The impact of task involvement on incidental vocabulary learning

النوع : Mémoire

This study is in favor of the Involvement Load Hypothesis proposed by Laufer & Hulstijn (2001) and builds on their construct to investigate the effects of tasks with different involvement loads in order to examine their effect on the learning and retention of vocabulary words. One hundred and fifty students of a single-gender class studying English as a second language in a school were chosen for this study. They were divided into six equal groups to perform two experiments. The three groups in experiment one performed tasks in a controlled time setting, and the other three groups in the second experiment also performed tasks of a similar nature. However, the time was not restricted in the second experiment. The students in each group had to complete tasks that had different involvement loads. After that, they sat for an immediate and delayed memory recall test of the target vocabulary words which were new to them. The ANOVA results on the immediate and delayed post-test revealed a statistically significant difference with respect to the type of task, and the first null hypothesis is rejected at a p-value less than 0.05. Therefore, tasks with a higher involvement load yielded better results in both the immediate and the delayed posttests. The ANOVA results for the time also indicated a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05). The second null hypothesis is also rejected. Thus, students who performed tasks with no restriction on time retained the target vocabulary words in their long-term memory better than those who performed tasks that were restricted for time.