Receptive and Productive Arabic Academic Vocabulary Mastery: A Study of Students in Malaysian Public Universities

The issue of learning Arabic among university students is closely related to the mastery of Arabic academic vocabulary (AAV). This study aimed to investigate the mastery of the receptive and productive Arabic academic vocabulary amongst Malaysian Public Universities students. 126 Arabic students from 6 public universities have been selected via purposive sampling method. In order to collect the data, researchers used a set of receptive and productive academic vocabulary tests. 50 academic vocabularies have been used from a list of academic vocabulary provided by Davies and Gardner (2013). The research data were analysed using SPSS v25 (Shapiro-Wilk Test, Kruskal-Wallis Test and Post-Hoc Bonferroni Test). The results shows that the productive test scored higher compared to the results of the receptive test. The findings showed that there are significant differences as compared to the findings of previous vocabulary studies where almost all earlier research indicates that receptive test achievement is usually better than productive test achievement. Researchers argue that this is probably due to the more difficult academic vocabulary features, the number of words used in receptive questions is more than productive tests as well as a less effective test formats to be applied to Arabic language learners as foreign languages.