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Influence of gender and academic ability in acomputer‐based Spanish reading taskGregory Taylor a & Ofelia Nikolova ba Assistant professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures ,Southern Illinois University , Carbondale E-mail:b Assistant professor of French in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures ,Southern Illinois University , Carbondale E-mail:Published online: 20 Jan 2010.

To cite this article: Gregory Taylor & Ofelia Nikolova (2004) Influence of gender and academic ability in a computer‐basedSpanish reading task, Roeper Review, 27:1, 42-51, DOI: 10.1080/02783190409554287

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Influence of Gender and Academic Ability in aComputer-Based Spanish Reading Task

Gregory TaylorOfelia Nikolova

In order to determine the effects of gender and scholastic ability onvocabulary retention and reading comprehension in a foreign language,181 men and women enrolled in a first-year Spanish course wereasked to either read a passage in Spanish on a computer and createannotations for a list of words found in the passage (experimentalgroup), or simply to read the already annotated passage (controlgroup). They were administered vocabulary and reading comprehen-sion tests, and a questionnaire concerning their attitude toward thetask. Results showed rather complex interactions between the variablesof sex and ability. Although the differences overall failed to achieve sta-tistical significance, an analysis of the attitude questions separatelyresulted in several significant interactions for gender.

Gregory Taylor is assistant professor of Spanish in the Department ofForeign Languages and Literatures at Southern Illinois University Car-bondale. His research interests include second language acquisition,computer-assisted language learning, vocabulary acquisition, listeningcomprehension, and pragmatics. E-mail: taylorg@siu.edu

Ofelia Nikolova is currently assistant professor of French in theDepartment of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Southern IllinoisUniversity Carbondale. Her research interests are in second languageacquisition, computer-assisted language learning, and foreigh languageinstruction for high ability students. E-mail: ofeliarn@siu.edu

For the last several decades, research dealing with genderdifferences has consistently found that girls and boys

differ to some degree in their academic achievement and theiracademic interests. The difference is often partially attributed tosocial stereotypes which may be the factor pushing females tochoose more verbally oriented disciplines such as language arts,whereas males are drawn toward more quantitatively orienteddisciplines such as sciences and math (Benbow, 1988; Callahan& Reis, 1996; Feingold, 1988; Lubinski, Benbow, & Sanders,1993). The efforts made by schools to counteract these stereo-types have been quite successful over the years and have man-aged to narrow the gap between the genders significantly, withone notable exception - the stratum of high ability males andfemales from high-school age and beyond. It is in this particulargroup that gender differences remain virtually unchanged.According to Callahan and Reis, "Although the gap in achieve-ment test scores between males and females may be decreasing,the gap that still remains seems largely attributable to differencesin scores among the top 10% to 20%" (1996, p.184). This gap isin favor of boys where quantitatively oriented subject matters areconcerned. Girls have been reported to more frequently choose,and to consider less challenging, verbal disciplines such as lan-guage arts and foreign languages (Swiatek & Lupkowski-Shop-lik, 2000; Olszewski-Kubilius & Turner, 2002).

Within this framework, the aim of the present study is todetermine if there are differences in the attitudes and perfor-mance of male and female learners of different ability levelswhen faced with a foreign language reading task. After a previ-ous study (Nikolova & Taylor, 2003) in which we showed thatthe level of ability had a bearing on student scores in a creative

reading task, we took our analysis a step further by examining indetail the part gender combined with ability level played in thesedifferences. It is our contention that the more learner characteris-tics we can identify as crucial in performance of these readingtasks, the better we can attune our teaching tools and materials.

Review of the Literature

In the Nikolova and Taylor (2003) study, students were iden-tified as high ability or average ability for the purposes of theinvestigation, and randomly assigned to two versions of a readingtask. One task, the experimental method, required the students toread a short passage in Spanish on a computer screen and anno-tate target words, with the help of a dictionary. The control groupread the same story but with the target words already annotatedon the screen by the experimenters. Both groups were then testedon immediate and delayed (one month later) vocabulary reten-tion. Results showed that the high ability students recalled signifi-cantly more target words in both the immediate and the delayedtests, and remembered significantly more idea units from thestory than the average ability students in the experimental group.No differences, however, were found in the control group.

In an earlier study, Nikolova (2002) found a differencebetween students performing an annotation task com-

pared to a control group during a French reading task. In a sep-arate study (Nikolova, 2000), no differences were found inattitude between students in the annotating group and those inthe nonannotating group in a French reading task.

This study involves several areas of research in thedomains of foreign languages, educational psychology andcomputer-assisted language learning (CALL). Therefore, thissection will discuss each area separately and attempt to showconnections among them as is germane to the study at hand.

Issues in the Study of Gender DifferencesSome researchers argue against the study of sex or gender

differences. The study of sex differences is controversial for anumber of well-founded reasons. Researchers point to the dangerof creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by the publication of differ-ences between the sexes, and a continuation of biased educationalpractices that favor one sex over another (Baumeister, 1988).Furthermore, it is argued that the research on gender differencesoveremphasizes the differences between sexes and disregards thedifferences within sexes (Hare-Mustin & Marecek, 1994; Holl-way, 1994). However, Halpern and LaMay (2000) maintain that:

...despite the dangers inherent in answering questionsabout group differences, censorship, even self-censor-ship, does not promote equality and can be far moredangerous and counterproductive than directly address-ing the question. Stereotypes and prejudice are notcaused by an open process of scientific inquiry; in fact,they seem to flourish in the absence of data. (p. 233)

Nevertheless, it is not our intention to dismiss the cau-tions about research in sex differences. In an excellent

paper, Caplan and Caplan (1997) review the body of literaturethat has shown sex differences in mathematical, spatial and

Manuscript submitted August 7, 2003.Revision accepted September 17,2003.

