144
In such a case, using language-assisting software – irrespective of authorship – could be regarded as ‘cheating’ (Mundt & Groves, 2016), compromising academic integrity.
EXPLORATORY STUDY
In our context, Birmingham International Academy (BIA) at the University of Birmingham, Google Translated coursework is increasingly considered to have a negative impact on language learning and assessment, with pre-sessional and foundation students sometimes trying to take the ‘shortcut’ of machine-translation to make the grade. The actual intensity of use of translation tools remains unclear, however; ‘evidence’ thus far being confined to anecdote (students quickly switching screens on their laptops when the teacher approaches), informed guesses (teachers noticing a discrepancy in the quality of home-written essays and in-class coursework) and general rumour. To get a clearer view of the situation, we conducted an exploratory study on the use of translation tools by international students. Using surveys and in-depth interviews, we focused, first, on the question of whether students actually use language- checking and translation software for their studies. We also wanted to know how they use such tools, whether they believe the results of machine-translation are reliable, and whether they think translation tools support their language learning.
RESEARCH DESIGN
To answer our research questions, we organised a Qualtrix-administered survey amongst international students who had successfully completed a pre-sessional or foundation course at BIA in 2017 or 2018.
Rina F. de Vries and Jake Groves
Ethical considerations did not allow us to sample our current student population, who still had to go through their language assessment. Via our Virtual Learning Environment, we approached ex-BIA students to participate in the survey; 165 students responded. Ten respondents were removed from the database: two did not sign the consent form for their anonymised data to be used for research and eight specified English as their L1. Roughly 80% of the remaining sample were postgraduate students; 20% were undergraduates. These percentages correspond to those typically found on our pre-sessional and foundation programmes. Over 90% of all respondents had needed an overall IELTS score of 6.0+ for university entry (see Table 1).
Table 1 IELTS entry requirement degree programme (N = 155)
Required level
IELTS 5.5 IELTS 6.0 IELTS 6.5 IELTS 7.0 Other Total
Number 7
31 86 27 4
155 Percentage 4.5
20.0 55.5 17.4 2.6
100.0
The L1 distribution of the respondents is given in Table 2. Circa 90% of all respondents had an Asian language background, with over three-quarters stating Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Chinese) as their L1. We recoded and aggregated other native languages into Other Asian, Arabic and European. The resulting distribution gives a fair representation of our average BIA student population.
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