Effects Of Task Type Research Articles

The effects of task types on L2 oral production and learner engagement

AbstractIn task-based language teaching, various types of tasks are developed from different scenarios in daily communication. Different kinds of tasks encourage oral production of different generic features and can impose different degrees of information-processing pressure on second language (L2) learners. Therefore, the functions and nature of task types are worth considering when designing tasks. Although the effects of task types on L2 oral output have been explored in the current literature, L2 learners’ engagement in different types of tasks is relatively under-explored. Since engaging L2 learners in task performance can facilitate L2 learning, it is important for us to attend to learner engagement in task-based research. This study investigated the effects of two types of tasks, opinion-exchange tasks and storytelling tasks, on the oral performance of 20 English as a foreign language learners in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency and their engagement in L2 use. They performed two opinion-exchange tasks and two storytelling tasks. The analysis of their oral discourse revealed that the learners spent longer time, had more turn-taking, and more frequently negotiated language-related issues when co-constructing stories than in opinion-exchange tasks. The results reinforce the importance of considering task types in teaching L2 speaking.

Male, Female, or Robot?: Effects of Task Type and User Gender on Expected Gender of Chatbots

Male, Female, or Robot?: Effects of Task Type and User Gender on Expected Gender of Chatbots

Determinants of caregiving burden among informal caregivers of adult care recipients with chronic illness.

This study examined the predictors of caregiver burden based on patient and caregiver characteristics in a sample of Spanish caregivers looking after adult patients with chronic disease. The effect of task type and patient-caregiver interaction is also analysed. Specific predictors of caregiver burden have been widely examined in the literature. Few studies, however, jointly analyse a wide range of factors, including the effect of task type and patient-caregiver interaction. Correlational study. One hundred and thirty five informal caregivers for 148 care recipients were recruited from primary health care centres. The caregivers responded to the short version of the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), the DEPendency index-6 Dimensions (DEP-6D), and reported how long they spent on caregiving on a daily basis. Sociodemographic and health characteristics were also recorded. Linear and logistic regression models were used to evaluate factors associated with ZBI scores and the likelihood of being severely burdened, respectively. This research complies with STROBE guidelines for observational studies. Severe burden was present in 62% of the caregivers. Regression analysis shows that burden severity increases significantly with the level of dependence when the latter is measured either by DEP-6D or by time spent on basic activities. Care related to incontinence and mobility has the greatest effect on burden, which is aggravated when the patient has behavioural problems. Poor caregiver health or not being retired also contributes to burden levels. These results establish that caregiver burden is related to characteristics of both the caregiver and the care recipient as well as to their interaction. The findings indicate that the socio-sanitary attention focused on reducing caregiver burden must address the caregiver and patient as a dyad. Identifying the dependence level and the patient's aggressive behaviour can be a good predictor of caregiver burden.

Effects of task type and aging on shoulder rotational movement with respect to the hips while walking under multiple task conditions

Effects of task type and aging on shoulder rotational movement with respect to the hips while walking under multiple task conditions

The effect of task type on EFL learners’ acquisition and retention of vocabulary: an evaluation of the involvement load hypothesis

This study set out to inspect Laufer and Hulstijn’s (2001) motivational-cognitive construct of task-induced involvement. Involvement load hypothesis predicts that tasks with the same involvement lo...

Effects of task type on L2 Mandarin fluency development

AbstractThis study explores task effects on fluency development in second language (L2) Mandarin during study abroad (SA) in China, given linguistic and pedagogic challenges facing western learners of Mandarin (Zhao, 2011). Data from 10 adult English learners of Mandarin were compared pre/post 10 months’ SA in China. Performance was measured in 4 tasks with different task loads (rehearsed vs. spontaneous speech, in monologic and dialogic mode). Significant differences between the rehearsed monologue and other tasks found pre-SA were generally not found after SA. Some differences remained between monologues and dialogues, suggesting that task load effects may override SA impact. Claims about the impact of SA on L2 oral development should take more account of different task demands, to help further illuminate our understanding of how SA may benefit L2 fluency.

