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EXTRAMURAL ENGLISH ACTIVITIES AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNER DIFFERENCES
(e.g., in-school motivated learning behavior and extramural motivated language
use).
Regarding independent and paired samples t-tests, it is not enough to report
statistically significant (pc.05) differences because a statistically significant
result may have a small effect size. In order to estimate the scientific signifi¬
cance and importance of a result, researchers are advised to report the effect
size together with the p-value. The effect size measures the strength of the
relationship between two (or more) variables. There are several ways to quan¬
tify the effect size, but in this research project, Cohen’s delta (d) is used, which
is the difference between two means divided by the standard deviation for the
data (Cohen 1988). The descriptors for magnitudes of Cohen’s delta are as fol¬
lows: small d=.20, medium d=.50, and large d=.80.
As for the different EE activities, factor analysis was used for data and di¬
mension reduction purposes so that a manageable number of EE activities
scales could be created. Finally, relationships among the scales were also in¬
vestigated through correlation analyses and multiple regression analyses with
a stepwise approach where EE activities scales were used as independent
variables to identify which other scales EE activities have an impact on.
5.5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The subsequent sections present the results of Study Two. First, the reliability
of scales is presented. Then the general frequency of engagement in EE ac¬
tivities is detailed. This is followed by the presentation of factor analysis required
to reduce the number of EE activities so that further statistical analyses could
be performed with a manageable number of variables. Then participants’ beliefs
on the use of in-school and extramural EFL learning are discussed, followed
by the introduction of results concerning participants’ individual learner dif¬
ferences. Then the results of correlation analyses among scales are presented.
Finally, the results of regression analyses investigating the impact of different
EE activities on individual learner differences are discussed.
5.5.1 The reliability of the scales
First, the reliability of the internal consistency of the different scales was
checked. This was achieved by computing the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for
the 19 scales (see Table 11).
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