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verbal abilities. In discussing verbal ability, for example, theyargue that the staggering number of ways that the construct hasbeen operationally defined by various studies (they list 32),leaves us without a clear understanding of what verbal abilityis. They point out, furthermore, that sex differences are notfound invariably, they do not exist at all ages, and they accountfor very little of the variance in individual performance. How-ever, keeping these cautions in mind, we continue to concurwith the opinion of Halpern and LaMay (2000) that research ingender differences is important and informative.

Giftedness and GenderThough the issue of gender differences is not clear, as stat-

ed in the introduction, there appears to be a marked differentia-tion between males and females in the population of high abilityadolescent learners. Some reasons for the discrepancy may bedifferences in socialization or in learning styles and preferences.

Research on gender differences in gifted students has shownthat academically talented female students may be socialized tohide their giftedness. Women often believe they must decidebetween academics and being found "socially valuable" (Noble& Smyth, 1995, p. 49). Reis and Dobyns (1991) report findingsthat academically talented women underachieved in comparisonwith academically talented males (see also Lindley & Keithley,1991). In addition, there is little institutional support at the uni-versity level for these women, and when there is support, oftenwomen do not seek out such programs (Nolden & Sedlacek,1997; Wolleat, 1979). According to Noble (1987), at least halfof the students at the elementary level identified as gifted, talent-ed, or highly capable are girls, but by junior high school, girlsmake up less than a quarter of gifted students. She points out thatalmost all academically talented girls and women have had occa-sion to hide their abilities to survive socially, having been condi-tioned by parents and teachers to see themselves as less capablethan males, to avoid risk-taking, and to have lowered expecta-tions for success. In addition, both male and female teachersseem to perceive those same qualities that they view positivelyin academically talented males as negatives in females.

There may also be gender differences in learning stylepreferences. There is support from Dimitrov (1999), whofound that high ability junior high school boys have a predilec-tion for open-ended tasks and score better than high abilitygirls at the same grade level when confronted with more cre-ative tasks, at least in the fields of math and science. Other fac-tors which have been proposed to account for the discrepancybetween male and female academically talented students areissues of assertiveness, fear of success, and external versusinternal attribution of ability (Fox & Ferri, 1992; Hollinger &Fleming, 1984; Luscombe & Riley, 2001; Noble, 1987).

Verbal ability is an area in which female students haveconsistently shown superiority to male students

(Caplan, Crawford, Hyde, & Richardson, 1997; Maccoby &Jacklin, 1974; McGlone, 1986). However, in a meta-analysis of165 studies representing nearly a million and a half subjects,Hyde and Linn (1988) report negligible differences in seven ver-bal abilities including vocabulary and general verbal ability. Fur-thermore, they compared studies published before and after 1973and found a slight decline in the magnitude of sex differences.

Gender and Language LearningIn a similar vein, there has also been much evidence that

females are better language learners than males (Burstall, 1975;Carroll, 1975; Lewis & Massad, 1975; Lynn & Wilson, 1993).

The Lynn and Wilson study is particularly interesting. Theystudied students learning Irish in Ireland between the ages of 8and 14. Because the study of Irish as a second language isrequired of all students, it gave the researchers an opportunity tostudy second language learners across the whole ability range,rather than being restricted to the more select number of stu-dents who study foreign language in countries such as the Unit-ed States. Substantial differences were found favoring girls andthe differences remained constant throughout secondary school.These findings led the authors to reject the explanation of socialexpectations theory that society expects girls to be good lan-guage learners, and that secondary school girls are more con-scious of conforming to these expectations than primary schoolgirls Instead, they favor the theory that sex differences have abiological basis (Benbow, 1988; McGlone, 1986).

Cross (1983), on the other hand, found that boys outper-formed girls on a battery of nine tests of French. He

attributed this to the fact that the teachers were men, providinga role model for the boys. Role modeling of teachers as a factorin the performance of boys in foreign languages was touchedupon by Clark and Trafford (1995). Though, according tothem, teachers tended to dismiss the effect of sex of teacher onboys' performance, the authors mention that in a particularschool where boys scored above the national average, the twohighest achieving classes were both taught by men who sharedinterests with the boys.

Studies specifically examining sex differences in secondlanguage (L2) vocabulary learning have been inconclusive aswell. Nyikos (1990) found that females outperformed males inlearning German vocabulary, while Grace (2000) found no dif-ferences in French vocabulary learning between sexes in acomputer-assisted language-learning (CALL) environment.

