2016 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
The Effectiveness of Contextualized and Decontextualized Computer Assisted Vocabulary Study
| Project/Area Number |
16K16871
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| Research Institution | Saitama University |
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Principal Investigator |
ヒューズ リアンダー 埼玉大学, 英語教育開発センター, 准教授 (80513861)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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| Keywords | CALL / vocabulary / contextualized / decontextualized |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I have completed a basic version of the online application for facilitating contextualized and decontextualized vocabulary study. For contextualized study, this program is able to show sections of their textbook with key vocabulary highlighted. Students can click on highlighted words to get their translations while listening to their pronunciations. Students can also listen to recordings of entire sentences being read by native speakers. For decontextualized study, the program creates flashcard-style multiple choice questions using those key vocabulary which provide practice reading, listening to, and spelling those vocabulary. These questions increase in difficulty for each word as users become more proficient with that word. Students' progress on each individual word as well as on each chapter as a whole is saved and can be viewed by student while studying. Teachers can also assign sections to be studied and view students' progress on those sections.
In addition, I have developed a paper-based assessment of English proficiency with regard to biochemistry for use with participants. I have administered this test to freshman biology students this year as an ungraded pretest and will administer it again to them at the end of the course in July.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Initially, I planned to do my experiment with freshman biology students enrolled in an in-English biochemistry class at my university. However, teachers of those classes and I have decided that this approach would not be fair to students, as some would be partially or wholly prevented from using the application I developed, while others would have access to it. Instead, I am currently piloting the application with all freshman students and will seek another group for my experimental sample (see next entry for details).
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The students piloting my application have already taken the assessment I developed as a pretest before beginning their course. In July, they will take the test again as part of their final evaluation for the course. I expect pre-to-post test gains to be significant. If such gains do emerge, I will recruit volunteer participants for my experiment in September. I plan on recruiting older biology students who have never used my application before. As an extra incentive, I may be able to hire participants for the time they spend on their pretest and post-test. Due to the voluntary basis of my experiment, it may be hard to gather a large sample. In that case, I may attempt to repeat the experiment at a later date and pool the results.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I had planned on using most of my funds last year to hire an assistant programmer to help me with my application. Unfortunately, the programmer I had been working with on previous projects is no longer available to help me with major projects such as this one. Therefore, I did the best I could on my own to create a basic but complete version of the application for this study. As I have not yet been able to find a new assistant programmer who is both qualified and available for this project, I have not yet spent the remaining funds.
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
If I can find a qualified assistant programmer, I will hire him/her to improve the application further, and thereby hopefully raise its effectiveness. However, I may also require the funds to gather participants for my study in the case that too few volunteers emerge. In that case, I may devote some of the funds to hiring participants as research assistants and paying them for some or all of the time they spend using the application. In addition, I plan to improve my own programming skills through self-study as well as attending programming conferences. This too will require a portion of the remaining funds.
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Research Products
(1 results)
