Reciprocal effects of vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and reading comprehension: a cross-lagged panel analysis in Chinese-speaking EFL learners

The present study investigated the effects of using the MoodleReader Module on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary depth and breadth. The participants of this study, chosen based on their availability, were 30 male and female Iranian EFL learners attending two intact reading comprehension classes. One class was assigned to the treatment group and the other one to the control group. Three tests measuring vocabulary breadth, depth, and partial knowledge of vocabulary were used to collect the data. The tests were administered in both classes at the beginning of the study as pre-tests; then, the treatment group received the MoodleReader as the extensive reading tool, while the control group used the traditional intensive reading program during three and a half months. At the end of the study, the three tests were once again administered to both classes as post-tests. To analyze the collected data, a set of paired and independent samples t-tests was run to compare the performance of the participants in both groups. The findings of the study indicated that the treatment group improved regarding all the three aspects of vocabulary knowledge, i.e., breadth, depth and partial knowledge and the control group improved in terms of vocabulary breadth, but not in terms of vocabulary depth and partial knowledge. The findings indicated that the application of the MoodleReader module affected the development of EFL learners’ vocabulary breadth, depth, and partial knowledge.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension at Debre Markos University. A quantitative approach was taken to gather and analyze the data. Out of 235 students learning at the college, 61 samples were taken randomly. To investigate their knowledge of vocabulary breadth, the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) was employed. The Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge (DVK) test was utilized to investigate the depth of vocabulary knowledge. The reading section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOFEL) was used to determine the reading comprehension performance of the students. Pearson Product-moment correlation was used to examine the relationship between vocabulary knowledge (breadth and depth) and reading comprehension. In addition, to find out which aspect of vocabulary knowledge best explains reading comprehension, Standard Multiple Regression was employed. The data were analyzed using SPSS (version 21). The findings suggest that there was a significant strong positive relationship between knowledge of vocabulary breadth and reading comprehension (r = .73, n = 61, P, =.000 < 0.05). Besides, the result reveals that there was a significant strong positive relationship between knowledge of vocabulary depth and reading comprehension (r = .60, n = 61, P, =.000 < 0.05). The finding also shows that vocabulary breadth and depth together were able to predict respondents’ reading comprehension. However, vocabulary breadth (Beta =.58) had a more unique explanatory power than knowledge of vocabulary depth (Beta =.315).

The present study tried to assess the roles of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners.Using the multivariate analysis, this study examined the roles of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension of a group of Iranian EFL University students with a minimum vocabulary size of 3,000 word families as was measured by Schmitt's (2001) Vocabulary Levels Test.The study found that 1) the test scores on vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth and reading comprehension are positively correlated and 2) vocabulary breadth was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension than depth of vocabulary knowledge for the participants of the present study.

This study explored the effect of English language learners’ breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge on their understanding and grades of reading English texts. Sixty-one Jordanian EFL undergraduates were assigned three tests, which were the Vocabulary Levels Test Version 2 (VLT), the Word Associates Test (WAT), and Academic International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The collected data was analysed utilizing Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. According to the empirical outcomes, breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge correlated positively with each other and with reading comprehension. Further, the significant predictor of the overall variance of reading comprehension was vocabulary depth, while the breadth of vocabulary knowledge was the less significant one. The results demonstrate the importance of expanding and deepening EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge in classrooms. Keywords: Vocabulary Depth, Vocabulary Breadth, Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge, Vocabulary Levels Test, Reading Comprehension.

This research aimed at finding out the correlation between depth and breadth of vocabulary and reading comprehension. This research was conducted by using quantitative method with correlational design. Thirty of fifth semester students of English Education Department at Alauddin State Islamic University of Makassar were chosen as the sample of this research. The data was gathered used Word Associates Test, Vocabulary Level Test and reading Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). To verify the hypotheses, the data were analyzed by using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation formula. The finding of this research indicated that there was a moderate correlation between depth of vocabulary and reading comprehension with correlation coefficient value was 0.440 > 0.361, and there was also a moderate correlation between breadth of vocabulary and reading comprehension with correlation coefficient value is 0.421> 0.361. Furthermore, the hypothesis testing showed that both of the index value of correlation coefficient (rxy) of 0.440 for depth of vocabulary and 0.421 for breadth of vocabulary were higher than the index value of correlation coefficient of the Product Moment table (rt) of 0.361 which meant that the null hypothesis (H0) was rejected and alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted. In conclusion, there was a moderate correlation between the depth and breadth of vocabulary and reading comprehension.

