Empirical Studies Comparing Devices in Vocabulary Learning

While many studies explored the effectiveness of MALL in vocabulary learning as mentioned above, few of them compared different learning devices or looked into students’ preferences for devices. Some exceptions include comparison studies mostly conducted by Stockwell, who offered participants the freedom to choose devices from PCs and mobile phones while completing vocabulary learning activities on an online learning platform (Stockwell, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013; Stockwell & Liu, 2015). This section introduces Stockwell’s studies from early to recent times, and summarizes the findings that offer valuable insights for the present study.

Empirical studies comparing devices in vocabulary learning could be found as early as in 2007. Stockwell (2007) designed an online vocabulary learning system to investigate the feasibility of vocabulary learning on mobile phones. 11 advanced English learners at a university in Japan participated in the study, with the freedom to complete an activity through their mobile phones or PCs. The results showed that five students had tried using mobile phones, with one of them using mobile phones more

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often. Vocabulary activities accessed by mobile phones generally took longer time to complete. More than half of the students considered PCs to be a better tool for learning vocabulary. Small screen and high cost of mobile phones and noisy environment on transportation were the concerns raised by those preferring PCs. As a small scale preliminary study, it indicated students’ strong preference for PCs, but also suggested a potential to provide mobile-based vocabulary learning activities.

Stockwell (2008) further refined the research design by including a larger number of participants—75 Japanese university students—and by exploring when and where they completed the vocabulary learning activities on mobile phones. The results showed that 33.3% of the students had tried using mobile phones. They thought that mobile phones could be used anywhere and in their own free time. They also thought that it would be faster to use mobile phones because it required no boot-up time as PCs did. In contrast, for those who had not used mobile phones, their concerns were mainly the cost, the small screen size, and the keypad of mobile phones.

Other concerns such as uncertainty about how to complete vocabulary learning activities via mobile phones were also raised. Among the students who used mobile phones to complete the activities, they did them while they were commuting (79.1%), when they were at the university (29.2%), when they were at home (20.8%), and while they were waiting for friends (12.5%).

Stockwell (2010) then recruited 80, 50, and 45 pre-intermediate Japanese university students in three consecutive years. The study looked more closely into quantitative data such as the scores achieved in activities and the amount of time taken to complete the activities. The results showed that the percentage of students using mobile phones (40%) was slightly higher than that in the 2008 study (33.3%).

No significant difference was found in scores achieved by both devices. However, it

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took 1.4 more minutes to complete an activity when students used mobile phones. The 2010 study provided more informative data regarding the performance of the devices.

The following study was done in 2013, with a particular focus on when and where the vocabulary learning activities were completed, the amount of time taken, and the scores achieved. During the time when the study was conducted, the number of smartphone users had gradually increased. Among the 50 pre-intermediate Japanese university students, 32% of them owned a smartphone. Vocabulary activities were provided to help students better prepare for class quizzes. The results showed that only 28% of the students had used mobile phones to complete the activities. It took similar amount of time to complete an activity using smartphones and cellphones, while using PCs took 1.5 minutes less. Activities accessed by PCs were completed when the students were at home (52.5%) or at the university (44.1%). Activities accessed by mobile phones were completed when the students were at home (43.9%), at the university (25.5%), or on transportation (15.4%).

Stockwell’s latest research was conducted in 2015 with a Taiwanese scholar.

Although it was a replicate of the 2010 study, the 2015 study was different in three ways. First, smartphone, instead of cellphone, became a dominant mobile device at the time of the study (Stockwell & Liu, 2015). Its sensitive touch screen and larger screen size, in contrast to keypads and smaller screen of cellphones, could allow text inputting and reading to be easier. Secondly, the study included Taiwanese university students as well. People in Taiwan have high ownership of smartphones or mobile devices as it has been one of the major producers of mobile phones. The country is also very prolific in mobile learning research, making it worthwhile to study learners’

preferences for mobile devices. Third, instruments for data collection became various, including server logs of the learning system, post surveys, and semi-structured interviews. The study recruited 39 Japanese and 121 Taiwanese university freshmen,

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whose smartphone ownership was 74.3% and 87.3% respectively. The vocabulary activities applied in previous studies were updated and provided for the students. The results showed that 61.5% of the Japanese students had used mobile phones, while the percentage was only 5.8% among Taiwanese students. Japanese students’ mobile phone usage had increased compared to previous studies, while Taiwanese students’

mobile phone usage was extremely low, indicating little interest in using the device.

Stockwell argued that it was because Taiwanese students took those vocabulary activities as additional supplements without the absolute necessity to complete, whereas Japanese students regarded the activities as part of the learning materials. In terms of the scores achieved and the time taken, whether using mobile phones or PCs, the students achieved similar scores. It took 0.8 more minutes to complete an activity when students used their mobile phones. Post surveys and semi-structured interviews revealed that many Japanese and Taiwanese students considered the screen of their mobile phones too small to read comfortably. The small font size prevented them from keeping the device at a proper distance away when reading. Some students also reported that they had never considered using mobile phones or that they thought using mobile phones was not a good way to learn, showing that there were still some psychological barriers to using the device for vocabulary learning.

To sum up, Stockwell’s comparison studies on learning devices have offered rich quantitative and qualitative information about students’ learning behaviors. He recruited university students and provided them vocabulary activities that could be completed by using mobile phones or PCs. The collected data included students’

preferences for devices, their perceptions of using the two devices, differences in scores achieved and time taken, and locations where an activity was completed.

Overall, the majority of the students preferred PCs over mobile phones. The studies raised some practical limitations of using mobile phones for vocabulary learning, such

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as small screen size, high cost, input method, and small font size (Stockwell, 2007, 2008, 2013). Despite this, mobile phone usage had increased in Stockwell’s studies with the rise of smartphone ownership (Stockewell & Liu, 2015). Whether using their mobile phone or PC, students achieved similar scores on the vocabulary activities, indicating no differences in students’ performance based on their actual use of devices.

Although it took longer to complete an activity using mobile phones, the time was gradually shortened as more students used smartphones instead of cellphones (Stockewell & Liu, 2015). While the students preferring PC mainly used it for vocabulary learning at home or at the university, those preferring their mobile phone mainly used it for vocabulary learning at home, at the university, or on transportation.