Comparing the Knowledge of EFL Students General Vocabulary and Medical Terminology

Yoko Ichiyama

Abstract: Acquiring sufficient vocabulary knowledge in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context has been acknowledged as one of the essential components of English language acquisition (Grabe, 2009; Hudson, 2007; Koda, 2005). This study aimed to investigate the comparative difficulties between general vocabulary and medical terminology for nursing students. Using Rasch analysis, we examine whether there are differences in students achievements between semantic processing skill, ability to formulate meaning from the inputted words, and graphophonemic processing skill, which is the ability to match letters and sounds. There were no significant differences between medical and non-medical English vocabulary scores regarding sematic processing (M = 0.04, SD = 0.97, and M = 0.07, SD = 1.24, respectively; t (174) = 0.27; p = 0.005), while there were significant differences in the scores for medical and non-medical vocabulary (M = 0.28, SD = 1.2 and M = 0.26, SD = 0.8, respectively; t (74) = 0.03; p = 0.005) regarding graphophonemic processing skills. These results indicate that to succeed in acquiring English medical-specific vocabulary, the students require input regarding graphophonemic processing skills.

Keywords: vocabulary learning, medical-specific terms, EFL nursing students, Rasch analysis