This study explored the relationship between two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge, that is, breadth of vocabulary (the number of words known) and depth of vocabulary (the richness of word knowledge), and their effects on different aspects of English reading in Chinese high school students learning English as a second language. Two hundred and forty-six Grade 8 students in China were administered measures of word reading, vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and reading comprehension. Results showed that breadth and depth of vocabulary were moderately correlated. They both contributed to word reading, but breadth of vocabulary had a stronger effect than depth of vocabulary. When reading comprehension was the outcome measure, vocabulary breadth significantly predicted a multiple-choice reading comprehension measure, which requires general understanding of the text, while vocabulary depth contributed to summary writing, a measure of deeper text processing. Discussion focuses on the important roles of different dimensions of vocabulary knowledge for different types of second language reading.

Reading comprehension is very significant in language learning process. Reading is realized for many reasons such as getting information, learning a new skill or reading just for pleasure; however, the main aim is to get an understanding of what the reading text is trying to convey since reading is of great significance. As reading comprehension is a learned skill that is dependent upon some external factors, to get into the heart of the problem, first of all some factors should be examined. Among these factors, the most observable one is knowledge of vocabulary. Vocabulary is what the learners most complain about reading texts because it is closely related to reading comprehension. At this juncture, it can be said that despite the indispensable role of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension, it is essential to look into the depth of it in detail to understand how strong predicator the breadth of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension is. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the breadth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension and to figure out to what extent the vocabulary knowledge effects the comprehension during the reading process. The research questions driving this study were: Does vocabulary knowledge lead to a gain in scores on the RCT (Reading Comprehension Test)? What are the EFL students’ perspectives on vocabulary breadth of knowledge, and how do these affect their reading comprehension? This study aims to investigate the scores of participants on the breadth of vocabulary knowledge test (VKT) and a reading comprehension test (RCT) if vocabulary knowledge has an effect on reading comprehension or not.

Research in literature reports the importance of L2 vocabulary and syntactic knowledge on the learners’ reading comprehension. In this regard, the current study investigated the role of vocabulary knowledge that is disunited into depth and breadth dimensions and syntactic knowledge in the reading comprehension scores of an advanced cohort of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. In particular, this study examined the relationship of vocabulary knowledge (with its two dimensions) and syntactic knowledge with reading comprehension scores of 30 Turkish EFL learners and the extent to which these knowledge types explain the variance in reading comprehension scores. Measures of vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension were used. The data analysis procedure included the descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlations and multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the depth of vocabulary knowledge predicts the L2 reading comprehension the best when the effect of vocabulary size and syntactic knowledge is controlled. These findings are discussed at the end of the study with future research suggestions and limitations.

This study aimed to examine the role played by the depth of vocabulary knowledge in the reading comprehension process of Korean EFL learners within the framework of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). In addition to the two major SVR components, decoding and linguistic comprehension of English words, vocabulary depth, was added to the model to see whether it exerted any additional influence on the reading comprehension of Korean high school EFL learners. A total of 207 11th grade high school students in South Korea participated in this study by taking vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth (analogy, antonym, and synonym), listening comprehension, decoding, and reading comprehension tests. The results were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The findings indicated that when vocabulary depth was considered in the SVR framework, it accounted for a unique and independent variance occurring in reading comprehension while controlling for oral language and decoding skills. In addition, direct effects of vocabulary depth on L2 reading comprehension and decoding abilities were observed, with a strong positive correlation between vocabulary depth and oral comprehension abilities. This study discusses the pedagogical implications for promoting depth of vocabulary knowledge in the Korean English-learning context.

