106
The great advantage of computer monitoring is that it is not annoying, i
.
e
.
the
user does not know that s/he is being monitored, which consequently makes the
consultation process more natural than in the case of other methods
.
According to
Tarp (2009, p
.
289), log files provide “easy access to a big amount of data
representing the whole population of actual users, from which reliable information of
the consultation can be retrieved using the proper methods”, and “the processing of
the collected data is relatively easy in terms of quantitative research”
.
4
.
3
.
6
.
Lookup History-List in CD-ROM Dictionary
Along with using the MS to record the subjects’ lookups in the CD condition,
I could also make use of an interesting feature embedded in the CD itself, which is the
History List
.
The function of this feature is that it keeps record of all the words
(entries) that the subjects looked up in the CD, whether those words have been typed
immediately in the search box or accessed via cross-referencing by clicking on
matching words in the dictionary’s results panel
.
The purpose behind using the history list feature was to explore any potential
lookup activity that might not be visible through the MS keyboard-strokes recording
feature
.
However, the main shortcoming of the history list feature is that it stores the
entries in the computer’s memory only temporarily; therefore, the entries will be
erased from the memory as soon as the subjects have closed the CD application by
107
clicking on the Close button
, which is located at the top right corner of the
dictionary window
.
To overcome this problem, I used a computer tool which could disable the
Close button in the CD main window (Figure 13)
.
Having the Close button disabled,
the subjects would not be able to close the CD application, as the button would be
inactive and out of service (Figure 14 on next page)
.
As such, the CD window would
be still active and the full history list would be still in the computer memory, which
would allow me to retrieve the lookup list afterwards
using the Print Screen feature in
the keyboard (Figure 15)
.
Figure 13
.
NoClose tool to disable “close button” in CD
108
Figure 14
.
CD “close button” disabled
109
Figure 15
.
Sample CD lookups’ history list
110
4
.
4
.
Research Procedures
4
.
4
.
1
.
Research Site
The study took place late May to mid-June 2012
during the subjects’ regular
classes and under my supervision, in a computer laboratory in the Department of
English at Mentouri Brothers University-Constantine 1
.
The laboratory had 24
computers; all running perfectly except two which were down due to a system crash
.
4
.
4
.
2
.
Instructions and Training
The subjects were told that the tests were only part of a research project and
that the results would not affect their marks in the final exam
.
However, I strongly
recommended doing the tasks seriously to have good scores
.
Interestingly, all the
subjects seemed to be motivated and willing to take part in the study since they were
expecting me, their teacher, to give them good marks in the exam in return for their
participation in the study
.
Prior to the experiments, the students received 15 minutes of training and
watched a short video tutorial about the features and main search functions in the CD
.
The subjects were briefly introduced on how to use the mouse to move the cursor and
then left-click inside the search box of the CD, which was all they had to do in the
computer if they wanted to find out the meaning for a given word in the text
.
The
111
students were then allowed to freely practice on their own so that they could interact
with the computers and become familiar with the search process and interface design
of the dictionary
.
Since most of the subjects were familiar with computers, this
seemed to offer no difficulty for them and they all affirmed that they were
comfortable using the mouse and keyboard and understood the procedure for
retrieving dictionary definitions
.
4
.
4
.
3
.
Procedure in Reading Comprehension
The presentation mode of the reading tests was on computer screen alone
.
The
reason
for this was twofold
:
Firstly, to allow the monitoring software to capture the
time each student spent on reading; I would not have been able to record the time
spent on reading if the tests were administered on paper
.
Secondly, to ease the scoring
procedure using the Microsoft spreadsheet software “Excel”, since I mainly used this
software to design the reading tests in such a way that all students’ scores would be
calculated automatically at a single mouse click
.
It is worth noting that there was no time limit set on the reading tasks, and that
the students were allowed to freely use their dictionaries and look up as many words
as they wanted, and whenever they found it necessary
.
They were instructed to open
the reading files by themselves and then save the changes and close the files as soon
as they had finished doing the tasks, so that the MS could make notes of the exact
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