A Keyword Analysis of Thai Engineering Students’ Reflections on Their Data-driven Learning Experiences in an ESP Course

This study explores Thai engineering students’ reflections on their data-driven learning (DDL) experiences in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course on Meetings and Discussions. Adopting a qualitative research paradigm, an inductive thematic analysis using corpus-based approach known as keyword analysis was employed to analyze 62 students' reflective journals covering these experiences. As part of the course, students were required to work in groups to build their own learner corpora by collecting authentic meeting videos from YouTube, utilizing automated content transcription, and performing basic linguistic analyses using AntConc version 4.3.1, focusing on three main approaches: keyword analysis, collocation analysis, and n-grams. Through these tasks, students engaged directly with authentic language data and gained hands-on experience with corpus linguistic tools, allowing them to observe how language is used in real-world professional contexts rather than relying solely on textbook examples. After completing the tasks, each student wrote a reflective journal documenting their experiences. The reflective journals were then collected, compiled into a corpus, and analyzed to identify students' keywords and derive emerging themes from them. The findings revealed that students generally perceived the DDL approach as valuable for enhancing language awareness, learning authentic language use, developing critical analytical skills, and fostering learner autonomy. Many students also expressed increased confidence in applying these skills to future workplace communication scenarios. However, challenges related to technical skills, corpus analysis procedures, and initial unfamiliarity with corpus tools were also reported, indicating areas where additional instructional support may be beneficial. The study highlights the pedagogical affordances of incorporating corpus-based techniques in ESP courses and offers practical implications for integrating DDL into language instruction, particularly for students preparing for professional careers.