A study of listening comprehension of academic lectures within the construction-integration model

This study assumed that there are indeed effects of both content knowledge and L2 listening proficiency on L2 college academic listening and investigated the extent of these effects on L2 learners' academic listening comprehension as defined to have both text-based and situation model understandings based on the Construction-Integration model. In addition, this study investigated the comparative importance between content knowledge and L2 listening proficiency in L2 college academic listening in relation to the notion of threshold. Furthermore, this study explored additional features of academic listening that might have an impact on L2 college academic listening comprehension.;This study used a quantitative design as the main research methodology in an ex post facto study and also employed a small, supplementary follow-up qualitative interview. One hundred forty-one non-native English-speaking students (80 females and 61 males) at an American university participated in this study. The results of multiple regression analyses showed that both content knowledge (as measured by a self-assessment and a checklist) and L2 listening proficiency (as measured by a self-assessment and a TOEFL test) were significant predictors in explaining L2 listeners' academic lecture comprehension. In addition, L2 listening proficiency accounted for a larger relative contribution to L2 listeners' text-based understanding (as measured by a checklist and a written recall-protocol) than did content knowledge, whereas content knowledge accounted for a larger relative contribution to L2 listeners' situation model understanding (as measured by bridging inference questions) than did L2 listening proficiency.;With regard to the notion of threshold, ANOVA results showed that the three different levels of L2 listening proficiency groups did not differ from each other on their performance of content knowledge tasks. Multiple regression analyses, which were conducted to investigate whether there was a developmental pattern whereby the effect of content knowledge increased with greater L2 listening proficiency, provided no developmental patterns of content knowledge effect with an L2 listening proficiency increase.;Interviews with selected 13 participants acknowledged the importance of both content knowledge and L2 listening proficiency in college academic lecture listening by reporting that the lack of either variable resulted in comprehension difficulty when they listened to a college academic lecture. With regard to the factors affecting L2 learners' college academic listening comprehension, interviews with the selected participants suggested additional 10 factors such as visual aids, a lecturer's speech rate and pronunciation, besides residency in the USA, duration of English study in native country, and gender that were identified in the quantitative aspect of this study.;Continuous studies are recommended to allow for an examination of the theoretically interesting question of a threshold for listening and the application of the Construction-Integration model in explaining the effect of content knowledge on L2 academic listening comprehension.