CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH DESIGN AND RESULTS
This chapter introduces the research design and then reports the results. The information about the subjects and their listening learning background will be presented in section 3.1. The instruments will be introduced in section 3.2. The procedures including the pilot study, formal testing, data analysis and scoring will be described in section 3.3. The results are reported in section 3.4. Finally, a summary of this chapter will be given in section 3.5.
3.1 Subjects
Our subjects were third-year senior high students. They were at the low-intermediate proficiency level based on their performance on the entrance exam.
To find out the effective and less effective listeners in the study, 106 third-year senior high students from the three classes (68 males and 38 females) taught by the researcher were asked to take a listening comprehension test (LCT) (see Appendix C for the subjects’ LCT performance)
1. Based on their performance on the LCT, the subjects whose scores ranked at the top 30% (similar to the study of Wang, 2002) of all were grouped as the “HP” (i.e., high proficiency) group. Their scores ranged from 68 to 90. Those who ranked at the bottom 30% of all were considered the “LP” (i.e., low proficiency) group. Their scores were from 18-50. Finally, 65 students (46 males, 19 females) were selected to participate in the present study, including 32 students in the HP group and 33 students in the LP group.
The following personal information of the subjects, as shown in Table 3-1, was obtained through the Personal Information Sheet (see Appendix D):
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The mean of the LCT of the 106 students was 59.26. The highest score was 90 and the lowest score
was 18.
Table 3-1 Subjects’ Background Information
Group HP LP
Gender M:19 F:13 M:27 F:6
English-learning starting age
10.66 11.70
Option n percentage Option n percentage
Yes 2 6% Yes 0 0%
Experience of living in English-speaking
countries
No 30 94% No 33 100%
Very good 0 0% Very good 0 0%
Good 2 6% Good 0 0%
So so 24 75% So so 7 21%
Poor 6 19% Poor 16 49%
Self-rating of listening ability
Very poor 0 0% Very poor 10 30%
agree 23 72% agree 9 27%
Opinions about incorporating listening tests into
exams
disagree 9 28% disagree 24 73%
General English
32 100% General
English
33 100%
Listening training courses taken
before Listening and Conversation
10 32% Listening
and Conversation
7 21%
Applied Foreign Language
27 84% Applied
Foreign Language
16 48%
Others 2 6% Others 2 6%
General English
10 31% General
English
15 45%
Listening and Conversation
4 13% Listening
and Conversation
5 15%
Applied Foreign Language
22 69% Applied
Foreign Language
15 45%
Useful listening training courses
Others 2 6% Others 1 3%
As shown in Table 3-1, the HP subjects started learning English one year earlier than
the LP group. Two subjects of the HP group had the experience living in
English-speaking countries, while none of the LP group reported this experience. As
for their self-rating of the listening ability, 94% of the HP group and all the subjects of
the LP group considered their listening ability “so so” or worse, showing that the
subjects were generally not confident in their listening. Interestingly, most of the HP
group (72%) strongly agreed to incorporate listening tests into the college entrance
examination while most of the LP group (73%) disagreed. Moreover, besides General
English, most of the HP group (84%) took Applied Foreign Language and a high
percentage of them (22 out of 27) agreed its usefulness. However, only half of the LP
group (48%) took Applied Foreign Language but the majority of them (15 out of 16)
reported that it was a useful course.
3.2 Instruments
Two instruments were used in the study (i.e., a listening comprehension test and a questionnaire). I will describe them in detail in the following sections.
3.2.1 Listening Comprehension Test
To answer the five research questions stated in Chapter One, a listening comprehension test chosen from the intermediate Listening Comprehension Test (LCT) of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) was used. The test was published in 2001 by the Language Training & Testing Center.