Gender and Computer-Assisted LearningAnother area of investigation germane to this study is that of

gender and computer use. It has been reported that males exhibitmore interest in computers than females, use computers more,and generally have a more positive attitude and less anxiety(Adam & Bruce, 1993; Collis, 1985; Murray, 1993). However,more recent studies have shown that the difference has dimin-ished (Teh & Fraser, 1995; Parish & Necessary, 1996; Taisir,1999; Mitra, LaFrance & McCullough, 2001), with previousexperience being a better indicator than sex for attitude and per-formance (Hunt & Bohlin, 1993). Grace (2000) found no genderdifferences in the ability of beginning students of French to retainvocabulary from a dialogue, while Meunier (1995-1996) foundthat achievement was more strongly related to personality differ-ences and keyboard control than to gender differences.

Gender and Reading Comprehension in the First and SecondLanguage

Gender differences in reading comprehension of L2 texthave been shown for the factors of topic familiarity, back-ground knowledge and interest (Biigel & Buunk, 1996; Carrell& Wise, 1998; Brantmeier, 2001). Biigel (1993, as cited inBiigel & Buunk, 1996) found text biases differentially affect-ing males and females in the Dutch national examinations ofFrench, English, and German reading comprehension. Shefound that females do better with topics of education, humanrelations, art, and philosophy, while males do better on eco-nomic and technological topics, politics, sports, and violence.

To our knowledge, no L2 studies support the contentionthat women are better L2 readers than men are. In fact, the

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commonly held belief that females are generally better readersthan men does not seem to hold up beyond elementary school(Becker & Forsyth, 1990; Hogrebe et al., 1984; Sheridan &Fizdale, 1981).

Research Questions of the Present StudyThe purpose of this study is to examine the performance of

males and females of high and average ability in vocabularyrecall and reading comprehension during a computer-basedopen-ended reading task requiring more learner involvement(annotating) versus a more teacher-generated and discrete activ-ity (nonannotating) to discover if there are differences for thefactors of Gender and Ability. The research questions then are:

1. Are there differences in the immediate and delayedvocabulary recall of females and males engaged in acomputer-based reading task with annotating versus acomputer-based reading activity without annotating?

2. Is the vocabulary recall of males and females differential-ly affected by their ability levels?

3. Are there differences in the reading comprehension ofmale and female students engaged in a computer-basedreading task with annotating versus a computer-basedreading activity without annotating?

4. Is the reading comprehension of males and females dif-ferentially affected by their ability levels?

5. Are there differences between males and females in atti-tude toward each of the tasks?

6. Are there differences between ability groups in attitudetoward each of the tasks?

7. Is the attitude of males and females differentially affectedby their ability levels?

Method

ParticipantsParticipants were first-year second-semester students of

Spanish at a large Midwestern university. The students wereof traditional college age (18-25). There were 181 studentsparticipating, of which 90 were female and 91 male. Ninety-eight of the 181 were identified as high ability students. Ofthese 98 students, 54 were female and 44 male. Of the 83 stu-dents not identified as high ability, 36 were female and 47were male. There were, therefore, four separate groupings ofstudents: Female/High Ability (FHA), Male/High Ability(MHA), Female/Average Ability (FAA), and Male/AverageAbility (MAA).

Ability level was determined by an analysis of the demo-graphic survey questions pertaining to academic history. Stu-dents who said that they had been identified as "gifted" in highschool, had taken advanced placement courses, and had GPA'sabove a certain level were considered high ability for the pur-poses of this experiment.

We want to state emphatically that we make no claimsbeyond the scope of the present experiment that the studentswho participated in this study are gifted, or academically tal-ented, or conversely, suffer from learning disabilities. We sim-ply identified, for the purposes of the study, those students whohad higher GPA's and class rankings, and had participated inhonors and advanced placement courses, and we designatedthem by the term high ability learners. Those students who didnot fit the requirements were not so identified.

MaterialsA demographic questionnaire was given to all students.

This was used to ascertain general personal information andtheir academic history. It consisted of questions about theirprevious language experience and success, computer attitudesand skills, as well as questions about their GPA, whether theyhad been identified as gifted, or academically talented, and/orhad taken honors or advanced placement courses.

An annotation program designed by the lab director at theuniversity, called SmarTText was used for the reading tasks. Itconsists of a screen onto which text can be input by the authorand simple procedures for creating textual, still visual, andvideo annotations for any word in the text.

Apassage called La leyenda del origen de cafe (TheLegend of the Origin of Coffee) was used. It con-

tained 126 words, 16 of which one of the experimenters chosefor annotation. The experimenter selected the passage becauseof its appropriateness to the level of the students, which wasdetermined by its length and relative simplicity, as well as thepreponderance of words likely to be unknown to first-year stu-dents of Spanish. (See the Appendix for the entire text).

A vocabulary test designed by the researchers was used inwhich students had to supply the English equivalent to theannotated words. In addition, students indicated whether or notthey had known the word before that day. Students were alsogiven a sheet of paper with instructions to write a synopsis ofthe story they had just read as accurately and fully as theycould. Finally, students were given an attitude survey to deter-mine their enjoyment of the task and their opinion of its effec-tiveness for learning Spanish. All of the above instrumentshave been previously published in Nikolova and Taylor (2003).

ProceduresIn the interest of clarity, we propose to call the experimen-

tal group the annotating group and the control group thenonannotating group.

On the first day, the researchers went to the 10 classes andbriefed the students on the procedures for the study. Studentswere told that their participation was voluntary and were askedto sign a consent form if they wished to participate. Studentsthen chose random numbers between 1 and 300 from a box.From this point on, they were identified by these numbers forthe sake of anonymity. Last, they were given the demographicsurvey already described.

