Using eye tracking to understand the responses of learners to vocabulary learning strategy instruction and use

Abstract

This study examined the influence of morphological instruction in an eye-tracking English vocabulary recognition task. Sixty-eight freshmen enrolled in an English course and received either traditional or morphological instruction for learning English vocabulary. The experimental part of the study was conducted over two-hour class periods for seven weeks. To investigate the effects of morphological instruction on English vocabulary learning, all participants completed an English vocabulary recognition task. Fixation time and path during recognition were recorded with an eye-tracking device. A comparison between the post-test performances of both groups showed that the experimental group obtained a considerably higher score on the target eye-tracking vocabulary test. The results of the eye-tracking record showed that participants who received morphological instruction had longer fixation times on the vocabulary and morpheme areas compared with the group that received traditional instruction. In addition, the experimental group had dense fixation paths on the morpheme areas of vocabulary. These results indicate that participants who received morphological instruction considered the morphemes as inferring references to read and inferred unknown words with greater success.

Keywords:

• vocabulary learning strategy
• morphology
• eye movement

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the research assistant, Y.Y. Cheng, who contributed to this study. I would like to thank her for helping in learning material design (vocabulary instruction and post-test) and eye-tracking data collection and analysis. She extended this study into her master's thesis under my tutoring and completed her defense in 2013. I appreciate her help and efforts to make this research successful.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pei-Lin Liu

Pei-Lin Liu is associate professor of the Department of Foreign Languages at the National Chia-Yi University (NCYU) in Taiwan. She received her PhD in Educational Technology from the University of Northern Colorado in 2004. Dr Liu is a well-known qualitative researcher and has written several tests and articles about ways to improve language-learning research for English as second language learners, mainly through the application of computer-assisted and mobile-assisted learning tools. Liu has participated actively in national service, including serving as a reviewer for over 10 journals such as Computer & Education, International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, and International Journal of Science and Technology Education Research. She has been teaching computer-assisted language-learning-related courses at NCYU, where she has been since 2005. Dr Liu has also received “2012 Excellence in Teaching Award” and “2013 Excellence Servicing Award” from the university-wide because her positive impact to students and academic affairs.