摘要：Students of social and natural sciences are expected to achieve different learning
outcomes because they employ different language learning strategies and are
exposed to different vocabulary. This research was aimed at finding evidence from
empirical data to determine whether the differences in learning outcomes are
statistically significant. The data for this research were collected by administering
the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) to 179 students from four
state universities in Aceh, the northernmost province of Indonesia. The results of
the test were analysed based on the components in each subtest. There are three
parts in the listening comprehension section, 14 aspects in the structure and written
expression section, and six skills in the reading comprehension section. The results
show that significant differences were only found in part A (the short talk section)
of the listening comprehension part and in the main idea skill section in the reading
comprehension part. Students of natural sciences performed better when listening
to a short academic talk, while social science students had a better general
comprehension of non-discipline specific academic texts.
关键词：English proficiency; social sciences; natural sciences; Test of English as a
Foreign Language; English teaching
