Analysis on the Correlation between PRETCO-A and Employability in Higher Vocational College Based on Data Mining

It is believed that learning English is not necessary for the students in vocational college because English is not useful in their future employment. However, a large amount of data show that English language proficiency has a great influence on the initial employment of vocational students. 1713 graduates in 2018 are selected from Sanya Aviation and Tourism College as the research samples. By extracting the information related to their employment in the college's employment management computer system and tracing their scores of Practical English Test for College Students(PRETCO-A) from September, 2015 to June, 2019 in the teaching management computer system, the influence their passing rate of PRETCO-A on the graduates' employability will be analyzed from four dimensions of the employ ability (graduate employment rate, major-work relevance, average monthly income and employment satisfaction) according to six different groups of majors. From the research, students' PRETCO-A passing rate can be found highly related to their employability and it has even become a core element impacting on students' employability, especially to the graduates of electrical and mechanical engineering department. The correlation coefficient between the pass rate of the test and the employment rate of the graduates is as high as 0.83. The research results offer the scientific basis to students' training program, curriculum setting and the reform of college English course.