The effect of gloss type on learners’ intake of new words during reading: evidence from eye-tracking

Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018. A reading experiment combining online and offline data evaluates the effect on second language learners' reading behaviors and lexical uptake of three gloss types designed to clarify word meaning. These are (a) textual definition, (b) textual definition accompanied by picture, and (c) picture only. We recorded eye movements while intermediate learners of English read a story presented on-screen and containing six glossed pseudowords repeated three times each. Cumulative fixation counts and time spent on the pseudowords predicted posttest performance for form recall and meaning recognition, confirming findings of previous eye-tracking studies of vocabulary acquisition from reading. However, the total visual attention given to pseudowords and glosses was smallest in the condition with picture-only glosses, and yet this condition promoted best retention of word meaning. This suggests that gloss types differentially influence learners' processing of novel words in ways that may elude the quantitative measures of attention captured by eye-tracking.

The effect of gloss type on learners’ intake of new words during reading: evidence from eye-tracking

Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018. A reading experiment combining online and offline data evaluates the effect on second language learners' reading behaviors and lexical uptake of three gloss types designed to clarify word meaning. These are (a) textual definition, (b) textual definition accompanied by picture, and (c) picture only. We recorded eye movements while intermediate learners of English read a story presented on-screen and containing six glossed pseudowords repeated three times each. Cumulative fixation counts and time spent on the pseudowords predicted posttest performance for form recall and meaning recognition, confirming findings of previous eye-tracking studies of vocabulary acquisition from reading. However, the total visual attention given to pseudowords and glosses was smallest in the condition with picture-only glosses, and yet this condition promoted best retention of word meaning. This suggests that gloss types differentially influence learners' processing of novel words in ways that may elude the quantitative measures of attention captured by eye-tracking.

The Contributions of Crosslinguistic Influence and Individual Differences to Nonnative Speech Perception

Perception of a nonnative language (L2) is known to be affected by crosslinguistic transfer from a listener’s native language (L1), but the relative importance of L1 transfer vis-a-vis individual learner differences remains unclear. This study explored the hypothesis that the nature of L1 transfer changes as learners gain experience with the L2, such that individual differences are more influential at earlier stages of learning and L1 transfer is more influential at later stages of learning. To test this hypothesis, novice L2 learners of Korean from diverse L1 backgrounds were examined in a pretest-posttest design with respect to their perceptual acquisition of novel L2 consonant contrasts (the three-way Korean laryngeal contrast among lenis, fortis, and aspirated plosives) and vowel contrasts (/o/-/ʌ/, /u/-/ɨ/). Whereas pretest performance showed little evidence of L1 effects, posttest performance showed significant L1 transfer. Furthermore, pretest performance did not predict posttest performance. These findings support the view that L1 knowledge influences L2 perception dynamically, according to the amount of L2 knowledge available to learners at that time. That is, both individual differences and L1 knowledge play a role in L2 perception, but to different degrees over the course of L2 development.

Example-based learning: should learners receive closed-book or open-book self-explanation prompts?

In learning from examples, students are often first provided with basic instructional explanations of new principles and concepts and second with examples thereof. In this sequence, it is important that learners self-explain by generating links between the basic instructional explanations’ content and the examples. Therefore, it is well established that learners receive self-explanation prompts. However, there is hardly any research on whether these prompts should be provided in a closed-book format—in which learners cannot access the basic instructional explanations during self-explaining and thus have to retrieve the main content of the instructional explanations that is needed to explain the examples from memory (i.e., retrieval practice)—or in an open-book format in which learners can access the instructional explanations during self-explaining. In two experiments, we varied whether learners received closed- or open-book self-explanation prompts. We also varied whether learners were prompted to actively process the main content of the basic instructional explanations before they proceeded to the self-explanation prompts. When the learners were not prompted to actively process the basic instructional explanations, closed-book prompts yielded detrimental effects on immediate and delayed (1 week) posttest performance. When the learners were prompted to actively process the basic instructional explanations beforehand, closed-book self-explanation prompts were not less beneficial than open-book prompts regarding performance on a delayed posttest. We conclude that at least when the retention interval does not exceed 1 week, closed-book self-explanation prompts do not entail an added value and can even be harmful in comparison to open-book ones.

Student Clustering Based on Learning Behavior Data in the Intelligent Tutoring System

The idea of clustering students according to their online learning behavior has the potential of providing more adaptive scaffolding by the intelligent tutoring system itself or by a human teacher. With the aim of identifying student groups who would benefit from the same intervention in AC-ware Tutor, this research examined online learning behavior using 8 tracking variables: the total number of content pages seen in the learning process; the total number of concepts; the total online score; the total time spent online; the total number of logins; the stereotype after the initial test, the final stereotype, and the mean stereotype variability. The previous measures were used in a four-step analysis that consisted of data preprocessing, dimensionality reduction, the clustering, and the analysis of a posttest performance on a content proficiency exam. The results were also used to construct the decision tree in order to get a human-readable description of student clusters.

