The subject group was made up of 43 (78.2%) female and 12 (21.8%) male participants of whom the majority (49) was between 18 and 21 years old (76.4%) (Appendix A1). This subject group was fully homogeneous in the mother tongue variable with 55 (100%) speakers reporting German to be their first language (L1)45.
Grammar learning can be influenced by many things, including learners' previous knowledge. In the following I present the results of the profile questionnaire that relate this aspect of CING use. The items that were designed to receive information on learners' previous knowledge, learning experience (incl. schooling), CING usage, motivation and attitude
44 See Appendix C1 for the instructions given to the research assistants. 45
I use the terms mother tongue and first language (L1) interchangeably here, as I did not investigate bilingual students, for whom first language could mean something different than mother tongue.
towards computers will be presented below. Subjects' navigation in the CING is a part of the subjects' profile investigation and will also presented in form of the analysis of the CING logfiles.
4.3.2.1 Results of the learner profile questionnaire
Learning a language today is not restricted to the school classroom, but often takes place in various contexts. To control for these potential contexts they were included in the profile questionnaire (Appendix D, Second Version).
English as school-leaving exam, subject and length of English instruction at school
English was a major subject in the school-leaving exam of 74.5% of all subjects (Appendix A1). Only for 11 subjects (20%) was English a minor subject, while 3 had school- leaving exams that did not include English and can thus be assumed to have had the least intensive instruction in the language. Given the age distribution of the group, the majority of learners can be assumed to have received their English instruction in the last two or three years, without a major gap between their school-leaving exams and our research session. All subjects received at least six years of English instruction, while 42 of them had received seven years of English instruction or more.
Experience with English language exchange
The questionnaires showed that despite an almost 50/50 split of learners who had participated in language exchange programs (31; 56.4%) in an English-speaking country and those who had not (24; 43.6%), most of those with exchange experience (19; 34.5%) had taken part in the shortest type of language exchange (one week to two months). While only ten subjects (18.9%) had experience with more extensive language exchange of six to twelve months (e.g., au-pair or work and travel programs), only two students (3.6%) had high school exchange experience (or comparable) of at least six months or longer.
Last English Language Exam and Exam Result
The subject group proved to be homogeneous in terms of their last English language exam, with 52 students (94.5%) having sat the CUT Placement Test only three months before the research session. The results of this test then formed the basis of the group’s English language skills and knowledge level assessment.
The majority of students (38 = 69.1%) had been assigned to ILC 2 after taking the Placement Test. Their skill level and knowledge of the English language could thus be expected to be at least intermediate. Only 17 subjects obviously had lower levels of knowledge, with seven of them (12.7%) attending the ILC 1 level and another ten (18.2%) attending the least advanced language course offered at the CUT, the Foundation Course.
Language Learning Background
Another variable for which the subject group proved overall homogeneity was past experiences with language instruction. Only three (5.5%) students stated that they had learned a language mainly without a teacher or outside of a school context with their own self- selected material. In addition, one student stated that he was mainly used to teacher-guided as well as autonomous learning.
Attitude towards Computers
Overall, the subjects appeared to have a positive attitude towards computers, with 37 students (67.3%) reporting that they liked or very much liked to work with computers. However, a considerable number of students (18 = 32.7%) stated that they only sometimes liked to work with computers. The very general nature of this question did not provide information on why subjects liked or only sometimes liked to work with computers.
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation to learn English Grammar
A large majority of 52 students (94.6%) confirmed their extrinsic motivation to learn English grammar, as they considered it very important or important to succeed in their university grammar courses. Only three students considered this success to be partly
important, while none found it unimportant. This outcome is unsurprising given that these language courses are crucial to students’ academic career advancement.
The variable of intrinsic motivation produced comparable results, with a majority of 43 students (77.2%) considering it very important or important to use grammatically correct English with their native speaker (NS) friends. Eleven students regarded it as partly important and one subject saw no importance in speaking grammatically correct English with his NS friends. Overall, the subject group appeared to be both extrinsically and intrinsically motivated.
Learners’ Comprehension of the CING Topic Titles
In hypertext materials it is essential for users to comprehend the link (or node) titles as well as the content structure in order to be able to successfully navigate to material relevant to their task (see chapter 3). The CING title allocation task resulted in the following findings: subjects allocated the titles Use of Perfect (100%), Other Wh-Forms (98.2%), Change of Meaning (90.0%), Present Perfect 1 (98.2%), and For + Present Perfect (100%) almost without error. The titles Background and Foreground (85.5%), Conditional Structures (83.6%), and Perfect in Context (85.5%), however, posed some problems to the students. The most serious allocation difficulties learners had were with the titles Since: Problem! (60%), Speech Time and Reference Time (ST and RT) (69.1%), and For + Other Tenses (67.3%). Altogether, the majority of learners (78.2%) allocated between eight and ten titles correctly while a minority (21.8%) was unable to allocate more than seven correctly.
These findings led to the categorization of the CING titles as clear (allocated correctly by more than 80% of subjects) and ambiguous (allocated correctly by less than 80% of subjects).
Prior CING usage
The group proved to be homogeneously inexperienced with the CING prior to the research session. Only three students (5.5%) reported a one-time experience with the tool in contrast to 52 subjects (94.5%) who had never used the CING before. Overall, the subject group can be considered a CING novice group.
English language knowledge and computer experience
A negative relation was found between last English language exam and time spent on intro page (r = -.250 [Appendix M, Table 7]). The better subjects had performed on their last English language exam, the less time they spent on the program’s introductory page. This implies that an advanced language level can make learners more confident with a learning environment like the CING. The intro page contains information on the content types the CING offers and its correct usage which more advanced learners might not need as those with poorer English skills.
4.3.2.2 Results of the experience questionnaire items
Now I present the statistical values received from the experience questionnaire (Appendix E) on salience, metalanguage, autonomous learning, topic titles, vocabulary, and feedback.
The mean values (M) for all categories ranged between 2.15 and 2.95 and good standard deviation values (SD) of below 1 (.700 - .996), except for the feedback category (SD = 1.145) which was higher, but still acceptable (Appendix A7 for all results).
The summary of frequency statistics for each category (salience of material, metalanguage, autonomy, titles, vocabulary, and feedback) produced the following results. While 33 (60%) of all learners disagreed with the statements on salience of material, 20 subjects (36.4%) partly agreed and only two (3.6%) students fully agreed. An even stronger trend towards learner disagreement was reflected in the statements on metalanguage, with 38 (69.9%) learners disagreeing with the statements, twelve (27.3%) partly agreeing, and only two (3.6%) agreeing. The categories of autonomy and titles showed similar results, with 35 learners (63.6%) in disagreement with the statements on autonomy, 17 (30.9%) in partial agreement and only three (5.5%) in agreement. In the titles category, the majority of 34 students (61.8%) disagreed, 16 (29.1%) agreed partly, and only five (9.1%) agreed with the statements.
Vocabulary showed a weaker trend towards learners’ disagreement than the above categories. A bit more than half of the 55 subjects (56.4%) disagreed with the statements in this category, twelve learners (21.8%) partly agreed, and another twelve learners (21.8%) agreed. Nevertheless, the trend here was also towards disagreement. The only category that produced findings with a weak trend towards learner agreement was the category of feedback. While 21 (38.2%) learners disagreed with the statements, 17 (30.9%) partly agreed and the
same number of students (30.9%) agreed with the statements. It has to be noted that this is only a weak trend.
Chapter 5 will present further investigations into the reasons for these outcomes by means of a comparison of the results on the profile, CING experience of the learners and the interviews.