Instilling Public Consciousness in Students through Reading Ethical Issues and Journal Writing

Abstract

This research was conducted to investigate the instilling of public consciousness in students through reading ethical issues and journal writing. The subjects were third and fourth-year Chiang Mai University students studying English 001311 (Reading and Writing 1) in the second semester of the academic year 2011. The 45 participants from two sections were divided into a study group (n = 22) and a control group (n = 23). The data collection instruments included pre and post questionnaires, group interviews and nine readings on public consciousness. Students in the study group were provided with nine adapted English readings on public consciousness, and were assigned to read, and write English journals to express feelings and views in response to the readings as well as submit their journal entry to the researcher every other week for a total of nine entries as mentioned in the course schedule. On the other hand, students in the control group were assigned to read common types of sample paragraph writing. The statistical measurements included the means, the standard deviations and the percentages. Hypothesis testing was conducted using the t-test analysis. The results showed that after the treatment, there was a significant increase in the mean level of public consciousness in the study group at p < .01 as hypothesized. In addition, there was no significant difference between the pre and post-test questionnaire scores in the level of public consciousness scores in the control group. However, based on the post-test questionnaire scores, there was no significant difference, after the treatment, in the level of pubic consciousness between the study and the control group. In terms of instilling public consciousness in students through writing journals, students in the study group made entries, expressed feelings and views in response to the readings on public consciousness for every journal submission while students in the control group did not write specifically on public consciousness in their journal entries. Finally, in regard to group interviews, members of the study group mentioned concrete aspects of public consciousness and agreed that journal writing is a means to instill public consciousness in students.