Exploring the relationship between L2 reading competence and emotion and cognitive load using eye tracking and galvanic skin response

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23K00761
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Review Section	Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
Research Institution	Kindai University
Principal Investigator	アトキンズアンドリュー近畿大学, 国際学部, 准教授 (70513331)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	Prichard Caleb 岡山大学, 教育推進機構, 准教授 (10440306)
Project Period (FY)	2023-04-01 – 2026-03-31
Project Status	Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
Budget Amount *help	¥4,810,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,110,000) Fiscal Year 2025: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000) Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000) Fiscal Year 2023: ¥2,730,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥630,000)
Keywords	L2 Reading / Reading Anxiety / Eye tracking / Reading Strategies
Outline of Research at the Start	This study will include at least three empirical eye tracking with GSR experiments to investigate the relationship between reading proficiency and anxiety when reading, and will attempt to identify strategies that can be used by teachers and students.
Outline of Annual Research Achievements	The first year of the project has been somewhat slow. Gaining access to the equipment needed was not as smooth as was had hoped. However, a pilot study was conducted in which a lot was learned about the technology and the methodological requirements for using it. The galvanic skin response (GSR) sensors took a while to get right. It may have been a lack of thorough preparation in terms of reading that caused the tardiness, and the assumption that GSR could just be added to an eye-tracking experiment was very naive. Atkins presented the findings of the pilot study at the 58th RELC Conference in Singapore in March 2024 and has been accepted to further present at the EUROCALL Conference in Slovakia in August 2024. The RELC presentation was well received.
Current Status of Research Progress	Current Status of Research Progress 3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed. Reason As stated above, the methodology difficulties were underestimated at the start of the project. Along with calibration of the eye tracker, the GSR also needed to detect a baseline reading before data gathering could begin. The effect sizes being studied are relatively quite large and in order to detect them, paragraph-length promts used in previous studies needed to be split to sentence-length prompts with pause after each prompt. Discovering all this took some time, but from this year, we are almost ready to start the data collection and confident that we can do this well.
Strategy for Future Research Activity	Now that we have ironed out the initial problems, we are almost ready to start data collection again. This will involve a completely redesigned research method that includes calibration of eye tracker and a baseline for the GSR sensors. We plan to collect data from around 50 participants before August and present the findings and publish the study within the next year.