On day two, we escorted students to the language mediacenter and assigned each a computer. We gave them a 20- to30-minute orientation on how to create annotations using theSmarTText program. Annotations are words or pictures that areplaced in the margins of a text or are accessed through hyper-text links. They help the reader to understand certain words andphrases that they may not know. In this case, the annotationswere text-based. A short passage was used as a sample. The ori-entation lasted until every student had demonstrated that theycould successfully accomplish the task of annotation. The taskwas simple, and students readily understood it. The trainingtook place during the regular class period. At this point, all stu-dents received the annotation training, because they had not yetbeen assigned to the annotating or nonannotating group.

The following day, students again came to the languagemedia center and were assigned computers according to theirgroup assignment, annotating or nonannotating. All computershad the same passage displayed, La leyenda del origen de cafe.For the annotating group, a list of the words taken from the

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story was placed by the computer along with photocopies ofpages from a Spanish-English dictionary on which the mean-ings of the words were found.

The principal task for the annotating group was to createtext annotations for these words using the dictionary

pages and the SmartText program. We instructed them to readthe passage through before deciding on the proper Englishequivalents of the target words, cautioning them that, becausewords often have different meanings according to context, theyshould read the passage carefully for comprehension beforebeginning the annotation task.

For the nonannotating group, the annotations had alreadybeen created for them. Therefore, this group's task was simplyto read the passage, La leyenda del origen de cafe, using theannotations as an aid to understanding the text.

Both groups were told to indicate to us when they felt thatthey could write a synopsis of the story. We then gave them thepaper to write the synopsis, followed by the vocabulary recalltest, and finally the attitude survey. One month later they weregiven the same vocabulary recall test.

No pretest for the vocabulary was given. We felt that thewords were unlikely to be known by a first-year student, thusobviating the need for the pretest, and its possibly deleteriouspractice effects.

The vocabulary tests were scored one point for each cor-rect English equivalent consistent with the item's context in thepassage. No credit was given for approximations or alternatemeanings (possible range 0-15). Story comprehension scoreswere calculated as the number of propositions the studentsincluded in their summary of the reading passage. Students'scores were the raw numbers of propositions they included intheir synopsis (possible range 0-16). These 16 propositionswere determined by the researchers.

Comparisons were made for the factors of Gender, Ability,and Method on the outcome variables of Immediate Recall,Delayed Recall and Reading Comprehension. Separate factorialanalyses of variances were performed for each outcome variableusing the General Linear Model procedure (PROC GLM) due tothe unequal cell it's. T-tests were then performed to determineany significant differences between the various groupings.

The Freidman test for blocked designs was used for theattitude scores. The scores were converted to rank

scores using the SAS Proc Rank procedure and then enteredinto a Proc GLM procedure to determine any main effect dif-ferences and interactions. An overall analysis comparing thetwo tasks, annotating and nonannotating, for the factors ofGender and Ability was performed. Two additional analyses,one for each task, were then performed for the same factors.

Results

Vocabulary RecallThe ANOVA for Immediate Vocabulary Recall found no

main effects for Gender. However, a significant interaction forGender and Ability was found, F(l,180) = 7.70, p = .006 (seeTable 1). The overall difference in recall was largely due to theperformance of average ability males (MAA) who scored wellbelow the other three groupings with a mean of 4.94 (SD =2.96) words recalled, compared to MHA (M = 7.27, SD = 3.71),FHA (M= 7.13, SD = 3.54), and FAA (M= 7.00, SD = 3.17).

Given that the students differed in performance due to thedifferent demands of the two tasks, it seemed appropriate tolook at them separately for any gender differences. As can beseen in Table 2, the difference for males appeared to existlargely on the annotating task, which showed MHA recalling

ANOVA Tables for

Source

Gender (A)Method (B)Ability(C)AxBAxCBxCAxBxCError

df

1111111

173

the Factors of

Immediate Recall

SS

28.90207.71

77.111.80

73.18119.75

0.3412290.89

MS

28.90207.71

77.111.80

73.18119.75

0.34170.71

Note: Boldface type denotes results of GLM

F

3.0421.87

8.120.197.70

12.610.04

Gender,

p

.08<.0001

.005

.66

.006

.0005

.85

with factor of Gender.

Method, and

Source

Gender (A)Method (B)Ability(C)AxBAxCBxCAxBxCError

Ability or

df

11111111 "

SS

0.242.97

18.337.53

11.2041.222.93

r3419.50

i Vocabulary Recall.

Delayed Recall

MS

0.242.97

18.337.53

11.2041.22

2.932.42

F

0.101.237.563.104.62

17.001.21

P

.75

.27

.007

.08

.03<.0001

.27

Table 1

Source

MHAMAA

FHAFAA

n

1925

2814

Vocabulary

Immediate Vocabulary RecallAnnotating Nonannotating

Mean SD n Mean SD

9.535.32

8.937.14

2.693.22

3.042.41

2522

2622

5.56 3.484.50 2.63

5.19 3.016.91 3.62

Recall

>n1925

2814

Delayed Vocabulary Recall\nnotating Nonannotating

Mean SD n Mean SD

3.581.08

2.211.36

1.871.04

1.951.01

25 1.5622 1.64

26 1.6522 2.23

1.261.22

1.721.77

Table 2

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9.53 target words on average as compared to 5.32 for MAA,t(l, 42) = 4.59,p < .0001, effect size (d) = 1.40. Females dif-fered less between ability levels, with high ability females(FHA) outscoring average ability females (FAA) by 8.93 to7.14 words recalled, /(1,40) = 1.91,/? = .06, d= .22. The datais displayed graphically in Figures 1 and 2. Results of the t-tests for these data are presented in Table 3.

