Students as Individual Agents in Communities of Practice –Findings from Research on the Strategic use of English to Study Science

Abstract

The study in this article is part of an ongoing research seeking an understanding of factors that play a role in the transition of Bahraini students to Higher Education. This focus is important, considering the growth of international branch campuses in the Middle East where students learn through the medium of English. Findings related to the strategic use of the English language to study science are reported here and the concept of ‘agentic participation’ in the context of Communities of Practice is also discussed. Student reading strategy use in English was measured through a self-reporting questionnaire and data were analysed using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance. Comparisons were made between independent student groups according to their educational background and type of qualifications. Additional comparisons were also made with the results from the previous work regarding writing strategy use in English and for this purpose students were divided into low-proficiency, high-proficiency English users as well as native speakers. The results showed no differences in the reported strategy use among students in any of the comparison groups. The findings strengthen the conclusions from our previous work, focusing on Communities of Practice as a lens for understanding transitions and suggest that students entering higher education are individually strategic.