In the lexical inferencing test, participants were presented with two types of texts: authentic and textbook. In the 'Authentic' condition, the physical presentational features of the text (e.g., type face, title, author, and rubric) resembled an authentic text aimed at L1 readers of the language. In the 'Textbook' condition, the physical presentational features of the text resembled an extract from a textbook for FL French or Spanish learners.
After reading each text, participants had to “provide the English translation or describe the meaning in their own words” of the target words highlighted in green. Participants had to then (a) highlight any parts of the text that they had not understood and (b) rate each text in terms of how interesting they found it, using a 10-point Likert scale from 1 (not interesting at all) to 10 (extremely interesting), and how easy they found it, using a 10-point Likert scale from 1 (not easy at all) to 10 (extremely easy).
Participants then completed a questionnaire immediately after the lexical inferencing test and were asked to rate, on a 4-point Likert scale, their confidence performing similar tasks in the future.
Links to the experiment:
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