For delayed recall, there was also an interaction effect ofGender and Ability, F{\, 180) = 4.62, p = .03, with

again the majority of the overall difference in recall betweenhigh and average ability students found in the male sample,

Graph of gender, ability and method inimmediate recall on annotating task

10 •

6 •

Recall *5.32

Average

„ -• 9.53^_____^i^» 8.93

^~- ; „ - - '

High

Ability

- * — Female

- • — Male

Linear (Male)

! inertr fFpmalpi

while females did not differ overall. Once again, as shown inTable 2, the difference was shown to be mostly in the annotat-ing group, with MHA students significantly outscoring MAA,r(l, 42) = 5.24, p < .0001, d = 1.06. Females again did not dif-fer between ability levels, /(I,40) = 1.54,p = .13, d= .30). Thedata are shown graphically in Figures 3 and 4. Once again, theresults of the Mests are shown in Table 3.

As shown in Table 2, in immediate recall the annotatinggroup outperformed the nonannotating group for both malesand females - MHA: r(l, 41) = -3.98, p = .0003, d= 1.22;FHA: /(I, 52) = -4.53, p <.000l,d= 1.24. This difference

Graph of gender,delayed recall

10 •

s •

Recall

2 •

ability and method inon annotating task

—*-

Average High

Ability

— Female

— Male

_ . Linear (Male)

Figure 1 Figure 2

Graph of gender, ability and method inimmediate recall on nonannotating task

Recall

— * — Female

— • — Male

Linear (Male)

Linear (Female'

Average High

Ability

Figure 3

Graph of gender, ability and method indelayed recall on nonannotating task

Recall

— * — Female

— • — Male

Linear (Male)

Linear (Female^

Average High

Ability

Figure 4

Female High

Level

Immediate recallMHA vs. MAAFHA vs. FAA

Delayed recallMHA vs. MAAFHA vs. FAA

Note, d = effect size

T-tests for Equality of Means for Recall in Annotating Group.Male High Ability (MHA) vs. Male Average Ability (MAA),

Ability (FHA) vs. Female Average Ability (FAA) (Equal Variances Assumed)

t

4.591.91

5.241.54

df

4240

4240

p MeanDifference

<.0001 4.21.06 1.79

<.0001 2.39.13 0.86

95% ConfidenceInterval of the Mean

Std Error Lower UpperDifference

0.92 2.36 6.050.93 -0.10 3.67

.46 1.47 3.31

.56 -0.27 1.98

A

d

1.40.22

1.06.30

Table 3

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maintained in the delayed recall for males, but not for females- Males: r(l, 41) = -4.28, p = .0001, d = 1.30; Females: t(\, 52)= -1.19, p = .24, d = .32. The results of the Mests on these dataare presented in Table 4. Table 5 also shows that, whereas -there was no difference in performance between high abilitymales and females on the annotating task in immediate recall,f(l, 45) = -0.69, p = .49, d = .20, in delayed recall MHA signif-icantly outperformed FHA, f(l, 45) = 1.35,p = .02, d= .71.

Finally, Table 6 shows that FAA students significantly out-performed MAA students on the nonannotating task for imme-diate recall, t( 1,42) = 2.52, p = .02, d = .76, but not in delayedrecall, 1.36 versus 1.08; f(l,42) = 1.29,/? = .20, d= .39.Thus, reiterating the data for vocabulary recall:

1. For comparison of males versus females, MHA and FHAperformed equally well on the annotating task in immedi-ate recall, but in delayed recall MHA outperformed FHA.In addition, FAA outperformed MAA on both tasks inimmediate recall, but no differences were found betweenthem in the delayed recall.

2. For comparison of the sexes between recall tests, bothMHA and FHA outperformed those of average ability inimmediate recall, but only MHA outscored MAA indelayed recall.

3. For comparison of sexes between ability levels, on theannotating task in both immediate and delayed recall,MHA outscored MAA, but FHA and FAA did not differ.

T-tests for Equality of Means for Recall for High Ability Students By Group.Male Annotating (MA) vs. Male Nonannotating (MN),

Female Annotating (FA) vs. Female Nonannotating (FN) (Equal Variances Assumed)

Level

Immediate recallMA vs. MNFA vs. FN

Delayed recallMA vs. MNFA vs. FN

Note. o= effect size

f

-3.98-4.53

-4.28-1.19

df

4152

4152

p MeanDifference

.0003 -3.90<.0001 -3.74

.0001 -2.02

.24 -0.60

95% ConfidenceInterval of the Mean A

Std Error Lower Upper dDifference

0.98 -5.88 -1.92 1.220.82 -5.39 -2.08 1.24

0.47 -2.97 -1.07 1.300.50 -1.60 0.41 .32

Table 4

T-tests for Equality of Means for Recall in Annotating Group.Male High Ability (MHA) vs. Female High Ability (FHA),

Male Average Ability (MAA) vs. Female Average Ability (FAA) (Equal Variances Assumed)

Level df MeanDifference

Std ErrorDifference

Lower

95% ConfidenceInterval of the Mean

Upper

Immediate recallMHA vs. FHAMAA vs. FAA

Delayed recallMHA vs. FHAMAA vs. FAA

-0.691.84

-2.400.81

4537

4537

.49

.07

.02

.42

-0.601.82

-1.350.28

0.860.99

0.570.34

-2.34-0.18

-2.51-0.42

1.143.83

-0.220.97

.20

.62

.71

.22

Note, d = effect size

Table 5

T-tests for EqualityMale average ability (MAA) vs.

