Korespondensi: Students’ Behaviour towards Learning English as a Foreign Language by Gender and Bilingual/Monolingual Learning: An Acehnese case

The present study investigated the behaviour of first year state middle school students in Banda Aceh (Indonesia) toward learning English as a foreign language, as the dependent variable, in the context of differences in gender and school types (bilingual/monolingual schools), as part of a control/experimental group, pretest/posttest study. A Behaviour Questionnaire towards learning English as a foreign language containing 11 Items was designed especially for the Indonesian students and pilot tested in Indonesia. The test was conducted within 40 minutes. Seven hundred and eighty male and female first-year middle school students (12-13 years old), consisting of 394 students taught in bilingual schools and 386 students taught in monolingual schools, were selected from a number of schools with bilingual and monolingual teaching programs in Aceh. Data were collected during 2011 and a linear, unidimensional scale of Behaviour was created using Rasch Measurement with the Rasch Unidimensional Measurement Model (RUMM2030) computer program. The construct validity of the data was tested by designing the items in ordered patterns of item difficulty which were then compared with their Rasch-measured item difficulties for different groups for females and males. A Mixed Method ANOVA was conducted to make comparisons between groups and between genders; and Two-Way ANCOVA was used to test for main and interaction effects with SPSS to compare bilingually-taught students with monolingually-taught students. The results are discussed.