Effects of task type and aging on translational body movements while walking under multiple task conditions

Effects of task type and aging on translational body movements while walking under multiple task conditions

The Effect of Task Type on the Choice and Use of Communication Strategies by Algerian EFL Learners in Spoken Discourse

The present study aimed to investigate the impact of task types on the use of communication strategies (CSs) by (30) Algerian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in spoken discourse at the University of M’Hammed Bouguerra in Boumerdes.Data was collectedfrom audio recordings of scenario and interview tasks have been classified according to a taxonomy compiled from previous taxonomies of such strategies, and more specifically those of Dӧrnyei and Scott (1997),and Faerch and Kasper (1983). Descriptive and inferential analysiswere conducted to investigate the effect of task types on the choice and use of CSs.The frequency and percentage of each strategy in the two tasks were calculated. In addition, SPSS program was used to answer the second research question which deals with the effect of task on the choice and use of CSs. The t-test for independent samples is used to calculate the means and the standard deviations in order to examine any significant differences between the scenario and interview that may result from the task type variation. The results indicates thatthe task type has an impact on the choice and use of CSs particularly influenced by the interview.It reveals that the difficulty of interview demands more linguistic items which lead to the use of specific strategiesand wide range of CSs. The effect of task was more significant in the use of CSs than their choice. Keywords: Communication strategies (CSs), choice and use of CSs, and task type (interview and scenario). DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-30-08 Publication date: October 31 st 2020

Many Labs 5: Registered Replication of Albarracín et al. (2008), Experiment 7

Albarracín et al. (2008, Experiment 7) tested whether priming action or inaction goals (vs. no goal) and then satisfying those goals (vs. not satisfying them) would be associated with subsequent cognitive responding. They hypothesized and found that priming action or inaction goals that were not satisfied resulted in greater or lesser responding, respectively, compared with not priming goals ( N = 98). Sonnleitner and Voracek (2015) attempted to directly replicate Albarracín et al.’s (2008) study with German participants ( N = 105). They did not find evidence for the 3 × 2 interaction or the expected main effect of task type. The current study attempted to directly replicate Albarracín et al. (2008), Experiment 7, with a larger sample of participants ( N = 1,690) from seven colleges and universities in the United States. We also extended the study design by using a scrambled-sentence task to prime goals instead of the original task of completing word fragments, allowing us to test whether study protocol moderated any effects of interest. We did not detect moderation by protocol in the full 3 × 2 × 2 design (pseudo- r2 = 0.05%). Results for both protocols were largely consistent with Sonnleitner and Voracek’s findings (pseudo- r2s = 0.14% and 0.50%). We consider these results in light of recent findings concerning priming methods and discuss the robustness of action-/inaction-goal priming to the implementation of different protocols in this particular context.

The effects of task type on the resolution of grammatical cognitive conflict episodes and grammar learning

ABSTRACT The study reported in this article examined the impact of task type on the ways in which learners resolve grammatical language-related episodes (LREs) and whether the level of engagement affects subsequent language development. Data were collected over a six-week period. Thirty-two Iranian second language (L2) learners were paired up to complete a text editing task and a narrative writing task. In order to detect grammatical LREs, all collaborative dialogues were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The LREs were classified into cognitive conflict episodes (CCEs) and non-cognitive conflict episodes (non-CCEs) based on the extent to which pair members deliberated over the target forms and challenged one another’s contributions. The results indicated that the text editing task led to a larger number of CCEs than did the narrative writing task. Moreover, more grammatical CCEs were correctly resolved in the text editing task than in the narrative writing task. In addition, while learners resolved high percentages of the CCEs for both tasks, they could correctly resolve only half of the non-CCEs for these tasks. Finally, learners’ scores on the immediate and delayed posttests showed that the text editing task was more conducive to both short- and long-term learning of grammar.

Haptic and Auditory-Haptic Attentional Blink in Spatial and Object-Based Tasks.

