A study on learners’ perceptions of American Studies class: A case study

Abstract

This study, as a case study, aims to examine the learners’ perceptions of learning contents and team activities in American Studies class. For the purpose, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 68 students majoring in English language after the 15-week team-based classes of American Studies. IPA and text mining to find out the importance and performance level of class contents, and t-test and ANOVA to find out learners’ perceptions of TBL activities were used. The results of the study are as follows. First, the IPA showed the topics of ‘history’, and ‘business’ must be conentrated and develped more while the topics of ‘diversity’, ‘six values’, and ‘educational system’ should be maintained to remain at this level. Second, in the word cloud analysis, ‘freedom’ was the most frequently shown keyword for the United States, followed by ‘Obama’, ‘diversity’, ‘equality’, ‘race’, ‘individualism’, and ‘fast food’. Third, it was found that TBL activities were positively recognized for discussion skills, creativity, cooperation skills, and communication skills as well as the learning effects. The difference by grade was that the second grade was higher than the third grade in communication ability. Lastly, the direction of future American Studies course was discussed based on the results.