Effects of Technology-Based Practice on Chinese University Students’ Interpreting Emotions and Performance

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript reports a small-scale quantitative study aimed at addressing an under-explored topic across the fields of pedagogy, educational psychology, and computer-assisted language learning: the possible impacts of technology-based practice on English learners’ emotions and academic performance in the classroom. The specific setting examined was an interpretation course taken by the English majors in a university located in Beijing. In general, the results supported the pedagogical use of technology in lowering students’ anxiety and elevating the learning outcomes.

The paper was well written in fluent academic English. I was particularly impressed by the high degree of coherence throughout. The literature review discussed relevant studies, located different research gaps step by step, and finally put everything together to legitimate the two research questions to be addressed. The instruments (i.e. questionnaires) used were validated in other studies (and the current study). The analyses of data were presented in a highly coordinated manner, from descriptive statistics through the results of ANCOVA. Although the discussion part could have been more sophisticated, the study was meticulously designed, and the values were professionally reported in the first submission. It could be accepted after some minor revision, pending the author’s responses to the issues described in the enclosed file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Native-like; written in academic English

Author Response

Dear reviewer

I much indebted to you for your careful reading of my submission and insightful comments and suggestions on it. All the suggestions and comments have been carefully considered and generally incorporated into the revised manuscript, as detailed below.

1. Lines 41-57: If I am correct, the participants of this study were students from “a course on simultaneous interpretation”, and one of the focal areas was how they “interpreted their own emotions”, including anxiety and enjoyment. Some sentences may be confusing. It remains unclear whether they refer to “the perceived emotions during their interpretation exercises” or “their interpretations of their own emotions”. Consider using the words “interpretation” and “interpreting” in a better way.

--Research has shown that many second/foreign language (SL/FL) learners feel anxious in SL/FL classrooms, and they may enjoy the class at the same time. These emotions may affect their learning of the SL/FL. Yet, these feelings have not been much research in interpreting classes, although interpreting is highly anxiety-provoking.

--This study thus primarily focused on the students’ anxiety, enjoyment and self-efficacy in an Interpreting and Listening class, which were measured by corresponding scales. The students were not asked to interpret or self-rate their perceived anxiety, enjoyment or self-efficacy in the class.

 

2. L67-70: Consider citing a more updated definition of FLCA. “Horwitz et al. 1986” was classic, but it was published decades ago.

-- I did search for and read through the literature, still, this definition is the most classic and cited till today.

 

3. L130. Give examples of how they could be shaped by the environment and other factors during SL/FL learning in general (before going into the more specific external variables, namely accent, difficulty, and memory as in lines 136-137).

--The following was added on p.3: For example, Tsang and Dewaele (2023) found a FLCA level of 2.90 in Hong Kong young learners while Jiang and Dewaele (2019) found a FLCA level of 3.14 in Chinese university students.

 

4. LR: The research site was Mainland China, so it might be good to discuss at least a few studies about the challenges of translation between Chinese and English due to their linguistic differences.

--pp.3-4: Added a study: “Wang and Liu (2023) identified two major reasons for …interpreter’s low interpreting ability.” Xu and Liu (2023): “…The participants attributed their anxiety to such reasons as … linguistic inexpressiveness.”

 

5. L241: The age of teachers should be unnecessary in this study. If the age mattered, explain the reason.

--No, the teacher’s age was considered as a variable in the study, it was simply described as a feature of the teachers.

 

6. L265-288: Instead of presenting some example items of the questionnaires, consider including the whole set of instruments in the appendix.

--The Appendix was added

 

7. L324-325: Specify exactly what would be co-variated at the beginning.

--Since each ANCOVA included different variables, it was only stated on p.7 that: co-variates included pre-test ICAS, ICES, ISES and interpreting test scores)

 

8. L366: I wonder whether a Cohen’s d of 0.31 could be interpreted as a “medium” effect size. It should be closer to a “small” effect than a medium effect.

--according to Cohen (1988), small = d ≤ 0.2; medium = d = 0.5; large = d ≥ 0.8 (p.8), so d = 0.31 could be ‘medium’ yet to a lower end. Also the word ‘generally’ was added before ‘medium’ in the sentence (p.8)

 

9. L457-463: I do not understand the explanation for technology-based practice having no statistically significant effect on the participants’ perceived classroom enjoyment. Does it mean they were not excited about use of technology because the class was already important and enjoyable enough? It is also unclear about how teacher-centeredness could make them think the practice was not particularly enjoyable. More explanations are needed here.

