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EXPLORING THE VERIDICALITY AND REACTIVITY OF SUBJECTIVE MEASURES OF AWARENESS

IS A “GUESS” REALLY A GUESS?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2020

Rebecca Sachs Open the ORCID record for Rebecca Sachs [Opens in a new window] ,
Phillip Hamrick Open the ORCID record for Phillip Hamrick [Opens in a new window] ,
Timothy J. McCormick Open the ORCID record for Timothy J. McCormick [Opens in a new window]  and
Ronald P. Leow Open the ORCID record for Ronald P. Leow [Opens in a new window]
Rebecca Sachs*
Affiliation:
Virginia International University
Phillip Hamrick
Affiliation:
Kent State University
Timothy J. McCormick
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Ronald P. Leow
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rebecca Sachs, School of Education, Virginia International University, 4401 Village Drive, Fairfax, Virginia 22030. Email: rsachs@viu.edu
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Abstract

Subjective measures (SMs) of awareness assume (a) participants can accurately report the implicit/explicit status of their knowledge and (b) the act of reporting does not change that knowledge. However, SMs suffer from nonveridicality (e.g., overreporting of “guess” responses) and reactivity (e.g., prompting rule search). Attempting to improve the validity of “guess” responses, we conducted an exploratory mixed-methods replication of Rebuschat et al. (2013). Participants (N = 30) were randomly assigned to Traditional, True Guess, and NoSMs conditions. True Guess participants were led to believe the computer would replace “guess” responses with random answers. Confirming that SMs are reactive, Traditional and True Guess participants responded more slowly and accurately, with greater awareness of the linguistic target. Moreover, although True Guess participants responded “guess” less frequently, interviews revealed this was due not to greater veridicality, but rather to additional reactivity. We conclude with directions for further research to enhance the validity of SMs.

Type
Research Report
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , September 2020 , pp. 919 - 932
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The authors would like to thank Stephanie Leow, Nymisha Mattapalli, and Van To for their assistance in data collection and transcription, and the reviewers for their very helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript.

References

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