Research Questions
This study seeks to address the following research questions:
1) What self-regulated word learning strategies do Saudi English majors’ employ to enhance their mastery level of academic vocabulary outside the classroom?
2) How effective is strategy training in improving Saudi English majors’ perceptions of online self-regulated vocabulary learning strategies?
3) How effective is strategy training of online self-regulated vocabulary learning strategies in the development of Saudi English majors’ academic vocabulary?
1- Research context:
• A Whatsup group for inquiries, seeking assistance from training coach and peers, course related discussions and for motivating each other..etc. (Refer to research on the importance of using whatsup course discussion groups)
• Online meetings on Zoom. (Provide a General background about the website)
• Two online platforms were used: The main training course on Moodle cloud (13 weekly modules) website and the companion Academic vocabulary flashcards on Quizlet. Both have mobile apps that can be downloaded for ease and practicality of use. (Provide a General description background on both websites and their apps)
2- Participants:
• One experimental group of 2nd and 3rd year 20 female EFL college English majors. 7 level three, 7 level four, 6 level five.
• Studied English as a foreign language in schools and college for not less than 8 years. College is 4 years of study (8 levels: not less than 15 weeks each, not including the periods of registration and final exams). Degree awarded: B.A in English Language and Literature.
• Previous semesters’ GPA (Out of 5): between 3.07 – 4.96
• Arabic native language.
• Have never been to a native English speaking country
• No previous Academic English training course at a language private institute or even online.
3- Procedure
Steps taken for the study:
• Taking oral permission from the head of the science and social studies college and also the head of the English department to recruit English majors and carry the research.
• An online registration google form of the training course was made. It included a description of the course along with the required data that need to be submitted: students full name, college level, GPA, mobile number and Email…
• online training course was announced and the link to the registration google form distributed by their college instructors and through the English department’s official twitter account.
• 84 students submitted, 60 responded to researcher’s emails and confirmed their enrollment in the online course.
• Week 1: an online introductory meeting on zoom (friendly getting to know each other, introducing the course, showing them how to use and navigate through the course’s Moodle and Quizlet websites. By the end of week 1, 46 students submitted the pre-surveys and taken the pre-academic vocabulary assessments.
• End of week 4: another online meeting on zoom (collaborative Discussion of the learning content of previous weeks, showing them how to use some online dictionaries, other vocabulary building resources)
• Numbers has dropped down gradually throughout the remaining 12 weeks showing little or no progress or participation by the mid of the course. Students reported reasons for leaving the course: lack of technology knowledge and weak internet access, university burdens, length of the online course, difficulty of course content, timing of the course, personal and family circumstances.
• Only 20 has completed the whole course. They were active learners and progressed throughout the course smoothly.
4- Data Collection Instruments and Process (Provide a detailed description on each instrument from research)
• Vocabulary Learning Strategies Questionnaire (VLSQ) (Schmitt’s (1997) / a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from always to never/ prior to and after the 13-weeks online strategy training / Data collected to answer research question one
• Self-regulatory Capacity in Vocabulary Learning questionnaire (SRCVoc) (Tseng et al., 2006)/ a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from always to never/ prior to and after the 13-weeks online strategy training / Data collected to answer research question two
• the academic vocabulary section of Schmitt, Schmitt & Clapham’s (2001) Vocabulary Level Test (VLT)/ prior to and after the 13-weeks online strategy training / Data collected to answer research question three
• Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (PVLT): University Word List section/ combination of items from version A and B of the test/ prior to and after the 13-weeks online strategy training / Data collected to answer research question three
• Structured Asynchronous Online Interview / Total of 6 questions / Takes place the end of 12th week before the post-surveys and tests/ Posted in the feedback activity in the Moodle main course platform/ Answers of each individual can be viewed by the researcher only / Data collected to support the results of the questionnaires and tests and support answers to the research questions
6- Analysis of the Data
• Using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS).
• Descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) were used. Oxford’s (1997, 2001) scoring system was used to find high, medium, and low strategy users.
• Stepwise multiple regression was used.
• Coding data from the online interviews
Online Interview (End of training reflective journal)
1- By the end of the course, did the course achieve your expectations and are you satisfied with your level of knowledge of the academic vocabulary you have reached? Please explain.
2- Has your self-regulated vocabulary learning become better than it was before the course? Explain.
3- What are the vocabulary learning strategies that you have started using during this course that have not been used before?
4- What difficulties did you encounter during this course?
5- What are the things you liked and did not like in this course?
6- What are your suggestions for making this course much better in the future?