--In this study, the Interpreting Classroom Enjoyment Scale measures students’ enjoyment in the Interpreting and Listening class, technology-based practice was done outside the class. So, technology-based practice did not necessarily lead to greater enjoyment in the Interpreting and Listening class

--To make it clearer, on p.11, it was added that “Technology-based practice did not add more to their enjoyment in the Interpreting and Listening classroom.”

 

10. (Discussion): In the current version, the discussion section surrounds the results of ANCOVA. The results are of course important, but the reader may expect to see more discussions on the insights of this study into pedagogical design and practices as well as computer-assisted language learning. Given the name, aims, and scopes of the journal, it is also good to discuss how the results support the “sustainable” use of technology in FL/SL teaching or classrooms.

--This part was discussed as implications in Conclusion (p.12). And the sustainable nature was highlighted in the revised manuscript.

 

11. L499-502: Time (i.e. when the experiments were done) might also have affected the findings. Psychological research has shown that some age groups may work better in the morning than in the afternoon; and vice versa.

--As described on p.6, students in the experimental group did technology-based interpreting every week for 12 weeks. It was not sure when they did the practice during the day. It was not at all considered as a variable, since the study intended to examine whether this practice affect their anxiety and enjoyment in the Interpreting and Listening class. Yet time is indeed an important factor.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a worthwhile paper about the effects of technology-based interpreting practice on university students’ emotions and performance during interpreting tasks. The study is one of few that have used quasi-experimental methods to address this issue. The core findings are that, after a 12-week intervention, the experimental group felt significantly less anxious, had significantly greater self-efficacy, and performed better on interpreting tasks than their peers in the control group. These are interesting findings and I do think that the paper makes a useful contribution.

 

The present version of the manuscript does have some weaknesses, in my view. One of these has to do with the nature of the control group, which needs to be justified more carefully. Other weaknesses are matters of clarity and narrative.

 

In my view, therefore, the author should be asked to address the points below:

 

·         The abstract should be clear about which area of literature the paper is situated in, and the nature of the contribution the paper makes to that literature.

·         The Introduction needs to explain more clearly the significance of the study--why is the issue important? Comments on the motivation for conducting the study (including the decision to use a quasi-experimental design) would also be useful.

·         The Introduction should also foreground more centrally the issue of “technology-based practice”. Why is this issue the focus of the paper?

·         The literature review should commence by justifying which areas of literature are being reviewed and why. In particular, the extent to which the literature was selected to address technology-based practice should be addressed.

·         The literature review is, in places, rather descriptive and uncritical. It might be useful if the eventual critiques (lines 129-130 on dynamics, for example) were foregrounded earlier, and the sense of criticism and evaluation (rather than summary) of the literature were woven more consistently through the section.

·         On line 136, it would be worth considering what is meant by “poor accent” and whether a different, less judgemental term (non-standard?) might be preferable.

·         Section 3 should refer more directly to the critiques established in section 2 when setting up the research questions. At present, the relationship between sections 2 and 3 is a bit vague.

·         Section 4.1 needs to establish more clearly the participant recruitment procedure, and (briefly) the research ethics of the study.

·         Section 4.1 also needs to justify the control group more. It might be expected that the control group would undertake extra interpreting practice but that this would *not* be technology-based. Instead, the control group undertook no extra practice at all. What implications does this have for the study findings? Is this a comparison between technology and no-technology, or extra-practice and no-extra-practice?

·         In section 4.3, it would be useful to justify the scales and instruments selected, and establish how (a) their selection was related to the research questions, and (b) whether the target populations and purposes of the source studies were congruent with this study. It might also be worth considering and instrument language/translation issues.

·         Line 317 has a typo (data).

·         Section 6 needs to start with more signposting about what will be presented, in which order, and why. How does this relate to the research questions?

·         Somewhere in either section 7 or section 8, the authors need to explicitly address the research questions they established in section 3.

·         Section 8 should summarise (a) the core contributions the paper has made to the literature and (b) what future work might build directly on the findings of this paper.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

I much indebted to you for your careful reading of my submission and insightful comments and suggestions on it. All the suggestions and comments have been carefully considered and generally incorporated into the revised manuscript, as detailed below.

1. The abstract should be clear about which area of literature the paper is situated in, and the nature of the contribution the paper makes to that literature.

--This was added as background info. in Abstract (p.1). The last two sentences of Abstract highlight the contributions of the study.

• 2. The Introduction needs to explain more clearly the significance of the study--why is the issue important? Comments on the motivation for conducting the study (including the decision to use a quasi-experimental design) would also be useful.

--P.2: To clarify the significance of the study, the importance of interpreting was highlighted: “Although often not so highly valued as the four basic skills (i.e., speaking, reading, writing and listening) of a language, interpreting is also an important part of SL/FL learning in that it ….”So emotions related to interpreting are worth researching.

