma level intakes. Students performance was measured based on their Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) upon graduation. We focus on the type of parameters used as input variables for the model using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as the analysis and prediction tool. The outcomes of the study indicated that there appears to be a direct correlation between students' results for fundamental subjects and the final overall academic performance of graduating students. We also observed that English Language courses have no direct or little effects on the overall academic performance.