scholarly journals Measuring the contribution of specialist vocabulary knowledge to academic achievement: disentangling effects of multiple types of word knowledge

Author(s):  
Ahmed Masrai ◽  
James Milton ◽  
Dina Abdel Salam El-Dakhs ◽  
Heba Elmenshawy

AbstractThis study investigates the idea that knowledge of specialist subject vocabulary can make a significant and measurable impact on academic performance, separate from and additional to the impact of general and academic vocabulary knowledge. It tests the suggestion of Hyland and Tse (TESOL Quarterly, 41:235–253, 2007) that specialist vocabulary should be given more attention in teaching. Three types of vocabulary knowledge, general, academic and a specialist business vocabulary factors, are tested against GPA and a business module scores among students of business at a college in Egypt. The results show that while general vocabulary size has the greatest explanation of variance in the academic success factors, the other two factors - academic and a specialist business vocabulary - make separate and additional further contributions. The contribution to the explanation of variance made by specialist vocabulary knowledge is double that of academic vocabulary knowledge.

Author(s):  
Asma'a Abdel Fattah Alhoot ◽  
Ssekamanya Sıraje Abdallah

Taking into consideration the fact that self-esteem and loneliness have an even more important role to play in students' learning, this study seeks to examine the correlation of these two factors with children academic performance. The study involved 499 (grade 4 to grade 9) Arab children studying at Arab schools in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia. Data were collected via two questionnaires (one for loneliness and the other for self-esteem). The correlational data analysis yielded a negative correlation between loneliness and academic achievement while there is a positive correlation between self-esteem and achievement. Results also suggested that there is no correlation between students' gender, age, and academic achievement. Furthermore, the results revealed that self-esteem is a good predictor of achievement while loneliness and gender are not good predictors. The findings of the present study are discussed in relation to the relevant literature, taking into consideration the impact of children mental health on their academic achievement. Finally, recommendations for further research are presented.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramazan Yılmaz ◽  
Hafize Keser

The aim of the present study is to reveal the impact of the interactive environment and metacognitive support (MS) in online learning on academic achievement and transactional distance (TD). The study is designed as 2 × 2 factorial design, and both qualitative and quantitative research techniques are used. The study was carried out on 127 students, and this research design was implemented in an online learning environment and evaluated based on an achievement test, TD scale, and semistructured interviews. The results of the study revealed that synschronous environments had a significant impact in reducing TD perception. In asynschronous environments, on the other hand, providing students with MS was efficient in reducing TD. In terms of academic success, compared with synschronous environments, MS provided in asynschronous environments caused to a significant difference in achievement test scores of the students. Explanations about findings and implications for instructional design are discussed in Conclusion section.


2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-60
Author(s):  
Anh Ngoc Van Pham ◽  
Hau Nguyen Le

This study aims to investigate the impact of four antecedent factors on the acceptance of SMS advertising among young Vietnamese consumers. The empirical results indicate that “perceived usefulness”, “perceived ease of use”, “trust” and “subjective norms” have significant influences on the intention to use SMS advertising. Of these factors, “subjective norms” and “perceived usefulness” have stronger influences than the other two factors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Margaret Antonicelli ◽  
Ivano De Turi

The considerable economic contribution of academic spin-offs (ASOs) has drawn numerous scholars’ attention to explore the factors that influence their development (Hossinger, 2020). The growing attention on these issues has led researchers to investigate the drivers and success factors that have the greatest impact on the performance of ASOs.This paper has been designed with a dual purpose. On the one hand, the document aims to examine how much a region's innovation index reflects positively on the performance of ASOs. On the other hand, the paper also examines in which sectors the impact of innovation on the performance of ASOs emerges most. The research hypotheses of these paintings were explored in an empirical study of 1,007 Italian spin-offs over a time range from 2010 to 2019. To carry out the analysis, a panel model with fixed effects was used, with an unbalanced dataset.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Daskalovska