The test consisted of three parts and each part had 15 questions, as shown in Table 3-2:
Table 3-2 Structure of the LCT
Part Test Format Text Type Question Number
A picture Statement Qs 1~15
B non-picture Statement Qs 16~30
C non-picture Dialogue Qs 31~45
That is to say, the subjects needed to answer 45 questions in total. All the
questions were in the multiple choice format. The subjects had to choose one best
answer out of four options. The tape was played only once. In Part A, the subjects had
to choose best answers according to the pictures given in the test. For each picture in
Part A, the subjects would need to answer one to three questions, as shown in Table
3-3:
Table 3-3 An Example of Part A (Look)
(Listen) Look at the picture. Who is taller?
(Listen) A. Julie is taller than Tom.
B. Tom is taller than Julie.
C. Jane is taller than Tom.
D. Julie is taller than Jane.
The best answer is B. Please fill in the correct blanks in black in the answer sheet.
In Part B, the subjects needed to respond to single sentences. Each question in Part B was either an interrogative question or a statement, as in Table 3-4:
Table 3-4 An Example of Part B (Listen) Where’s your brother now?
(Read) A. He’s 20 years old.
B. He’s a doctor.
C. He’s thirsty.
D. He’s in New York.
The best answer is D. Please fill in the correct blanks in black in the answer sheet.
In Part C, the subjects had to answer questions related to short dialogues, as in Table 3-5:
Table 3-5 An Example of Part C
(Listen) (Man) How do you go to school every day?
(Woman) Usually on foot. Sometimes by bus.
Question: How does the woman go to school?
(Read) A. She always walks to school.
B. She usually takes a bus.
C. She either walks or takes a bus.
D. She usually goes on foot, never by bus.
The best answer is C. Please fill in the correct blanks in black in the answer sheet.
In Part C, each dialogue was read by a male and a female speaker. After listening to the dialogue, a related question would be asked. Then listeners would have to choose the best answer to it.
3.2.2 Questionnaire
To answer the third, fourth, and fifth research questions, a questionnaire (see Appendix E) used to investigate the subjects’ use of listening strategy was designed according to the previous studies (Lee, 1997; Oxford, 1992/1993; Teng, 1996; Wang, 2002). There were 24 items in the Likert-scale format and one open-ended question.
Each of the 24 items represented one substrategy. The open-ended question aimed to elicit the subjects’ other strategies. Altogether six strategies were chosen from two previous studies (Teng, 1996; Wang, 2002) and some were later modified by the researcher. To be specific, the six strategies belonged to two general categories: direct and indirect strategies, as can be seen in Table 3-6:
Table 3-6 Structure of the Questionnaire
Listening Strategy Example Question number
Memory I will relate the content to my own experiences and common sense.
Qs 1~4
Cognitive I predict the content and then confirm it.
Qs 5-8 Direct
Compensation I predict the content by pause, intonation, or mood.
Qs 9-12
Metacognitive I seek for the ways to learn listening and the chances to practice listening actively.
Qs 13-16
Affective While listening, I encourage and assure myself by telling myself “I am right.” or “I know that.”, etc
Qs 17-20 Indirect
Social I try to find some friends or classmates to practice listening.
Qs 21-24
The direct strategies dealt with language, including memory, cognitive, and compensation strategies, while the indirect strategies were about the “general management of learning” (cited in Oxford, 1990, p. 15), containing metacognitive, affective, and social strategies
2. Each strategy in the present study consisted of four substrategies. Among the 24 substrategies, nine substrategies
3were similar to Teng’s (1996) and modified later. The remaining 15 substrategies were taken from Wang (2002) with some modifications.
Oxford’s classification (1990) was adopted in the present questionnaire, because it was a popular system of strategy use and has been adopted by many studies. It provided a more elaborate and comprehensive typology and took more consideration into the different aspects of learning strategies. I agreed with Oxford (1990) that
“…the learner is a ‘whole person’ who uses intellectual, social, emotional, and physical resources and is therefore not merely a cognitive/metacognitive information-processing machine” (cited in Oxford, 1992/1993, p.20). However, the
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According to Oxford (1990), memory strategies are used for remembering and retrieving new information, cognitive strategies for understanding and producing the language, compensation strategies for using the language despite knowledge gaps, metacognitive strategies for coordinating the learning process, affective strategies for regulating emotions, and social strategies for learning with others.
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