Investigating the Effect of Podcasting on Iranian Senior Undergraduate TEFL Students’ Listening Comprehension Improvement and Motivation

Abstract

The present study sought to investigate the effect of podcasting on the listening comprehension skill of Iranian TEFL students at the Islamic Azad University of Shiraz. It also aimed to examine students’ motivation towards the use of podcasts as a learning tool. To this end, two groups, an experimental and a control group (n = 30 in each group) were selected. First, the homogeneity of students was tested through the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test of normality and independent sample t-test in the pre-test. Next, independent sample t-test was used to compare the effects of listening to podcasts between the experimental and control groups. According to the results for post-test scores, the mean scores between the two groups were significantly different and the mean scores in the experimental group were more than the control group. Then, the descriptive statistics was used to find out whether students in the experimental group were motivated by listening to podcasts or not. According to the results, the overall perspective of the motivation questionnaire indicated a positive number regarding the opinions of the participants towards the role of podcasts. On the whole, students agreed on the positive role of podcasts and disagreed on its negative role. However, they reported a neutral opinion regarding the role of podcasts in alleviating their concern for assessments, recommending it to others, reducing their anxiety of the subject and, its trendy effect and enjoyable style.