Level f

Immediate recallMAA vs. FAA 2.52

Delayed recallMAA vs. FAA 1.29

Note, d = effect size

df

42

42

of Means for Recall in Nonannotating Group.Female Average ability (FAA) (Equal Variances Assumed)

p

.02

.20

95% ConfidenceInterval of the Mean A

Mean Std Error Lower Upper dDifference Difference

2.41 0.955 0.48 4.34 .76

0.59 0.46 -.033 1.52 .39

Table 6

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Reading ComprehensionThere were no significant main effects or interactions for

Gender in relation to Ability found in reading comprehension.Because of this, no further analysis was warranted.

Means

Source

MHAMAAFHAFAA

and Standard Deviations for Attitude

Annotating Groupn Mean SD

20292915

54.15 20.6541.43 27.5945.12 30.6751.87 25.15

Nonannotating Groupn Mean SD

25252724

42.7049.4455.4356.29

29.0229.0727.4231.44

Table 7

ANOVA Table forAnnotating Group Attitude

Source df SS MS

Gender (A) 1 10.65 10.65 0.01 .90Ability(B) 1 192.19 192.19 0.26 .61AxB 1 2041.05 2041.05 2.81 .10Error 173 2538.94 14.68

Note: Boldface type denotes results of GLM with factor of Gender

Table 8

AttitudeComparisons over attitude between tasks for the factors of

Gender and Ability yielded no significant results. For the anno-tating group, no significant main effects or interactions werefound for attitude, though there was a slight interaction effect,F(l, 89) = 2.81,/? = .10, with MHA scoring somewhat higherthan MAA, while for females, FAA scored higher than FHA.

Each question was then analyzed separately in order tosee if any revealed significant differences. In the anno-

tating group, items 1, 2, 6, and 10 revealed significant interac-tions, while item 8 approached significance at p = .06.Whereas MHA had higher ratings than MAA, FHA had lower

ratings than FAA. This trend was found for all items in theannotating group. See Table 9 for the means, standard devia-tions and F statistics for the questionnaire items with signifi-cant interactions. Figure 5 shows the data graphically.

In the nonannotating group, although results were not sig-nificant for the main effect of Gender (F(l, 97) = 2.83, p = .10,d = . 17), there was a tendency for females to like the task betterthan males across ability levels. Questions 1, 2 and 9 showedsignificant differences for the main effect of Gender, withfemales scoring higher than males across ability levels. Thesame trend was observed for all questions with the exceptionof Question 7 in which FHA scored somewhat less than all oth-ers. Table 10 contains the means, standard deviations and Fstatistics for the questions yielding significant main effects forGender. Figure 5 shows the data graphically.

ANOVA is robust for the assumption of normality evenfor very skewed distributions (Stevens, 1990), particularly withlarge cell n's. The assumption of homogeneity of variance isrobust for unequal cell «'s up to a difference of 1.5 to 1. In thisstudy, no differences in group n's exceeded this ratio. Intra-class correlations (R) were calculated on the data according toa procedure outlined in Stevens (1990) and were found to be inline with the assumption of independence of observations.

Discussion

This is the third in a series of studies to test the effect of astudent-centered computer-based task on the performance ofbeginning second language learners. The first, Nikolova(2002), found that students asked to create annotations during areading task remembered significantly more vocabulary itemsafterwards than those who did not create the annotations.Nikolova and Taylor (2003) then found that this difference wasconcentrated in the performance of higher ability learners. Theresults of the present study concur with the findings in Nikolo-va and Taylor (2003) that high ability students fare better whenconfronted with a more involved task. This is probably due tothe higher interest that a task of this type and difficulty arousesin more able students. In addition, high ability students are lesslikely to suffer from cognitive overload, which may be the rea-

Questionnaire Item

Item 1 : / find the methodused in this experimentan interesting way oflearning Spanish.

Item 2: / find the methodused in this experimenta fun way of learningSpanish.

Item 6: / prefer to havehomework assignmentsbased on the method inthis experiment.

Item 10:1 think that learninghow to use the software forthis experiment was awaste of time.

