Supposed Involvement Load And Learning Strategies In Vocabulary Acquisition: Revisiting The Involvement Load Hypothesis

In 2001 Laufer and Hulstijn put forward the Involvement Load Hypothesis. This hypothesis provides us with criteria that could be observed, manipulated, and measured on studying task effectiveness by three components: need, search and evaluation. Since the proposal of this hypothesis, studies have been conducted to test it. But the results so far are inconclusive. What is neglected is that involvement load thus set is decided by the task design. Learners may employ their internally triggered learning strategies when they try to fulfill the externally decided tasks. Will the employment of learning strategies influence the actual fulfillment of the involvement load? Will task types influence the online choice of learning strategies? This study is set in these directions. We hope to answer the following research questions:1) Will the tasks with higher involvement load produce better results than those with lower involvement load?2) Will tasks with same involvement load yield similar learning outcomes?3) Will different reading tasks have an influence on learners'choice of online vocabulary learning strategies?4) Will the vocabulary retention be affected by the strategies that learners employ online?A controlled comparison study was done to answer these research questions. Six groups of English majors in their second year took part in the experiment, one control group and five experimental groups. Then five different tasks were assigned to the five experimental groups randomly. After the subjects finished their tasks, they took part in an immediate post-test on the learning of the target vocabulary, and did an online vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire. Then the author had an in-depth interview with four subjects from each group. Two weeks later, all the subjects took a delayed post-test. We found that: 1) The assumption that tasks with higher involvement load will yield better learning outcomes than lower ones was partially supported by the immediate post-test and the delayed post-test.2) The prediction that tasks with same involvement load will yield similar learning outcomes was not supported by the immediate post-test but was partially supported by the delayed post-test.3) Learners'choice of online vocabulary learning strategies differed in different tasks, which means that different tasks do have an influence on the subjects'choice of online vocabulary learning strategies.4) The subjects'choice of online vocabulary learning strategies affected their vocabulary retention. Correlation was found between the subjects'choice of online vocabulary learning strategies and their vocabulary retention.From the study we can see that the criteria that Laufer & Hulstijn (2001) proposed for grading the task effectiveness may be too simplified and idealized. And there are few studies exploring the role that vocabulary learning strategies play in the hypothesis. Therefore, this hypothesis still needs to be improved and modified.