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English or languish - Probing the ramifications
of Hong Kong's language policy

Hypothesis testing

Test One: Rate of Attrition
hypothesis testing (index) | project fund (research)

There are several ways in which the aforementioned hypothesis can be tested.

Just as young smokers, who mostly value the "suave image" they project toward their peers, err miserably with regard to their own long term physical and mental health, so too do young students overestimate the true long term value of their English language studies.

The analogy between English language learning and nicotine addiction should not be exaggerated, however, because the two "addictions" work in different ways. Whereas it is difficult for the young smoker to quit his addiction as he grows older; depending on his true need for the English language, the young student will find it far easier to shed his addiction for English. The reasons for this are straight forward.

While making an effort not to repeat the several points already outlined in the aforementioned discussion paper (pdf 136 K) let us examine more closely why the attrition rate of English language ability is a reasonable test for false need.

Positive and negative rates of attrition for individuals and entire populations are likely to indicate entirely different things.

In summary, with respect to an entire population we would expect

Accordingly, we would not expect the rate of attrition, either positive or negative, to be uniform across the entire population. Rather, we would expect certain high-profile sectors of the population to demonstrate very high rates of negative attrition, else how could the universal needs myth be perpetuated.

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