| Project/Area Number |
22K13103
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
|
| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
|---|
| Review Section |
Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
|
|---|
| Research Institution | The University of Aizu |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
Lingle William 会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 准教授 (40868486)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2022-04-01 – 2025-03-31
|
| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2022)
|
| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,290,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥990,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥130,000 (Direct Cost: ¥100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥30,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥130,000 (Direct Cost: ¥100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥30,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥4,030,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥930,000)
|
|---|
| Keywords | eye tracking / psycholinguistics / SLA / Eye tracking / Sentence Processing |
|---|
| Outline of Research at the Start |
This research is intended to contribute to research on how people process sentences while reading second-language texts. The results can be useful for improving lesson materials and teaching techniques.
|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In addition to my studies in psycholinguistics and related fields, I submitted documents to my university in summer 2022 to allow for the purchase of a high-quality eye tracking system. As a result of this process, which was resolved successfully, I have purchased an SR Research Eyelink 1000 Plus system which can record eye movements at a frequency of 1000 Hz. This system is used widely in eye tracking reading experiments because of its precision recording capability and is well suited to my reading research. I have received training from the manufacturer in setup procedures. I have installed this system in a laboratory environment and learned how to use software to design experiments and create data visualizations. Using manufacturer software, I created an experiment that can be run using the tracking hardware and computers in my lab.
I have also applied for and received received ethics approval from my university to begin work with human participants. I have begun recruiting students from my university as paid study participants. I have conducted recording sessions with four students at the time of writing and have collected useful data from these recording sessions. I aim to recruit nine or ten participants for valid data analysis in a pilot study.
I have also begun studying programming in R. I have learned to work with the recorded data which I can export as .csv files. I am now beginning to do descriptive statistical analysis on the recorded data using R. I aim to recruit more students to gather more data to allow for valid tests of my hypothesis.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
My university conducted a competitive bidding process in summer 2022 and the research equipment was delivered by the end of summer. In less than a year, I was able to install the equipment and learn how to use it for data collection. My initial goal was to be ready to conduct a pilot experiment by spring of 2023 at the end of Year 1, and I am currently working on that pilot experiment.
This level of progress required me to accomplish many goals such as learning the principles of valid experimental design, designing an experiment to be run on laboratory computers and equipment, learning how to create data visualizations and reports. Additionally, I received ethics approval and tested the experiment and recording procedures before beginning work with student participants. I was able to do all of this even though for most of this period of time I had a busy teaching schedule. I have also begun learning the R programming language to allow me to conduct the specific data analyses I need to test my hypothesis. I am making steady progress toward that goal also. Because my actual progress is consistent with the goals I set for Year 1, I evaluate my progress as progressing rather smoothly.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
During Year 2 (Financial Year 2023), I will continue work on recruiting student volunteers as study participants and aim to complete data recording for a pilot study. Along with analyzing the pilot data, I will continue studying programming and psycholinguistics. I aim to submit the results of my pilot study to a journal. I plan to refine my experimental procedures according to feedback I will request from journal reviewers and other researchers in the field. When this is done I aim to recruit 20 or more students to participate in a larger study. I aim to begin this study by the end of Year 2.
During Year 3, if necessary I will conduct further student volunteer recruiting and continue recording and data analysis. When I have a sufficient amount of data for a valid analysis, I will test my hypotheses with the data gathered from this larger group of participants. Consistent with my initial plan, I aim to submit the results of this analysis to a major international teaching conference or conference in a related field. As a benefit of this research, I hope to derive insights into students' reading behavior and the effects of different types of grammatical structures on their reading comprehension. As a development of this research, I hope to design and test different teaching techniques that are intended to improve students' reading habits and increase their comprehension of academic texts such as research papers.
|
