2017 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, 教育機構, 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 |
All freshman biology students (N=40) used the vocabulary learning application I developed as part of their their biochemistry class. Over the semester-long course, I continued working on debugging the program based on student and teacher feedback. Prior to the course beginning students took the paper-based assessment I had developed last year to measure English proficiency with regard to biochemistry. The took this test once again upon finishing the course. Results showed a significant moderate correlation between having finished their vocabulary learning assignments via the application and the increase in their score on from pre- to post-assessment, r(28) = .46, p < .001. A t-Test contrast in score increases between those who finished their assignments and those who did not also resulted in a significant difference in favor of those who completed their work t(38) = 3.27, p = .002. These results suggest that the contextualized and decontextualized vocabulary practice provided by the application is effective in increasing learners' proficiency in English for biochemistry.
To prepare for the final experiment, I ran a pilot experiment with 13 third- and fourth-year students, dividing them into four groups who studied using: 1) only their textbook, 2) only the application's contextualized vocabulary practice, 3) only the application's decontextualized vocabulary practice, and 4) both the application's contextualized and decontextualized vocabulary practice. The pilot experiment provided an opportunity to refine the study design in preparation for a more large-scale experiment.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
As I reported last year, my original plan was to perform my experiment with freshman in biology as part of their biochemistry class, but the teachers decided this would be unfair to the students. Therefore, I must recruit participants majoring in biology from outside of this pool of students. This has proven difficult, as students are busy and are generally not interested in studying more than they have to, particularly if the work they are to do is not part of a graded class. I did manage to recruit 13 students for a pilot experiment as mentioned above, but could only do so by hiring them as paid research assistants.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The final step in my study will be to conduct an experiment with at least 40 students majoring in biology who have not yet used my application or studied in-depth the material that it covers. I will divide these students into the same four groups I divided my pilot study participants into and have them study for five hours over a period of 2.5 weeks using the method assigned to their group. To ascertain which method is most effective, I will compare pre- and post-assessment results via ANOVA. Before administering the assessment, I will add a section that only measures base-level vocabulary knowledge by testing single-word L1-L2 pairing ability. I predict that, while the decontextualized-only group may do slightly better on the base-level assessment, the group doing the combination of contextualized and decontextualized will experience the highest overall proficiency gains.
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| Causes of Carryover |
(理由)
As I have still been unable to find a programmer with enough time and ability to handle the types of programming work I need, I have not used my funds for programming as much as I had intended. However, because of the difficulty in recruiting participants for my experiments, I have had to offer compensation to make it attractive enough so that students would be willing to spend their free time participating. The amount of compensation needed for my 13 student pilot study has accounted for a substantial portion of my expenditures so far, and I will need far more students for the actual experiment.
(使用計画)
While I expect to spend a smaller portion of my budget on programming to improve my application, most of the funds will be reserved for hiring participants for my final experiment. In addition, I hope to have enough funds left to travel to an international conference to present my results, but of course the experiment itself takes priority over travel.
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