Dual-task performance depends on both modalities (e.g., vision, audition, haptics) and task types (spatial or object-based), and the order by which different task types are organized. Previous studies on haptic and especially auditory-haptic attentional blink (AB) are scarce, and the effect of task types and their order have not been fully explored. In this study, 96 participants, divided into four groups of task type combinations, identified auditory or haptic Target 1 (T1) and haptic Target 2 (T2) in rapid series of sounds and forces. We observed a haptic AB (i.e., the accuracy of identifying T2 increased with increasing stimulus onset asynchrony between T1 and T2) in spatial, object-based, and object-spatial tasks, but not in spatial-object task. Changing the modality of an object-based T1 from haptics to audition eliminated the AB, but similar haptic-to-auditory change of the modality of a spatial T1 had no effect on the AB (if it exists). Our findings fill a gap in the literature regarding the auditory-haptic AB, and substantiate the importance of modalities, task types and their order, and the interaction between them. These findings were explained by how the cerebral cortex is organized for processing spatial and object-based information in different modalities.

The Effects of Task Types on Korean University Students’ Oral Performance

Despite the extensive studies on the effects of different task features on L2 learners’ performance across the four language skills, less attention has been paid to the effect of task types on Korean university students’ oral performance. In this regard, the present study investigated the effect of different task types on their oral performance by employing both a convergent and a divergent task. A total of 36 Korean university students from various majors participated in this study, and they conducted a decision-making (convergent) and an opinion-exchanging (divergent) task in groups after practicing several tasks over six weeks in class prior to the data collection. Their videorecorded oral performances were transcribed verbatim, and the transcripts were analysed using a mixed research design to interrogate the complexity, fluency, and interaction within their performances. Further, their transcripts were also analyzed to examine any differences through a thematic content analysis. The results revealed that the students showed a higher degree of fluency, complexity, and turn-taking in the convergent than in the divergent task. Also, students in the convergent task took multiple roles as moderator during the task performance to more actively facilitate task completion. Pedagogical implications and research limitations are also discussed.

Lexical Complexity as a Function of Task Type and Proficiency Level in the Speech Monologs of Iranian EFL Learners

Despite the abundance of research evaluating the effects of task complexity, task types, and planning on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of the language produced by learners, most studies have focused on the syntactic aspect of complexity, with very few studies investigating the lexical part of complexity. Such studies explored the lexical performance of learners through using merely one measure of lexical complexity (namely diversity). The present study is an attempt to further explore the effects of task type and proficiency level on different aspects of lexical complexity of spontaneous speech monologs produced by intermediate and advanced Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 35 intermediate and advanced Iranian learners of English performed three different speaking tasks: an argumentation, a description and a narration task. The speech monologs were coded for three different aspects of lexical complexity: diversity, density, and sophistication. Two-way repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate the main effects of task type (the within-subjects variable) and proficiency level (the between-subjects variable) on lexical complexity. The results showed that task type and proficiency level both significantly affect lexical complexity in the participants’ task performance. The argumentation task yielded the highest scores for diversity and density, while the highest sophistication score was obtained for the narration task. There was no interaction between task type and proficiency level for the diversity and sophistication scores, and the advanced learners consistently got higher diversity and sophistication scores for all the three tasks, while there was an interaction between the two variables for the density scores; the advanced learners got higher density scores for the description and narration tasks but not on the argumentation task.

Effects of task type while walking under multiple task conditions

Effects of task type while walking under multiple task conditions

Effects of task type while walking under multiple task conditions

Effects of task type while walking under multiple task conditions

The Involvement Load Hypothesis and Vocabulary Retention: The Interplay of Task Types and Involvement Index on L2 Vocabulary Learning

This study examines the claim that vocabulary learning and retention are dependent on a task's involvement load (i.e., need, search, evaluation), as proposed by Hulstijn and Laufer (2001a). The study aims at comparing the effects of task types and task involvement load on vocabulary retention for Korean EFL university students. More specifically, this study was designed to test whether differential levels of task involvement loads lead to equally effective results to vocabulary retention when the total involvement index being equal. Three types of productive word-focused tasks (gap-filling using a dictionary, writing original sentences, and gap-filling through word transformation) were used to examine the interplay of involvement index and task types. The result indicated that there were significant main effects of task types, test types, and proficiency levels. The results also indicated that there were significant interaction effects of task types on the retention tests, proficiency levels on the retention tests, and task types×proficiency levels on the retentions. The pedagogical implications and further research directions are discussed.

