One more reason to learn a new language: Testing academic self-efficacy transfer at junior high school

The powerful role of self-efficacy within human development broadly, and in education specifically, is widely acknowledged. Less is understood about how self-efficacy might transfer between domains of varying conceptual distance. The current study examines academic self-efficacy in three domains (mathematics, Japanese and foreign language) across students’ first year at junior high school. Two studies were conducted each including three school (study-A: n=480; study-B: n=398) to support a test and retest of the differences and inter-relationships across this critical period of adjustment. Difference testing presented a general pattern of significant small declines in students’ self-efficacy for all three subjects. Longitudinal latent analyses indicated a consistent moderate effect from foreign language self-efficacy to native language self-efficacy. The pattern of declines, while consistent with research in Western contexts is a source of concern. The transfer of self-efficacy from foreign to native language learning has educational and broad theoretical implications.

W. L. Quint Oga-Baldwin's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity

Setting expectations: Building the blocks of phonemic awareness

Young learners require developmental benchmarks to improve awareness of the phonemes in a new language. This study aimed to extend our understanding of Japanese elementary school students’ general and specific phonemic awareness across four years of English instruction. A public elementary school 3rd-6th year students in Japan (n=261, ages=8–12) participated in this study. The phoneme-identity test used consisted of fifteen items employing words during students' regular English classes. The effect of year on achievement and the difference between grades was tested. There was a significant effect of students' year on test score (p<.05). While there were no statistically significant difference years 4-5, and between years 5-6, students’ phonemic awareness increased two-year increments. Moreover, patterns of specific phoneme difficulties were identified. The present study provides preliminary guidelines for understanding the intersection between first and foreign languages, instructional context and their shared contribution towards listening and reading development in primary schools

Self-Determination Mini-Theories in Second Language Learning: A Systematic Review of Three Decades of Research

Self-determination theory is one of the most established motivational theories both within second language learning and beyond. This theory has generated several mini-theories, namely: organismic integration theory, cognitive evaluation theory, basic psychological needs theory, goal contents theory, causality orientations theory, and relationships motivation theory. After providing an up-to-date account of these mini-theories, we present the results of a systematic review of empirical second language research into self-determination theory over a 30-year period (k = 111). Our analysis of studies in this report pool showed that some mini-theories were well-represented while others were underrepresented or absent from the literature. We also examined this report pool to note trends in research design, operationalization, measurement, and application of self-determination theory constructs. Based on our results, we highlight directions for future research in relation to theory and practice