Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students

In this study, an instrument for measuring proper name (PN) familiarity was developed for a psycholinguistic experiment investigating the effect of PNs on Japanese university students’ English reading fluency. Familiarity has previously been operationalized in disparate ways, producing contradictor...

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Main Author: Christopher Nicklin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Castledown Publishers 2021-12-01
Series:Vocabulary Learning and Instruction
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.castledown.com/journals/vli/article/view/1788
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author Christopher Nicklin
author_facet Christopher Nicklin
author_sort Christopher Nicklin
collection DOAJ
description In this study, an instrument for measuring proper name (PN) familiarity was developed for a psycholinguistic experiment investigating the effect of PNs on Japanese university students’ English reading fluency. Familiarity has previously been operationalized in disparate ways, producing contradictory results. Furthermore, authors of previous studies did not conduct validation analyses on their familiarity instruments. To address this issue, a four-point Likert-type scale instrument was constructed to assess Japanese university students’ familiarity with a set of 100, two-syllable PNs. The responses of 216 participants from 2 Japanese universities were subjected to Rasch analysis with the rating scale model to determine whether the resulting data fit the expectations of the model. The results suggested that a dichotomous response instrument was more appropriate than the scale-based instruments utilized in previous studies.
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publishDate 2021-12-01
publisher Castledown Publishers
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series Vocabulary Learning and Instruction
spelling doaj-art-4c77f3d096134e1bb0c18fa4e026b9b02025-08-20T03:01:06ZengCastledown PublishersVocabulary Learning and Instruction2981-99542021-12-0110210.7820/vli.v10.2.nicklinDeveloping a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university studentsChristopher Nicklin0Rikkyo University In this study, an instrument for measuring proper name (PN) familiarity was developed for a psycholinguistic experiment investigating the effect of PNs on Japanese university students’ English reading fluency. Familiarity has previously been operationalized in disparate ways, producing contradictory results. Furthermore, authors of previous studies did not conduct validation analyses on their familiarity instruments. To address this issue, a four-point Likert-type scale instrument was constructed to assess Japanese university students’ familiarity with a set of 100, two-syllable PNs. The responses of 216 participants from 2 Japanese universities were subjected to Rasch analysis with the rating scale model to determine whether the resulting data fit the expectations of the model. The results suggested that a dichotomous response instrument was more appropriate than the scale-based instruments utilized in previous studies. https://www.castledown.com/journals/vli/article/view/1788familiarityProper nounsRasch analysis
spellingShingle Christopher Nicklin
Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students
Vocabulary Learning and Instruction
familiarity
Proper nouns
Rasch analysis
title Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students
title_full Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students
title_fullStr Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students
title_full_unstemmed Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students
title_short Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students
title_sort developing a measure of proper name familiarity for japanese university students
topic familiarity
Proper nouns
Rasch analysis
url https://www.castledown.com/journals/vli/article/view/1788
work_keys_str_mv AT christophernicklin developingameasureofpropernamefamiliarityforjapaneseuniversitystudents