--Reasons and importance of focusing on technology-based practice were also clarified at the end of Introdcution (p.2): “The study focused on technology-based practice because technology was involved …, leading to sustainable development in their interpreting competence.”

• 3.   The Introduction should also foreground more centrally the issue of “technology-based practice”. Why is this issue the focus of the paper?

--The same as responses to Comment 2 (above)

• 4.    The literature review should commence by justifying which areas of literature are being reviewed and why. In particular, the extent to which the literature was selected to address technology-based practice should be addressed.

--Done, on p.2: “Of various learner emotions in SL/FL learning, the most frequently researched are foreign language anxiety, enjoyment and then boredom. Because interpreting generally requires high attention, this study focuses on anxiety and enjoyment in interpreting classrooms and the effects of technology-based practice on them, which thus shapes the literature review presented below.”

5. The literature review is, in places, rather descriptive and uncritical. It might be useful if the eventual critiques (lines 129-130 on dynamics, for example) were foregrounded earlier, and the sense of criticism and evaluation (rather than summary) of the literature were woven more consistently through the section.

--My logic is to present studies on foreign language anxiety (FLA) from the general to the specific, from FLA levels and its effects on language learning to interventions on how to reduce/eliminate FLA.

--I thought a lot about foregrounding the critique earlier, but I couldn’t find how to do it properly. Thus I didn’t make any change to it.

--I read through the LR several times and found the flow of meaning is quite logical, leading to the overall evaluation of the studies reviewed and the necessity of doing the present research. For example: L125-130:

“The researchers hence warned foreign language instructors and students not to underestimate the influence of anxiety on language learning.

“Consequently, many strategies have been proposed to help reduce anxiety, … (e.g….). experimental studies …

I thus did not do much change to this section.

• 6.     On line 136, it would be worth considering what is meant by “poor accent” and whether a different, less judgemental term (non-standard?) might be preferable.

--changed

• 7.      Section 3 should refer more directly to the critiques established in section 2 when setting up the research questions. At present, the relationship between sections 2 and 3 is a bit vague.

--I’m not sure of this comment, since section 3 starts with a summary of the limitations in the current LR, which leads to the purpose and research questions of this study.

• 8.       Section 4.1 needs to establish more clearly the participant recruitment procedure, and (briefly) the research ethics of the study.

--a) Yes, added on p.6: “Both convenience sampling and cluster sampling …”, b) info. about ethics was added on p.7 (Data collection procedure): “This quasi-experimental study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the writer’s institution and strictly followed all research ethics. It…”

• 9.    Section 4.1 also needs to justify the control group more. It might be expected that the control group would undertake extra interpreting practice but that this would *not* be technology-based. Instead, the control group undertook no extra practice at all. What implications does this have for the study findings? Is this a comparison between technology and no-technology, or extra-practice and no-extra-practice?

--It was mainly about required extra-practice and no-extra practice, and the practice was aided by technology. More info. about this and the control group was added on p.6: “…. It was termed technology-based practice because technology was involved throughout the whole process of the practice. Additionally, both the teacher and students … , instructor B did not require her students to do extra interpreting practice but encouraged them to do so.

 

• 10.     In section 4.3, it would be useful to justify the scales and instruments selected, and establish how (a) their selection was related to the research questions, and (b) whether the target populations and purposes of the source studies were congruent with this study. It might also be worth considering and instrument language/translation issues.

--As reviewed in the LR, the short-form FLCAS and FLES have been validated, and are thus adapted in the present study to measure students’ anxiety and enjoyment in the Interpreting and Listening classroom respectively. The slight modification made to the scales was described on pp.6-7

11. Line 317 has a typo (data).

--changed

• 12.      Section 6 needs to start with more signposting about what will be presented, in which order, and why. How does this relate to the research questions?

--The lower-level headings used in this section (Results) are clearly themes of the RQs, indicating what is to be presented is the answer to RQ1 or RQ2. It is the same with section 6 (Discussion)

• 13.       Somewhere in either section 7 or section 8, the authors need to explicitly address the research questions they established in section 3.

--The lower-level headings used in this section (Discussion) are clearly themes of the RQs, indicating what is to be presented is the answer to RQ1 or RQ2. It is the same with section 6 (Results). The findings were clearly summarized in section 7 (Conclusion), and were clearly indicated as answers to RQ1 or RQ2 in the revised mansucript

• 14.      Section 8 should summarise (a) the core contributions the paper has made to the literature and (b) what future work might build directly on the findings of this paper.

--a and b are discussed in the last two para. of section 7 (Conclusion) respectively.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf