Discourse Competence and English Academic Performance of Graduating Criminology Students

This study aimed to determine the discourse competence and English academic performance of 89 graduating criminology students from a private university in a highly urbanized city in the central Philippines during the second semester of the Academic Year 2023–2024. A self-made questionnaire, validated with a mean score of 4.63 and a reliability index of 0.772, assessed four areas: textual cohesion, deixis, coherence, and conversational structure. Results showed an overall moderate level of discourse competence (mean = 4.58), with the lowest scores in deixis (mean = 4.33) and textual cohesion (mean = 4.49), while coherence (mean = 4.51) and conversational structure (mean = 5.01) were relatively stronger. Demographic factors—including sex, school origin, family income, and parents’ educational attainment—did not significantly affect competence levels or English academic performance. A weak, statistically non-significant correlation (rho = 0.181, p = 0.089) was found between discourse competence and academic performance. These findings suggest that while students possess moderate discourse abilities, focused interventions are needed to improve weaker areas like deixis and cohesion to better support their communication skills and professional preparedness. Keywords: Discourse competence, english academic performance, criminology students, language proficiency