One of the main aims of language learning is developing communicative competence, or the ability to communicate effectively in everyday situations. In order to achieve that, besides grammar knowledge, learners need to acquire enough vocabulary knowledge that would enable them to use the language outside the classroom, which requires acquiring significant receptive and productive word knowledge in order to be able to participate in various communicative situations. Research shows that the most frequent 2000 words comprise about 85% of the words in any text regardless of the topic, and that learners need to know at least 3000 word families in order to be able to use the language successfully and to be able to read authentic texts with understanding. However, experience shows that acquiring a large vocabulary is one of the biggest obstacles that language learners face in the process of language acquisition. Nevertheless, since vocabulary knowledge is the key component of the overall communicative competence, is it necessary to invest time and effort to learn the most frequent words in the language. The aim of this study is to determine the vocabulary size of language learners at four stages of language development. In addition, the study attempts to determine the difference between receptive and productive knowledge of vocabulary, as well as the difference between knowledge of words seen in isolation and in context. The participants were four groups of learners, of whom three groups comprised elementary and secondary school students and one group were university students. The results showed that during the first five years of learning the vocabulary knowledge increases at a greater rate, that learners have better receptive than productive knowledge of words, and that seeing words in context helps learners demonstrate greater receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0725/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 424-434
Author(s):  
Emily Lund

Abstract Many studies have evaluated overall vocabulary knowledge of children who use cochlear implants, but there has been minimal focus on how word form characteristics affect this knowledge. This study evaluates the effects of neighborhood density and phonotactic probability on the expressive vocabulary of 81 children between five and seven years old (n = 27 cochlear implant users, n = 27 children matched for chronological age, and n = 27 children matched for vocabulary size). Children were asked to name pictures associated with words that have common and rare phonotactic probability and high and sparse neighborhood density. Results indicate that children with cochlear implants, similar to both groups of children with typical hearing, tend to know words with common probability/high density or with rare probability/ sparse density. Patterns of word knowledge for children with cochlear implants mirrored younger children matched for vocabulary size rather than age-matched children with typical hearing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-160
Author(s):  
Paolo Mairano ◽  
Fabian Santiago

AbstractMeasures of second language (L2) learners’ vocabulary size have been shown to correlate with language proficiency in reading, writing and listening skills, and vocabulary tests are sometimes used for placement purposes. However, the relation between learners’ vocabulary knowledge and their speaking skills has been less thoroughly investigated, and even less so in terms of pronunciation. In this article, we compare vocabulary and pronunciation measures for 25 Italian instructed learners of L2 French. We measure their receptive (Dialang score) and productive (vocd-D, MTLD) vocabulary size, and calculate the following pronunciation indices: acoustic distance and overlap of realizations for selected L2 French vowel pairs, ratings of nasality for ratings of foreign-accentedness, fluency metrics. We find that vocabulary measures show low to medium correlations with fluency metrics and ratings of foreign-accentedness, but not with vowel metrics. We then turn our attention to the impact of research methods on the study of vocabulary and pronunciation. More specifically, we discuss the possibility that these results are due to pitfalls in vocabulary and pronunciation indices, such as the failure of Dialang to take into account the effect of L1-L2 cognates, and the lack of measures for evaluating consonants, intonation and perception skills.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Joanna Newton

Academic vocabulary knowledge is central to reading and academic achievement. Largely based in the lexicons of Latin and Greek, academic vocabulary comprises morphemic structures. Many teachers devote little time to focused instruction in this area because they may lack pertinent morphological and pedagogical knowledge. This article reports findings from a broader three-year longitudinal qualitative case study that explored the experiences of three elementary teachers who engaged in professional development that included study of the morphemic features of academic vocabulary and instructional techniques. This article describes changes teachers made to practice because of their deeper understanding of Latin and Greek morphology and how to teach it. Data sources included in-depth and semistructured interviews, direct observations of classroom practice, and analysis of instructional artifacts. Data analysis revealed that all three participants moved from teacher-centered, definitional approaches towards instruction that was student-centered and focused on developing metalinguistic awareness. Instructional shifts reflected participants’ new understandings about metalinguistic awareness, student-directed problem-solving, and collaborative talk in vocabulary learning. Instructional shifts address metalinguistic awareness, morphology, word consciousness, and Spanish–English cognate instruction—areas that may be overlooked in many classrooms.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Milton ◽  
Jeanine Treffers-Daller

AbstractMany researchers have tried to assess the number of words adults know. A general conclusion which emerges from such studies is that vocabularies of English monolingual adults are very large with considerable variation. This variation is important given that the vocabulary size of schoolchildren in the early years of school is thought to materially affect subsequent educational attainment. The data is difficult to interpret, however, because of the different methodologies which researchers use. The study in this paper uses the frequency-based vocabulary size test from Goulden et al (1990) and investigates the vocabulary knowledge of undergraduates in three British universities. The results suggest that monolingual speaker vocabulary sizes may be much smaller than is generally thought with far less variation than is usually reported. An average figure of about 10,000 English word families emerges for entrants to university. This figure suggests that many students must struggle with the comprehension of university level texts.


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