Preservice Teachers’ Professional Vision for and Capacity to Teach Self-Regulated Learning: Effects of Scaffolding Level

Background Self-regulation in learning (SRL) represents a major topic in educational research. Nevertheless, there remains a gap in the research concerning how teachers can incorporate SRL into the classroom. This study focuses on the Professional Vision for SRL (PfS) method, which aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice so that teachers can teach SRL and students can acquire SRL skills. Purpose The goal of the present study was to examine the impact of different scaffolding levels on the development of preservice teachers’ professional vision (PV) for SRL and their ability to teach SRL to students. Participants: Participants were 102 second-year preservice physics teachers at three major research universities. Research Design The study included three distinct PV scaffolding levels, in order to examine which types of PV prompts might best scaffold teachers’ progress in mapping and teaching SRL. These prompts included hints for when (time range) to analyze videotaped complex SRL-teaching events, full guidance (popup notifications) for when and what to analyze, and self-guidance (controls) for analyzing without help. Data Collection and Analysis I addressed the research questions and hypotheses by performing a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), with posttest performance as the dependent variable and PV prompt type as the independent variable. Findings Results showed that over time, all three groups improved on measures of both PV for SRL and SRL teaching. Additionally, we found that hint prompts had a greater positive effect on both measures than guided or self-guided prompts. Recommendations The current study recommends broadening the instructional framework of teacher education programs to include PV hints instruction as a means of supporting the practical skills necessary for teaching in dynamic school contexts.

Designing Digital Badges for Educational Games

Findings from two studies on the design of digital badges for a middle school geometry game and their impact on motivational and cognitive learning outcomes are reported. Study 1 compared the effect of badges in the game to a group with no badges. Badges did not increase posttest performance for all. Learners with high situational interest performed better with badges, learners with low situational interest performed worse with badges. Study 2 compared mastery goal orientation badges with performance goal orientation badges. The interaction of condition and situational interest from Study 1 was replicated. Furthermore, students receiving performance badges performed better on the posttest than students in the mastery badges condition; the no-badges condition was not different from either of the other conditions. Results suggest badges do not always help in educational video games: Types of badges interact with students' interest and motivation to affect learning outcomes.

Cognitive Perspectives of Working Memory Training

Working memory training is an emergent field aimed at improving general cognitive abilities through targeted brain exercises. The prospect of improving cognitive abilities, such as attention control, comprehension, and reasoning, has piqued the interest of the scientific community and the general public alike. If cognitive abilities like working memory capacity can be improved, it is assumed that this improvement will result in benefits to a broad range of real-world abilities associated with working memory capacity, including reading comprehension, math performance, and attention control. Thus, the goal of working memory training is to demonstrate broad transfer to tasks that involve the same components of working memory that were targeted during training. Therefore, improvements should be observed on a broad range of tasks that tap the ability being trained. This is measured by observing the difference between pre- and posttest performance on cognitive tasks that subjects have not practiced. The aim of this chapter is to summarize the extant literature on working memory training and then to pose a series of questions to researchers investigating the efficacy of working memory training.

Vocabulary Acquisition (Incidental) through Watching Subtitled Video Material

Subtitle refers to the time-synchronized text on a video that translates the spoken audio to another language. This research deals with the effect of watching subtitled video material on the vocabulary acquisition (incidental) of the Filipino learners of English with an emphasis on the receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. The study was participated by 100 university students in a private higher education institution in the Philippines. The study used a pretest and posttest design in which the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale developed by Paribakht and Wesche (1993) was employed. The results show that there is a significant difference between the pretest and the posttest performance in vocabulary acquisition in terms of receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge of the participants. The findings imply the integration of subtitled video material in the teaching of vocabulary in Philippine classrooms because of its effectiveness which, up to this point, is not yet realized.

The Effect of Implementing MALL Applications on Learning Pronunciation of English by EFL Learners at Najran University

Currently, the advancement in technology and communication has significantly influenced the field of education. As a part of this development, the use of mobile phones is being considered as a substantial source of learning for EFL learners. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of mobile phones on students’ pronunciation skill. The participants in this study were 48 female native speakers of Arabic enrolled in the English Department at Najran University, Saudi Arabia. They were divided into two groups; namely the control group (learning without mobile phones) and the experiment group (learning with mobile phones) with 24 students for each group. The obtained data were analyzed using t-test and it showed that the posttest performance development mean and standard deviation of the participants in the experiment group equaled 23.333, and 6.58501, respectively. However, the com­puted posttest performance development mean and standard deviation of the participants in the control group equaled 17.9167, and 6.37193, respectively, which indicates that there is a significant difference be­tween the experiment group and the control group in terms of overall performance. So, it can be concluded that the results ap­proved the significant impact of using MALL technology in improving the pronunciation of EFL learners.