Tesis Magíster
The Relationship between Topic Interest and Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition: To What Extent is Dictionary Look-up Behavior a Factor?
Fecha
2011Autor
Macaro, Ernesto
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Institución
Resumen
Research on the effects that interest may have on learning has been thoroughly analyzed and discussed in learning theory and L1 Research. Many of its features and sources have been identified and discussed in light of the educational and psychological theories that underpin its conceptualization (Renninger, Hidi and Krapp, 1992; Schiefele, 1999; Hidi, 1990; Ainley, Hidi and Berndorff, 2002). From this rich field of research, the concept of topic interest has been put forward as being a significant variable in learning outcomes (Hidi; 2001; Renninger, 2000). Topic interest can be defined as feelings associated with a certain topic and significance attributed to that topic by an individual (Schiefele and Krapp, 1996). Although topic interest has received an important amount of attention in learning theory and L1 reading comprehension, research assessing the extent of its influence in the L2 classroom has been scarce. The few studies that have investigated topic interest in L2 settings have focused on its influence on reading comprehension. It is of the researcher’s understanding that no published studies have linked the variable of topic interest to direct vocabulary learning. Thus, the main purpose of the present study is to explore the relationship between topic interest and L2 incidental vocabulary learning. In addition, part of the main purpose of the study is to include the variable of dictionary look-up behavior, which will be added to the design in order to find and analyze resulting significant interactions.
Participants for the present study are 65 male EFL learners age 18-25 who are currently studying to obtain a technical degree in Mechanics and Automotive Engineering at a technological university in Chile. They were asked to read two texts already identified by students in the pilot study as being of high interest and low interest. They were allowed to use bilingual dictionaries and were asked to underline the words that they looked up. Twenty words previously identified as unknown by the participants were selected in order to assess incidental vocabulary learning (minutes after the reading task) and retention (two weeks later) in the two different reading conditions (high topic interest text and low topic interest text). Translation and multiple choice tests were chosen in order to provide different assessment measures. Results suggest that text topic interest indeed has an influence on how much vocabulary is learned and retained by learners. Significant differences were found in the translation measure, while in the multiple choice measure it approached significance. Furthermore, dictionary use was found to be more valuable for vocabulary learning and retention when the words being looked up were part of the high topic interest text. Discussion of the results, conclusions and recommendations for pedagogy are also presented.