2021 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
To Speak Chinese: Do Kanji Help or Hurt?
Project/Area Number |
19K00828
|
Research Institution | Komatsu University |
Principal Investigator |
|
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
岩田 礼 公立小松大学, 国際文化交流学部, 教授 (10142358)
劉 乃華 公立小松大学, 国際文化交流学部, 教授 (40836590)
|
Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
|
Keywords | Chinese learning / Hanyu Pinyin / Chinese characters / Japanese lerners / Textbook |
Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Based on feedback from colleagues overseas that our earlier findings could be strengthened by combining the results of both years into a single CONTROL group covering both years and a single EXPERIMENTAL group,in 2021 we did just that. With each group size now doubled, the data we had to work with also doubled, making any findings from this data even more convincing.
The results of our 2021 analysis of the two super groups confirmed our yearly findings in 2019 and 2020, with one minor exception: No statistical correlation was found that differentiated the Control Group from the Experimental Group, either in terms of their respective performances in Chinese, their respective non-Chinese GPA scores or their respective English listening and English reading abilities as measured by TOEIC. This confirmed our observation each year that our method for sorting students into the two groups effectively ensured that both groups shared a similar range and distribution of academic and English language abilities. It also supported our finding both years that the presence or absence of Chinese characters in the textbook did not statistically influence student level of achievement in Chinese. And as was true both years, the only factor observed to have a clear statistically significant correlation with student performance in Chinese was their academic performance in all of their other non-Chinese classes as measured by GPA. The new discovery from combining the two years of data in 2021, was the weak correlation between TOEIC reading scores and Chinese performance.
|