The effect of podcast tasks on students' engagement and performance in a beginning level Japanese language course
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Masafumi Takeda (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Meagan Karvonen
Abstract: As the growing popularity of podcasting and its application in education become
more apparent, there have been a number of studies on the academic use of podcasts. A
podcast is a digital file that can be delivered automatically to a device such as a portable
media player or a computer via the Internet. However, the majority of research studied
the use of instructor-generated podcasts for reviewing materials and supplemental
materials. Little research has focused on learner-generated podcasts as a learning tool.
Only a few studies investigated how podcast production could contribute to students
learning, and these previous studies were not theory-based. The purpose of this study was
to examine the effect of podcast tasks (PTs) on students’ engagement and performance in
a beginning level Japanese course. This study utilized student production of a series of
PTs of vocabulary and grammar, as a treatment, and assigned three groups: Early
Semester (ES), Late Semester (LS), and Entire Semester (ENT). ES worked on the PTs
during the first half of the semester. LS worked on the PTs during the last half of the
semester. ENT worked on the PTs for an entire semester. The study investigated
differences in students’ engagement and performance based on treatment conditions.
Student engagement was defined as motivation and self-regulation in this study. A student engagement survey, adapted items from the National Survey of Student
Engagement (NSSE) and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ),
was used to collect data. The students’ performance was assessed by two sets of pre-tests
and post-tests for their literacy skills including the comprehension of written Japanese
grammar and vocabulary. The study also examined differences in students’ engagement
and performance in a high achieving (HA) group and a low achieving (LA) group
determined by their Grade Point Average (GPA). Though more than 60% of participants
expressed that they enjoyed working on podcasts and would not mind using them as a
learning tool, working on PTs did not make a statistically significant difference on
students’ engagement or performance. LS had the highest mean motivation and selfregulation
score, but that score was probably due to the effect of outliers in this small
group. ENT scored the lowest on both the motivation and the self-regulation scales. The
result of the Japanese language tests indicated that all groups made statistically
significant gains on both post-tests, but the gains on the first test were statistically
significantly higher than the gains on the second test. There was no statistical difference
among the three groups in their gains. Among HA and LA, the sample cell size was too
small to determine if there was any statistically significant difference although HA
outperformed LA. Recommendations for future research include replication of the study
with a much larger sample size, use of video podcast (vodcast) as a task instead of
enhanced podcast and multiple administrations of a students’ engagement survey instead
of one time at the end. Recommendations for future practice include application of learner digital media production into students’ learning process and environment.
The effect of podcast tasks on students' engagement and performance in a beginning level Japanese language course
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Created on 3/1/2013
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2013
- Keywords
- Japanese, Podcast
- Subjects
- Japanese language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- North Carolina -- Computer-assisted instruction -- Case studies
- Podcasts -- North Carolina -- Case studies
- Educational technology -- North Carolina -- Case studies
- Student-centered learning -- North Carolina -- Case studies