Pure Sciences Students’ Attitudes towards Learning English: The Case of University of Burundi

Burundi is the sole country in East African Community (EAC) using mainly French as an official language and having a national language – Kirundi – which is shared by nearly all Burundians. Therefore, English language is taught as a subject on the curriculum. Although English language is even taught to science university students in Burundi, it seems that the attitudes these students have towards learning English are not known. Thus, the present study was intended to investigate the attitudes that University of Burundi pure sciences students hold towards learning English. In doing so, it also examined whether there is a statistically significant difference in these students’ attitudes in terms of gender and field of study. This study adopted a quantitative approach, hence a survey research design. The data were collected by means of a five-point Likert scale questionnaire raging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ that was administered to a total number of 65 students enrolled in the faculty of sciences. The questionnaire was based on the tripartite model of attitude and consisted of 40 items. The collected data were analysed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics that were computed using the statistical package SPSS 22. The findings revealed that the afore-mentioned students have overall positive attitudes towards learning English. An analysis of the results also indicated that there is no statistically significant difference in students’ attitudes both by gender and by field of study.