Does Dictionary Use Affect Iranian EFL Learners’ Lexical Density in Writing?

Abstract

An important, but rare question in EFL writing is whether learners should use dictionaries or not. The problematic state of this question prompted the present study. This study assesses research on the question of "does dictionary use affect Iranian EFL learners' lexical density or not". In order to answer the above question, a total of seventy four Iranian EFL intermediate learners (male and female aged from 17 to 26) from Nasr English Institute, Ardabil, Iran took part in this research study. The participants were high school and college students whose L1 was Azari-Turkish. They were appointed to three experimental groups and one control group randomly. Since this research explored the effect of dictionary use on learners' writing, the three experimental groups were labeled as EPD, PED and EED. The study had a pre-test, post-test 1 and post-test 2 design. All four groups took a proficiency test named Solutions Placement Test. ANOVAs proved their homogeneity (F=.002, p=1.000). Then the participants completed three pieces of writing, each including a writing task with similar level and number of words but a different topic. Experimental groups had two treatment sessions after pre-test and they had a two-week interval after post-test 1. During the test, experimental group one (EPD) used English-to-Persian dictionary, meanwhile, experimental group two applied Persian-to-English dictionary and finally, experimental group three took the advantage of English-to-English dictionary. Nevertheless, the compassion group received no dictionary and no treatment sessions. To fulfill the purpose of the study, a One-way ANOVA was applied to figure out the differences among the performance of the four groups. Although, there observed tangible improvement in the scores, the results ran counter to the expectations and showed no significant difference.