This article reports the results of a study on the relationship between second language vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and reading comprehension. A special aim was to discover the role of vocabulary depth in the prediction and explanation of L2 learners’ reading comprehension. Two proficiency levels, intermediate and advanced, were compared. Vocabulary breadth was measured with the Vocabulary Size Test (Nation &amp; Beglar, 2007), vocabulary depth with the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (Wesche &amp; Paribakht, 1996), and reading comprehension with a test compiled of sections from two former matriculation examination tasks. The three constructs showed strong positive correlations in both groups of subjects. However, based on the results, vocabulary breadth and depth seem to be stronger predictors of reading comprehension skills in lower levels of proficiency than on the advanced level.

The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure of vocabulary. We believe that not only is vocabulary multidimensional, but depth of vocabulary knowledge should also be assessed with multiple measures since it too, is composed of multiple aspects. Furthermore, to explore the predictive validity of the different aspects of vocabulary knowledge, we assessed the relationship between vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and reading comprehension in adults with low literacy skills. The participants were 103 adults. They completed 12 tasks that have been used in past studies to measure vocabulary breadth, depth, and reading comprehension. We had several important findings. First, we confirmed that all of the assessments were highly reliable for adults with low literacy skills. Second, the results of the factor analysis indicated two distinct vocabulary factors. Finally, both breadth and depth contribute independently to explaining variance in reading comprehension. Implications for vocabulary measurement are suggested.

This study examines the relative contribution of vocabulary breadth (VB) and vocabulary depth (VD) to three different listening comprehension measures. One hundred and thirteen English majors were given VB and VD tests, and three listening comprehension tests. Based on three pairs of hierarchical multiple regression analyses, we found that the relative contribution of VB and VD varied across the three listening comprehension tests. Specifically, for the listening test with an expository text dictation to assess integrative skills, both VB and VD made a unique positive contribution to comprehension, but this was greater in the case of depth. For the listening test involving narrative conversations to assess literal comprehension, neither VB nor VD (after controlling for each other) could independently predict comprehension, whereas for the listening test that comprises expository passages to assess inferential comprehension, VD could separately predict comprehension but VB could not. These findings suggest that the relative contribution of VD and VB to listening comprehension may depend on how a listening test is constructed. Therefore, the findings will contribute to listening comprehension and vocabulary knowledge research, and vocabulary teaching and learning.

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates the interaction between vocabulary breadth and depth on the one hand and assessments of L2 learners’ descriptive writing on the other. The predictive role of these two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge in relation to the vocabulary component of the assessment was also examined. The extent to which vocabulary knowledge at various word-frequency levels predicted overall descriptive writing performance as well as scores on the vocabulary component was investigated. For this purpose, 67 English as a Foreign Language students took the Vocabulary Levels Test, Word Associates Test, and undertook two descriptive writing tasks. Results of correlations and stepwise regressions indicated that (a) vocabulary breadth was predictive of overall assessment of descriptive writing while vocabulary depth only correlated with the overall assessment; (b) vocabulary breadth was also predictive of the vocabulary component of L2 descriptive writing, but vocabulary depth was again simply correlated with this variable and (c) while mid-frequency vocabulary was correlated with, and predictive of, the overall assessment of descriptive writing, knowledge of low-frequency words was a strong factor in explaining the variance in the vocabulary component. The results are explained with reference to the emphasis on lexical diversity and sophistication in the vocabulary assessment criteria.

This study investigated the relationships among vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, reading comprehension, and reading rate among college-aged students. While the relationships of some of these variables have been explored in previous research, the current study's focus on the role of vocabulary depth on the literacy measures within a sample of skilled readers is new and produced several interesting findings. First, consistent with the hypotheses, both vocabulary breadth and depth were significantly correlated with reading comprehension and reading rate. Second, while both types of vocabulary knowledge explained unique variance in reading comprehension, only vocabulary breadth explained unique variance in reading rate. Finally, although vocabulary breadth was significantly correlated with both of the vocabulary depth measures, the two depth measures were not significantly correlated with each other. This work implies that a strong depth of vocabulary affects reading comprehension, in addition to the well-established relationship between vocabulary breadth and comprehension.

How vocabulary breadth and depth influence bilingual reading comprehension: Direct and indirect pathways