| Summary: | 碩士 === 東海大學 === 外國語文學系 === 102 === With the recognition of the vital role vocabulary plays in language learning, much research has been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of different vocabulary instructions. While test format effects have attracted researchers' attention, the effects of test contexts have not been thoroughly explored. The current study recruited two classes of low intermediate to intermediate EFL learners who were taking Freshman English. The participants were grouped according to their proficiency. The researcher adopted an empirically proven effective vocabulary treatment to teach the participants 20 academic words. The measurement was four vocabulary matching tests, namely the pretest, two immediate posttests and the delayed posttest.
On the immediate posttest and delayed posttest each newly learned word was tested two times; one in the test context extracted from the treatment material and the other in a new test context. The within group comparisons showed that both groups had significant vocabulary gains on both the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest. On the immediate posttest, the scores of the test items extracting from the familiar material were significantly higher than those using new test contexts. However, similar results were not found on the delayed posttests, suggesting that the effects of the familiarity with test contexts may fade with time.
To further explore the effects of old/new test contexts on high and low groups respectively, the data analysis showed that the high achievers scored significantly higher on the old test contexts than the new ones on the immediate posttest, yet, the low achievers were less influenced by the familiarity with the test contexts.
The researcher examined the vocabulary gains the high/low groups obtained on the immediate posttest and delayed posttest. It was surprising to find that there was no significance in the two groups’ vocabulary gains comparisons on both the immediate posttest and delayed posttest, suggesting that the LWR treatment may help to overcome the Matthew Effect via helping the lower-achieving learners keep up with the learning pace of the high-achieving ones..
The two most important pedagogical implications contributed by the current study are reported. First, considerations of the vocabulary test contexts have to be taken before researchers claim the efficacy of their treatment because the vocabulary gains might have been inflated by the familiar test contexts especially when the experiment does not include a delayed posttest. Next, LWR is an effective treatment and it is strongly recommended that language teachers adopt it to instruct lexical items in EFL classes, especially in those where students’ English abilities vary dramatically.
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