Effects of Word Concreteness and Spacing on EFL Vocabulary Acquisition 吴翼飞 （南京工业大学，外国语言文学学院，江苏 南京211816） Introduction Vocabulary acquisition is of great significance for L2 learners. One of the most important features of vocabulary is concreteness and one of the most effective ways of learning seems to be spacing. A few studies have been conducted on vocabulary acquisition in terms of word concreteness and spacing. The concreteness effect has been confirmed mostly in L1 studies. However, few studies reached consistent conclusions in the field of second language learning. Although several studies have found the spacing effect in vocabulary learning, little has been done with regard to the interactive effect between word concreteness and (learning) spacing. The thesis examines the effects of word concreteness and spacing (spaced and massed distribution) and their interactive effect on EFL vocabulary acquisition. Figure 4.1 Means plot As is shown in Figure 4.1, the spaced learning group outperforms the massed learning group in the acquisition of concrete words, while it is true of the other way round in the acquisition of abstract words. Furthermore, in the spaced distribution group, concrete words are better acquired than abstract words, while a small or no difference was found for the massed learning. All these suggest an interaction between word concreteness and spacing on EFL vocabulary acquisition. Low = abstractness, high = concreteness, spaced = spaced learning, massed = massed learning Purposes This study is an attempt to examine how word concreteness and spacing each affect EFL learner’s recall of word meaning, and how they interact on EFL learner’s recall. Specifically, it is to investigate the following two questions: 1. How do word concreteness and spacing each contribute to EFL vocabulary acquisition? 2. Is there any interaction between word concreteness and spacing for EFL vocabulary acquisition? Assumptions of a mixed AVONA Table 4.2 Box's test of equality of covariance Table 4.3 Levene's test of equality of error variances F df1 df2 p Abstract 0.00 1 44 1.00 Concrete 1.16 0.29 As is shown in Table 4.2, Box’M is 6.66 and the corresponding p = 0.097 > 0.05 showing that the covariance matrices between variables are homogeneous. Method The study employed a 2 (concreteness) × 2 (spacing) research design. Word concreteness was a within-subjects variable and spacing was a between-subjects variable. Word concreteness had two levels, i.e., high and low concreteness. Spacing also had two levels, i.e., massed and spaced learning. EFL vocabulary acquisition was the dependent variable, measured in terms of receptive vocabulary knowledge. 52 second year English majors participated in this experiment. They came from two intact classes and were randomly assigned to one of the two vocabulary learning tasks (spaced and massed learning). 20 target words (10 words with high concreteness and 10 words with low concreteness) were chosen for this study. This study utilized Min’s (2008) 4-item modified VKS (Vocabulary Knowledge Scale). The reading and true or false judgment tasks, and the modified VSK were pilot-tested with 5 non-participants. During the experiment, each group of participants was asked to finish the sentence reading task and true or false judgments within the maximum time limits as stipulated in the instructions. The spaced group finished the 20 sentence reading task with target words. The next day, they read another set of 20 sentences with the same target words again. The massed group were assigned to the 40 sentence reading task once on the same day when the spaced group was tested the second time. On the third day, the two groups took the post-test of the target words. All the test data were collected and they were all valid. Data are submitted to SPSS 16.0 and analyzed by a mixed ANOVA. As is shown in Table 4.3, the assumption of variance homogeneity is met in this study ( p > 0.05). A mixed AVONA for EFL vocabulary acquisition Table 4.4 Tests of within-subjects and between-subjects effects Table 4.5 Simple effects comparisons Table 4.4 shows that word concreteness has a significant main effect on EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition (F = 4.64, p = 0.037 < 0.05), with a relatively medium effect size (ηp2 = 0.10). The mean scores for the low and high concreteness are respectively 2.50 and 3.09, as shown in Table 4.1. Therefore, concrete words, compared with abstract words, are easier for memorization. However, Table 4.4 shows that there is no significant effect of spacing on vocabulary acquisition, F = 0.002, p = 0.96 > 0.05 and ηp2 = 0.000. That is, the spaced learning group performs no better than the massed learning group. Similarly, Table 4.4 shows that there is a significant interaction between word concreteness and spacing, F = 6.12, p = 0.017 < 0.05 and ηp2 = 0.12. Table 4.5 further explains the interaction between word concreteness and spacing. As is shown in Table 4.5, zero is not included in the lower and upper bound in 95% confidence interval for the spaced learning group, which shows that there is a significant difference between the abstract and concrete words. The value of t (t = -2.675, p = 0.014 < 0.05) further shows a significant difference between the abstract and concrete words. For the massed learning group, zero is included in the lower and upper bound in 95% confidence interval, which shows that there is no significant difference between abstract and concrete words. The value of t (t = 0.318, p = 0.753 > 0.05) further shows no significant difference between the abstract and concrete words. Regardless of word concreteness, simple comparisons indicate no significant difference between the spaced and massed learning (p > 0.05). Results Table 4.1 Descriptive statistics As is shown in Table 4.1, in terms of abstract words, the mean score for the spaced learning (M = 2.17) is smaller than that for the massed learning (M = 2.83) with the mean difference of 0.66. Nevertheless, with respect to concrete words, the mean score for the spaced learning (M = 3.43) is larger than that for the massed learning (M = 2.74) with the mean difference of 0.69. M SD N Abstract Spaced 2.17 1.47 23 Massed 2.83 1.59 Concrete 3.43 2.74 1.74 M = mean, SD = standard deviation, N = sample size Conclusion In general, several features can be drawn from Table 4.1. The concrete words appear to elicit better learning than the abstract words do. Moreover, the spaced learning group outperforms the massed learning group in the acquisition of concrete words. Finally, the massed learning group performs better than the spaced group in the acquisition of abstract words, though the difference is small. Word concreteness has a significant main effect on EFL vocabulary acquisition. In other words, words with high concreteness will be more effectively acquired than those with low concreteness. Spacing has no main effect on EFL vocabulary acquisition. It seems that the spaced distribution group performs no better than the massed distribution group. There is a significant interactive effect between word concreteness and spacing on EFL vocabulary acquisition. EFL learners, in the spaced group, performed significantly better in learning concrete words than in learning abstract ones, while in the massed group, no difference was found. Implications This study has both theoretical and pedagogical implications. Theoretically, it contributes much to our understanding of how concreteness and spacing affect EFL vocabulary knowledge. This study lends support to the dual-coding theory and the context-availability model, but not to the spacing learning theory. Pedagogically, EFL teachers are recommended to design vocabulary exercises more properly, taking account of the learning difference between words with low and high concreteness.