| Project/Area Number |
21K13053
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
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| Research Institution | Kyoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
ライランダー ジョン 京都大学, 国際高等教育院, 講師 (60610821)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥260,000 (Direct Cost: ¥200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥60,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥520,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥120,000)
Fiscal Year 2021: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
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| Keywords | eye-tracking / pragmatics / video-based assessment / sociocultural awareness / pragmalinguistics / eye-tracking pragmatics / sociocultural context / sociocultural contexts / assessment |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
This study investigates what accounts for Japanese students’ social-situational aptitude in attending to and employing visual input to comprehend speaker intent from non-verbal cues like facial expressions and gestures and contextual cues like location and speaker appearance. This study utilizes eye-tracking techniques to detect learner attention when exposed to a video-based pragmatic awareness assessment. Findings should reveal details about the as yet unexamined visual stimuli learners focus on and how they use this input to understand speaker meanings and relationships.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
After completing the redesign of the video-based assessment, I updated the research protocols to ensure conditions for data replication. This included the use of a standardized instructional script given to participants and the design and implementation of a uniform language learning survey. I redesigned the student background learning survey to simplify the data-collection process and minimize the amount of time participants took to complete the form within the time conditions. With these portions finished, the pilot-testing phase was therefore completed. After issues relating to volunteers during the first years of research, I set a modest participant number of 20 individuals for the finalized study using the updated instrument redesigned during the 2022-2023 research year. From April until October, I enlisted 15 participants, all of whom provided usable data. Though I felt confident I could enlist the remaining 5 participants from November to January, this proved difficult. I sent out calls to approximately 400 students but was only able to recruit 3 interested individuals. Data from these 18 participants revealed differing attentional focus during item selection, with lower-level learners drawn toward Japanese item options and higher proficiency learners drawn toward English item options. Also apparent in the first-stages of this data analysis was an apparent gender difference, with female participants showing showing both higher foreign language proficiency and greater amounts of eye-moment.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
The data collection progressed smoothly for the first part of the year, from April to October. However, gaining volunteers in the later months of 2023 proved difficult. I will need to complete the data collection procedures during the 2024-2025 academic year. Unfortunately, during the revision process of the papers I had submitted, issues from several reviewers became apparent. This necessitated that I rewrite major sections. One paper has passed the majority of revision processes, and the journal editor has stated it will be published online within the year and in journal form next year. The paper based on a statistical analysis of learner populations performing a traditional video-based assessment of pragmatic awareness will have to be resubmitted this year. I continued to work on the paper discussing how participants attend to the stimulus using the eye-tracker and will resubmit this paper for publication this year. I used the remaining funds I had to present once more at an international conference (CamTESOL) held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (February, 23-25). I was able to use university funds to secure one more year’s use of the eye-tracking software. I have recruited the remaining individuals for May and June 2024, and all data collection is expected to be completed by August of this year.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The focus this year will be to define the areas of interest produced by each participant in each of the 40 videos. This requires tagging videos throughout the video duration, noting distinct points of reference from each camera angle. The goal of this analysis is to review how participant-based focus tracks with preliminary findings uncovered during the pilot-testing phase. That research suggests that learners attend to speakers’ facial expressions and embodied speaker gestures in a fashion similar to how individuals attend to real-world communication behaviors. This preliminary finding supports calls researchers have made for increased use of authentic resources in both second language instruction and in newly designed assessment types. Prior research suggests that fixation points are important indicators of participant comprehension. This data will be important for uncovering participant rationale guiding decisions measuring sociocultural awareness. The output data produced by the eye-tracking software will be subjected to a linear regression in the form of a mixed-effects analysis. The eye-tracking data will be set along with other independent variables taken from the language learning background survey. Learner response behaviors on the video-based pragmatic awareness assessment will take the form of the dependent variable. This work will be the culmination of the project.
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