Vikittipong

Grace Popui Vikittipong

Mr. Abel Cadias

English 10 / 08

May 21, 2019

The TOEFL Test Score Requirement for Admission at Mahidol University

International Demonstration School

Mahidol University International School or MUIDS is a high standard international

school built and regulated by Mahidol University. It incorporates the two internationally

recognized, common core standards of the United States and Thailand. All of the students who

study at MUIDS have to pass the admission exams to get accepted. The admission exams

includes a TOEFL test to weigh students English language proficiency, a MAP test to quantify

students academic performance, write an expository essay and a personal interview. The

required score for the TOEFL test is more than 450. if a student get less than 450 they will be

accepted with summer school. However, there are some students who could not catch up with

their friends in the classes that are taught in English. Does the score in the TOEFL test tell

whether the student have enough English proficiency to catch up in the classes that are taught

in English? Mahidol University International Demonstration School should increase the

TOEFL test requirement to 500 to gain students with high English proficiency.

The purpose of this research is to find out the English proficiency of the students that

got lesser than 450 on their TOEFL test for admission at MUIDS by using consolidation. The

importance of this research is to encourage MUIDS to increase the required score of The

TOEFL Test for admission to 500.The author uses three academic articles from different

sources to relate the results and interpretation of the survey to other research studies.
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There are two questions. The first question asked for students TOEFL test score for

admission. The choices are lesser than 450 and more than 450. There are 73 responses from

grade 10 students. The figure 1 below shows that most of the respondents or 60.3% got more

than 450 on their TOEFL test for admission, followed by lesser than 450 with the number of

29 students or 39.7% respectively. The second question asked what was students grade in

English subject in semester 1. The choices are A, B+, B, C+, C, D+, D and F. There are 73

responses from grade 10 students. The figure 2 shows that most of the grade 10 students at

MUIDS or 38.4% got an A, followed by B+, B, C+, C and D with the number of 20, 10, 9, 4

and 2 or 27.4%, 13.7%, 12.3%, 5.5% and 2.7% respectively. According to the two graphs, most

of the respondents or 73 grade 10 students at MUIDS who got lesser than 450 on their TOEFL

test for admission got a B+ to A in English subject.

Student performance has been measured primarily by the academic achievement of the

student(Atwood, 2016), So as at MUIDS and other international schools. The purpose of

TOEFL pbt is to measure the English proficiency of the non native speakers to enroll in an

English speaking school or university. According to the research by the National Association

for College Admissions Counselors (NACAC) (2016), TOEFL scores had little or no

relationship with students English proficiency. The relationship of the reading part in the

TOEFL pbt test and students English proficiency were statistically significant, but it is only

2% and 1% counted in the GPA, respectively. In the case study examining the use and

clarification of English language proficiency tests for admission purposes by Purdue University

and the University of Melbourne (Ginther & Elder, 2014), it reports that all the English

proficiency tests are uncertain. An English literature professor at Purdue University mentioned

that they have candidates who have passed the test whose English is scarcely practical and the

candidates who got low score on the test whose English is very good. By using TOEFL test

score to measure students English proficiency, the result is inaccurate.

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Figure 1 Grade 10 students TOEFL test score for admission

Figure 2 The grade 10 students grade in English subject in semester 1

This report concludes that TOEFL paper based test score for admission at MUIDS is

not related to students English proficiency. Most of the students who got a low score on the

TOEFL test for admission is able to achieve an A in English subject. Mahidol University

International Demonstration School should not measure the students English proficiency for

admission by using only the TOEFL test and the Expository Essay.
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References

April, G. & Xun, Y.(2017). Interpreting the relationships between TOEFL ibt scores and
GPA: Language proficiency, policy, and profiles. Retrieved from
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265532217704010#_i28

Perry, S.(2013). The relationship of TOEFL scores to first-term GPA . Retrieved from
https://www.colorado.edu/oda/sites/default/files/attached-files/toeflstudyresults.pdf

Isaac, W.(2018). Relationship Between TOEFL Score and Academic Success for
International Engineering Students. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261546906_Relationship_Between_TOEFL
_Score_and_Academic_Success_for_International_Engineering_Students