Note: MHA=Male High Ability

MHAM

59.48

53.93

50.98

38.93

Items with

MHASD

18.01

19.00

21.33

25.19

MAAM

39.66

37.88

38.38

55.52

Significant

MAASD

27.22

27.59

26.89

27.09

FHAM

43.54

44.68

43.73

48.66

Interactions

FHASD

29.54

28.78

26.31

25.65

FAAM

47.44

55.50

59.97

38.75

FAASD

23.50

24.40

28.13

22.61

MAA=Male Average Ability, FHA=Female High Ability, FAA=Female Average

F(1,88) = 4.64, p = .03,

F(1,88) = 5.88, p = .02,

F(1,88) = 6.77, p = . 0 1 ,

F(1,88) = 5.90, p=.O2,

Ability

f=

f =

f=

f =

.23

.25

.27

.25

Table 9

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Comparisons of attitude questionsshowing significant interactions

Female

Annotating Task

:emale

Male

Male

Female

70 J

60 •

5 0 •

20 4

Question 1Interesting w

47 44

"39.66

iy to learn Spanish

_ ^ — - - * ~ * ' 59.48

" ^ " • - •43,54

Question 2Fun way to learn Spanish

Average High Average High

7 0 •

6 0 •

50 •

10 •

20 •

Question 6Prefer homework basedon this method

59.97

• 38.38

a 50.98

"" - • • 43.73

Question 10Learning software waste of time

Average High Average High

Non-annotating Task

70 •

60 •

50 •

40 •

30 •

Question 1Interesting w

•58J6

41.84

iv to learn Sp

—

inish

1 M48.25

70 •

60 .

50 •

40 •

30 •

T) •

Question 2Fun wav to lear

*56~94

• • -

•n Spanish

57.37

—4,

High

Question 9Rather take paper test

High

Figure 5

son for a weaker performance on the part of theaverage ability students.

Now, with the inclusion of the factor of Gen-der in the analysis, we appear to have clouded thepicture somewhat. So, what is the relationshipbetween Gender and Ability, and in what ways didit affect students' performance?

On the whole, it seems to us that ability levelhad the most impact upon the performance of themale students in the annotating group. Abilitylevel also seemed to be a factor in retention ofvocabulary for MHA students, who significantlyoutscored all others, including FHA students onthe delayed test. MAA students on the other hand,performed significantly worse on both tasks, whileFAA students scored relatively well.

In terms of the delayed recall, however, it isdifficult to credit any practical significance

to the findings given the low means and differ-ences. The reporting of confidence intervals andeffect sizes can be used to determine practical sig-nificance. For example, for the difference betweenMHA and MAA for the annotating group indelayed recall (Table 3), the large effect size of1.06, and the/>-value of <.0001 gives us someassurance of the existence of a real phenomenon inthe population. However, care should be taken ininterpreting the results.

Therefore, it appears that while high ability menand women do equally well on immediate vocabu-lary recall, average ability females perform betterthan average ability males (and even high abilitymales in the nonannotating task). We believe that wecan attribute the better performance of the FAA tomotivation for learning languages. Recall that in thenonannotating task, females always had more posi-tive attitudes than males, while in the annotatingtask, there was an interaction of Gender and Ability.FAA students also performed respectably in theannotation task, much better than MAA students did,which may be expected given their somewhat morepositive attitudes toward the task. Interestinglythough, FHA students' performance essentially mir-rored that of the MHA students, even though FHAattitudes were somewhat more negative on average.

We will venture here another speculationbased on findings in a study by Dimitrov

(1999), according to which males and particularlyhigh ability males are more motivated and score bet-

items with

Questionnaire Item

Significant

MalesM

Item 1 : / find the method used in this experimentan interesting way of learning Spanish. 44.98

Item 2: / find the method used in this experimenta fun way of learning Spanish. 44.46

Item 9: / would rather study a Spanish text inpaper format than use the method in this experiment. 43.75

Main

MalesSD

29.77

28.76

27.66

Effects for Gender

FemalesM

56.67

57.16

58.69

FemalesSD

27.21 F

28.11 F

28.63 F

1,97) = 4.19,

1,97) = 4.91.

1,97) = 7.17,

p=.O4, f=

p=.O3, f=

p=.01 , f=

.20

.22

.27

Table 10

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ter on open-ended, creative tasks than females. Is it not possiblethen to claim that, for males, the status of high ability student isoften achieved thanks to a more creative and more adventurousmindset, while females are more likely to reach this statusthrough hard work and a predilection for more traditional acade-mic tasks?

Certainly, the results for Reading Comprehension do notsupport the contention that females are better L2 readers than aremales, but they do make more clear the findings of Nikolova andTaylor (2003) that average ability students are somehow hin-dered by the annotating task. We know now that both men andwomen are about equally affected. We have no certain answer asto why there should be a gender factor for vocabulary recall butnot for reading comprehension. Perhaps motivation is less ableto affect performance in the case of reading comprehension thanvocabulary retention. It must be remembered that the readingcomprehension test was announced while the vocabulary testwas not, with the intention of eliciting incidental vocabularyrecall. Thus, there would not seem to be any incentive for thestudents to learn the vocabulary items while reading the passage.It could also be argued that the difficulty of the annotating taskwas detrimental to understanding, arguably a more difficultprocess than vocabulary recall, yet all students were given asmuch time as they needed to satisfy themselves that they couldsummarize the passage, before taking the reading comprehen-sion test, and, of course, were not told of the vocabulary test.

The added exposure to the vocabulary items afforded to thestudents in the annotating group benefited all students with theexception of MAA's, perhaps due to lack of motivation. MHAand FHA students perhaps performed well in the annotating taskdue to their academic talents, the FAA students perhaps becauseof their motivation. Motivation, it seems, was a factor forMHA's and FAA's, but not necessarily for MAA's and FHA's.

