3.1. Participants
111 11th graders were recruited to participate in the present study for four weeks.
The students were from three intact classes at a senior high school in northern Taiwan.
The students consisted of 54 males and 57 females and were at the age of 16 or 17.
They had received formal English instructions for eight years since elementary school.
They were screened to the senior high school based on the results of the national entrance examination two years ago. As they became 11th graders, they were randomly chosen into the classes by their preferences for either science-related subjects or art-related subjects. Their English proficiency level ranged from low intermediate to intermediate based on the scores of tests and examinations, the difficulty level of the textbook used, and the judgment from their English teacher with years of teaching experience.
Normally, the students had English classes four times a week, with each class lasting 50 minutes. In class, each student received formal English education with unified textbooks. The textbook was approved by the Ministry of Education and selected by the teachers at school. In each unit of the text book, a reading passage, a list of target words, and two sentence patterns were taught. The students learned 25 to 40 target words from each unit. The KK phonetic symbols, parts of speech, Chinese meanings, brief definitions in English, morphological derivations, and example sentences were provided for the target words. Based on the teacher’s teaching experience and observation in class, the students devoted the majority of their effort to learning and reviewing the target words in the textbook.
A preliminary survey on the students’ accessibility to mobile phones, desktop
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PCs or other devices was conducted by the teacher in class. Only two of the students did not own a mobile phone. Most of them had a desktop or laptop PC at home. Few had a tablet PC. The students had experiences in using their mobile phones for individual or cooperative in-class learning activities of subjects other than English at school from time to time. They also had experiences in using PC at school or at home to complete individual assignments or group projects.
3.2. Vocabulary Exercises
A set of vocabulary exercises was posted on Moodle, a free online learning platform. The vocabulary exercises were designed to consolidate the students’
learning of the target words. A total of 37 words from one unit were included in the exercises. Each word was repetitively shown in different exercises to ensure that the students would review the word several times and achieve a better learning outcome.
Each exercise contained ten vocabulary questions and could be completed within a few minutes. The score of an exercise ranged from zero to ten, and each question weighed one point. There were six vocabulary exercises, and they were in five types.
The former three exercises consisted of vocabulary recognition questions, including choosing the correct Chinese definition for the English word seen, choosing the correct English word for the Chinese definition seen, and choosing the correct Chinese definition for the English word heard. The latter three exercises consisted of vocabulary production questions, including spelling the English word heard, and spelling the English word to complete a gapped sentence. The fifth and sixth exercises were the same type. The design of the questions was similar to that of the questions in Stockwell’s previous studies. Sample questions are provided in Appendix A.
While the students learned the target words from the teacher in class, they were encouraged to access Moodle to do the vocabulary exercises on their own out of class.
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A brief introduction was given before the teaching of the unit to make sure they would understand how to login to Moodle and complete exercises, and then they would be able to practice alone by using their mobile phone, desktop PC, laptop PC or tablet PC regardless of time and place. They were told that the exercises were for practice rather than for tests, and that the scores of the exercises would not be included in the assessment of their learning. They could practice any exercise multiple times until they understood each question and achieved a satisfying result. In other words, the students could decide freely on whether to do the vocabulary exercises, which exercise to do, which tool to use, where to practice, when to practice, and how many times to practice.
3.3. Data Collection and Analysis 3.3.1. The Server Log
The data were collected through the server logs on Moodle. When a student completed an exercise, an entry was kept in the server logs. Multiple entries were kept when a student made more than one attempt on the same exercise. An entry included the following information: the type of exercise, the starting date and time, the finishing date and time, the amount of time taken, the scores of an exercise, the device used, and the location where an attempt was made. All the information was recorded without the need for intervention, except for the device and the location, which were presented in checklist format for the students to self-complete following each attempt.
The items on the device checklist included mobile phones, desktop PCs, laptop PCs, and tablet PCs. The items on the location checklist included public places (such as classroom, school campus, library, restaurant, plaza, etc.), private places (such as home, study room, living room, dormitory, etc.) and transportation (such as car, bus, MRT, train, etc.).
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After the four-week duration of the experiment, the server logs were retrieved from Moodle to further analyze the students’ learning behavior. The entries in the data were first categorized to make a general comparison of the students’ preferences for different devices. The categories were mobile phones, desktop PCs, laptop PCs, and tablet PCs. Statistical figures such as the average scores obtained from the exercises and the average time taken to complete the exercises were then calculated to determine if there were any differences among the devices used. In each category, the locations where the students completed vocabulary exercises were also investigated to find out if there were any relationships between devices and locations.
3.3.2. Semi-structured Interview
The semi-structured interview was conducted to better understand the students’
subjective learning experiences and their learning behaviors. Those who showed strong preference for a certain device or completed more exercises on Moodle were selected and invited to have an interview with the researcher. The guided questions were developed in order to gain insights into the students’ perceptions of doing vocabulary exercises on Moodle, and to elicit more qualitative data to explore their individual preferences for devices. The students were interviewed about whether they decided to do the vocabulary exercises on Moodle, their perceptions of the usefulness of the vocabulary exercises on Moodle, their preferred devices and locations, and the reasons for their preferences. The interview was conducted in the students’ mother tongue, Mandarin Chinese, to allow them to express themselves clearly and communicate at ease. The guided questions for the interview are provided in Appendix B.
The students’ responses to the questions were recorded during the interview. The audio recordings were transcribed for further analysis. The transcript data were read
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and organized by the researcher. The students’ responses were categorized or coded based on the themes emerging from the data. Later, interpretations of the data were presented to account for the students’ perceptions of the vocabulary exercises and their preferences for different tools. To ensure the accuracy of categorization and the appropriateness of interpretations, the researcher revisited the transcript several times.
The researcher also invited some students or colleagues to help look over the results of the qualitative data. They could help confirm whether the excerpts from the transcripts were properly translated, and provide suggestions regarding whether the interpretations of the qualitative data were subjective and should be modified accordingly.
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