Effects of task type on morphosyntactic complexity across proficiency

This study investigates the effect of instructional design on (morpho)syntactic complexity in second language (L2) writing development. We operationalised instructional design in terms of task type and empirically based the investigation on a large subcorpus (669,876 writings by 119,960 learners from 128 tasks at all Common European Framework of Reference for Languages levels) of the EF-Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT; Geertzen, Alexopoulou and Korhonen 2014).
 First, the 128 task prompts were manually categorised for task type (e.g. argumentation, description). Next, developmental trajectories of syntactic complexity from A1 to C2 were established using a variety of global (e.g. mean length of clause) and specific (e.g. non-third person singular present tense verbs) measures extracted using natural language processing techniques. The effects of task type were analysed using the categorisation from the first step. Finally, tasks that showed atypical behaviour for a measure given their task type were explored qualitatively.
 Our results partially confirm earlier experimental and corpus-based studies (e.g. subordination associated with argumentative tasks). Going beyond, our large-scale data-driven analysis made it possible to identify specific measures that were naturally prompted by instructional design (e.g. narrations eliciting wh-phrases). We discuss which measures typically align with certain task types and highlight how instructional design relates to L2 developmental trajectories over time.

Effects of task type, family size, and grammatical consistency on the activation of grammatical information of semantic radicals

Effects of task type, family size, and grammatical consistency on the activation of grammatical information of semantic radicals

WHAT CAN L2 WRITERS’ PAUSING BEHAVIOR TELL US ABOUT THEIR L2 WRITING PROCESSES?

AbstractWhen responding to a writing task, writers spend a significant amount of their time not writing. These periods of physical inactivity, or pauses, during writing provide observable and measurable cues as to when, where, and how long writers halt to plan and/or revise their texts. Consequently, examining writers’ pausing patterns can provide important insights into the cognitive processes that writers employ when composing and the impact of various individual, task, and contextual factors on those processes. This article discusses theory and research on writers’ pausing behavior; how pause analysis can be used to investigate second language (L2) learners’ writing processes; challenges in researching writers’ pausing behavior (e.g., defining pauses); and some strategies to address these challenges. Next, the article illustrates how L2 writers’ pause data can be collected, analyzed, and interpreted, using keystroke logging data from a research project that aimed to examine the effects of task type, L2 proficiency, and keyboarding skills on L2 learners’ writing processes when writing on the computer. The article concludes with a call for more research on L2 writers’ pausing behavior, particularly how L2 writers’ pausing behavior relates to L2 writing outcomes and development across learners, contexts, and time.

Efficacy of Task Type and Involvement Load on EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Knowledge

This study attempted to investigate how task type and involvement load affected EFL learners’ receptive and productive lexical knowledge across time. A total of 74 participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups and each group learned 6 target words through reading with one of four form-focused tasks inducing different involvement load. The lexical gains of both receptive and productive knowledge were measured by immediate and delayed posttests. It was found that task type had a significant effect on the acquisition of L2 receptive knowledge across time. In terms of productive vocabulary knowledge, the effect of task type was only significant in the immediate test but not significant in the delayed test. The involvement load had no significant effect on the acquisition of L2 receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge across time. This result did not support the Involvement Load Hypothesis, indicating that the theory did not hold true across L2 vocabulary learning conditions and the three components of task-induced involvement, i.e., need, search and evaluation, might give no equal weight to their contributions to L2 vocabulary acquisition.