In conclusion, we propose that motivation is the overridingfactor to consider when interpreting the results of this

study. The differences in motivation among men and women ofvarious ability levels, and the differential effect of that motiva-tion on individuals belonging to these demographic groupingsare important in deciding the kinds of activities that would mostbenefit all students. Gender and Ability are learner variables thathave not been widely explored in language learning and evenless so taken together. In spite of the very real dangers of anover-emphasis on differences of sex and ability, we believe thatthe data in the study clearly demonstrate the importance ofattempting to match activities with individual students to maxi-mize learning. We have also demonstrated the complexity of thefactors involved and have not reached any conclusions as to, forexample, what effect the computer-based nature of the task hadon performance or what role the types of tests used played.These are certainly important topics for further study.

Conclusions, Recommendations,and Limitations

The present study made an attempt to analyze in depth, forthe first time, some quantitative parameters of vocabularylearning, reading comprehension, and attitude for academicallytalented and average-ability male and female students perform-ing verbal annotations to words in a Spanish text. Withoutreplication of the experiment, the exploratory character of thisresearch makes it impossible to generalize the findings of thestudy beyond the conditions described in this article.

The study showed that students could successfully createverbal annotations for computer-based instructional materialsin a foreign language text and thus upheld previous findings(Nikolova, 2002). All subjects accomplished their task in a rea-sonable time and created high-quality materials.

The main questions of the study were "Students ofwhich gender learn vocabulary better and have a bet-

ter reading comprehension when they create computer-basedverbal annotations for a foreign language text rather thanwhen they use a text with previously created annotations?"and "Were the performance and attitudes of different gendersinfluenced by the ability level of the students?" The complexi-ty of the questions was reflected in the complexity of the find-ings. The current study brought evidence supporting previousstudies (Nikolova, 2002, Nikolova & Taylor, 2003) that highability students perform significantly better than average-abili-ty students when confronted with a more sophisticated task.The poor performance of the average-ability students was notequally distributed among the genders. It was primarily due tothe MAA group, whereas the gap was much more narrowbetween FHA and FAA. We attributed the better performanceof females in the average-ability group to a higher level ofmotivation registered within this population. A questionremains as to why FHA students perform well in the annotat-ing task even though their attitude toward this task was some-what less positive than FAA. In addition, why was there adifference between the attitude of high ability males and highability females toward the annotation task? A possible expla-nation offered in the discussion section proposes a stronglyexpressed orientation toward open-ended learner-involvedtasks in the high ability male population.

It is our opinion that the results of the study should beinterpreted cautiously because of the small raw score differ-ences in some cases and the fact that the authoring activity wasperformed only once. A possible novelty effect may have beenat play, which might have acted as a confounding variable. Afuture study may observe students working on longer texts inseveral sessions over a longer period of time, their motivationand their overall impressions from the treatment.

An important limitation of the present study is the issueof identifying the high ability students. We decided that amore practical, easy-to-use approach should be implemented,which would allow us a fast selection procedure. Thus, thepresent approach was adopted whereby students were identi-fied based on former high school selection. We were hopingthat high schools have used a multitude of selection criteria,which conform with a more multifaceted approach to intelli-gence. We are aware that different high schools may havehad different criteria and sometimes even student/parentdesire to belong to the "gifted" population may have been atplay. Therefore, a future study may look at an improvementof the selection procedures.

In real-life conditions, the activities described in this papermay be modified in different ways. For example, students maybe asked to find their own texts for annotation, including textsfrom the Internet. They may also be encouraged to annotatetexts and to link them to other Internet sites, create their ownweb pages with annotated texts, and the like.

The design of the current study may be changed in vari-ous ways to accommodate real-life requirements of the

classroom and to target other variables. Different types of textsmay be used and the impact of the nature of the text on the per-formance of different student populations studied. Using differ-

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ent text types and multiple sessions will give the researchers theopportunity to collect more diverse data and attain more reliableresults. A qualitative study in which the students are observedover a longer period of time, working in realistic classroomconditions on multimedia units (including creating picture andsound files) as part of their curriculum, would most likely bringmore insightful information about the real-life application of theidea of student authoring and the predilection of different abilityand gender groups for one type of activity or another.

Finally, it is our hope that the present study will help ori-ent researchers' attention toward student authoring activities inforeign languages, the role gender and ability differences playin them and the more thorough investigation of their many andcomplicated aspects.

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Appendix

Reading passage: La leyenda del origen del cafe

Hay varias leyendas sobre el origen del cafe. La leyenda mas cono-cida y antigua del nacimiento del cafe se remonta a 1440. EnEtiopia, un pastor llamado Kaldi noto en una ocasion que suscabras exhibian cierta euforia despues de comer un fruto pequenocolor granate. Intrigado, el pastor probo las hojas del arbusto y sintiolos mismos efectos de euforia y «claridad mental». Kaldi tomofrutos y ramas del arbusto y se los mand6 al abad de un conventocercano. El abad prepare una infusion, y la probo. El abad fue taningrata que arrojo los restos de la planta al fuego. Con el calor, losfrutos desprendieron un aroma muy agradable. Asf nacio la idea detostar los granos antes de preparar la infusion.

Note: Target vocabulary words are italicized.

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