Does an Assigned Task Result in Better Retention of Words? : Two Empirical Studies on Hand-held Electronic Dictionaries

Abstract

This article reports on two empirical studies concerning the use of hand-held electronic dictionaries(ED). The main purposes of the studies were to investigate whether an assigned task facilitates learner's retention of searched words in using ED, and an assigned task affects learner's impression of the ED. In the studies, we found that assigning a task 1) did not facilitate the retention of the looked-up word, and 2) did not change the subjects' evaluation of the ED as a learning tool. We also confirmed that retrieval strategies varied in accordance with the EFL proficiency levels of the learners. Based on these findings, this article concludes that future studies on the use of ED should be focused, not on the tasks assigned by educators, but on the retrieval strategies used by learners.