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The role of digital video media in second language listening ...

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<strong>in</strong>tact classes <strong>in</strong> studies such as Gruba (1993) and others (Baltova, 1994; Herron etal., 1995) is questionable: students, it appears, may respond to a presenter'senthusiasm for one medium over another and act accord<strong>in</strong>gly (Cennamo, Savenye &Smith, 1991; Salomon, 1984). Exceed<strong>in</strong>gly small sample sizes, a lack <strong>of</strong> controlgroups and <strong>in</strong>adequate explanation <strong>of</strong> participant pr<strong>of</strong>iles also dim<strong>in</strong>ish the validity<strong>of</strong> results <strong>in</strong> these comparative studies.Second <strong>language</strong> researchers have not been careful <strong>in</strong> regards to the treatments thathave chosen to <strong>in</strong>vestigate <strong>video</strong> <strong>media</strong>. Methodological defects <strong>in</strong>clude, for example,exceed<strong>in</strong>gly brief or lengthy exposures to the <strong>media</strong> <strong>in</strong> question, a use <strong>of</strong>presentations not matched with <strong>in</strong>structional objectives, a lack <strong>of</strong> explanation orvalidation <strong>of</strong> the tasks used, no demonstration that the <strong>media</strong> presentations wereequal, and a failure to control for differences between conditions. Many <strong>of</strong> thematerials <strong>in</strong> the studies were lengthy, as <strong>in</strong> Schwartz’s (1992) use <strong>of</strong> a 16 m<strong>in</strong>ute 56<strong>second</strong> <strong>video</strong>disc. Because lengthy exposures to complex <strong>media</strong> may stra<strong>in</strong> cognitiveresources <strong>of</strong> listeners, particularly <strong>in</strong> relation to the capacities <strong>of</strong> work<strong>in</strong>g memory,Rub<strong>in</strong> (1995b) recommends that <strong>video</strong> samples be limited to no more than twom<strong>in</strong>utes. Additionally, as Hamp-Lyons (September 1995, personal communication)po<strong>in</strong>ted out, a <strong>video</strong> soundtrack stripped <strong>of</strong> its visual channel only creates a ‘depleted<strong>video</strong>’ and thus becomes an <strong>in</strong>authentic and problematic representation <strong>of</strong> themedium.Regard<strong>in</strong>g measures <strong>of</strong> effectiveness, <strong>in</strong>struments that have been used were designedby the <strong>second</strong> <strong>language</strong> researchers themselves with scant, or no, evidence <strong>of</strong>reliability or validity. Even for those <strong>in</strong>struments deemed reliable, an analysis <strong>of</strong> testscores alone can not be used to account for variations <strong>in</strong> performance that are thenascribed to differences <strong>in</strong> mode <strong>of</strong> presentation (Bostrom, 1990b). A reliance onaffective and subjective measures <strong>of</strong> <strong>media</strong> effectiveness is also questionable.Mueller (1980), for example, reported listen<strong>in</strong>g results that were determ<strong>in</strong>ed on thebasis <strong>of</strong> a speeded writ<strong>in</strong>g task and scored solely by the researcher himself36

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