The present study aims to develop and validate tasks measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of learners of Korean as a second language (KSL) on the basis of theory and practice of the implicit learning paradigm in the field of cognitive psychology....
The present study aims to develop and validate tasks measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of learners of Korean as a second language (KSL) on the basis of theory and practice of the implicit learning paradigm in the field of cognitive psychology. Although there has been an increasing interest in the mechanisms and products of implicit and explicit learning in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), little is still known about how implicit and explicit learning works and what role it plays in SLA. For better understanding of implicit and explicit processes of SLA, instruments are needed that can measure the resulting knowledge and the conscious status of it: Whether the learned knowledge is implicit or explicit.
In order to develop and validate tasks measuring implicit and explicit KSL knowledge, this study specifically focused on the following three issues: (1) whether a subjective threshold approach (Cheesman & Merikle, 1984) can be successfully applied to dissociating implicit and explicit second language (L2) knowledge in the natural language context; (2) whether the tasks devised to measure implicit or explicit KSL knowledge really tap into implicit or explicit knowledge about KSL target structures (structural knowledge) (Dienes & Scott, 2005); and (3) whether the self-paced reading technique can be effectively used to capture implicit KSL knowledge indirectly in both aural and visual conditions.
Based on theoretical and empirical considerations provided by psychological and SLA research into implicit learning and measurement of the resulting knowledge, four tasks were developed to measure implicit or explicit L2 knowledge of KSL learners independently: (1) a dual-task condition task designed to elicit implicit L2 knowledge, (2) a single-task condition task and (3) a syntactic priming condition task designed to tap into explicit L2 knowledge, and (4) a post-decision wagering condition task designed to non-introspectively measure awareness of L2 knowledge. Each of the tasks consisted of an integrated combination of objective knowledge measures to assess KSL learners’ knowledge of target structures (i.e., Korean markers of tense and aspect) and subjective awareness measures to assess the conscious status of KSL learners’ acquired knowledge.
The data on L2 knowledge and awareness of knowing it was collated from thirty adult learners of Korean whose L2 proficiency ranged from intermediate to advanced levels, and was analyzed on the basis of the subjective threshold approach using a variety of techniques (e.g., guessing criterion, zero correlation criterion, signal detection theory, and calibration methods) proposed by cognitive psychologists attempting to dissociate implicit and explicit knowledge which might be entangled in the test results. As a result, first, it was revealed that the tests designed to assess implicit L2 knowledge (i.e., the dual-task condition task) measured implicit L2 knowledge while the test devised to assess explicit L2 knowledge (i.e., the single-task condition task and the syntactic priming condition task) measured explicit knowledge. In addition, the intuitive use of the post-decision wagering technique by KSL participants supported the claim that the post-decision wagering technique can effectively assess the conscious status of L2 knowledge as a non-introspective awareness measure without making them reflect their judgment about the consciousness state. Second, according to the analysis of on trial-by-trial structural knowledge attributions reported by KSL participants, it was found that the implicit and explicit L2 knowledge tests successfully elicited implicit and explicit structural knowledge about L2 target morpho-syntactic rules as intended. Finally, results of an analysis of KSL learners’ response time on grammatical violation of the target markers made sure that the self-paced reading method may have promise as an attractive indirect measure of implicit L2 knowledge when the items were presented in the auditory form. The aforementioned empirical evidences imply not only that the developed implicit and explicit KSL tasks are valid instruments that can be utilized to validly infer implicit and explicit L2 knowledge of KSL learners, but also that the data interpretation based on the subjective threshold approach can contribute to effectively dissociating implicit and explicit L2 knowledge. Practical implications were discussed and suggestions for further research were proposed as well.