Assertiveness and the use of language of assertiveness among undergraduates in a Malaysian public university

摘要

Research on assertiveness began to gain scholarly interest in the 1940sudfocusing mainly on the differences in assertiveness based on gender and race. Moreudrecent research on assertiveness has pointed to the importance of assertiveness inudEnglish language teaching and learning as well as in developing students’udcommunicative competence. Previous cross-cultural studies have shown that Asiansudare less assertive than Westerners. Moreover, some research stated that in Westernudcultures, assertiveness is associated with confidence while in Eastern cultures it isudconsidered to be rude behavior. Hence, this study aims to; i) discover the level ofudassertiveness among undergraduates in UTM, ii) identify if there is a significantuddifference in the level of assertiveness between respondents of different ethnicudgroups, gender, faculties and level of English language proficiency, iii) identify ifudthere is a significant difference in the level of assertiveness between differentudsettings, and iv) discover the language of assertiveness used by UTMudundergraduates. A total of 229 UTM undergraduates from different ethnic groups,udfaculty and gender were chosen through proportionate stratified samplingudparticipated in this study in order to complete the questionnaire and 24 of them wereudrandomly selected to participate in the focus groups discussion. Data were analyzedudusing SPSS version 20. From this study, it can be concluded that; i) UTMudundergraduates possess high level of assertiveness, ii) there is a significant differenceudin the level of assertiveness between respondents of different ethnic groups, but notudbetween different gender, faculties and level of English language proficiency iii)udthere is a significant difference between different settings, and iv) several structuresudused by the respondents in their assertive messages are apology, explanation,udcushioning, request, compromise, and ‘I’ statements.