Title: Influential factors of working adults' perceptions of mobile-assisted vocabulary learning with multimedia annotations

Authors: Ruofei Zhang; Di Zou

Addresses: Department of English Language Education, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong, China ' Department of English Language Education, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong, China

Abstract: With the development of technology-enhanced language learning, there have been increasingly more studies on mobile-assisted vocabulary learning with multimedia annotations. However, little research has been conducted to explore working adults' use of multimedia annotations in authentic mobile learning environments, investigate their perceptions of diverse types of multimedia annotations, or discuss the factors that may influence their perceptions of multimedia annotations. To fill in these research gaps, the researchers of this project developed a multimedia-annotation-enhanced vocabulary learning app, iWORDS, and invited 24 working adults in Hong Kong to learn vocabulary using this app. After experiencing mobile-assisted vocabulary learning with four types of multimedia annotations (i.e., the textual, the pictorial, the text-plus-GIF and the text-plus-video annotations), the participants were interviewed about their perceptions and preferences. The results indicated that working adults used textual annotations most frequently but showed strongest preference for text-plus-GIF annotations. Four factors, content quality, attractiveness, efficiency and cognitive stimuli, played important roles in influencing working adults' preferences and perceptions of multimedia annotations. Based on the research results, we proposed some suggestions for the development, selection and usage of multimedia annotations in mobile-assisted vocabulary learning.

Keywords: mobile-assisted learning; multimedia learning; technology-enhanced learning; vocabulary learning; computer-assisted language learning; autonomy; app; image; GIF; multimedia annotations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMLO.2020.110798

International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, 2020 Vol.14 No.4, pp.533 - 548

Received: 09 Jul 2019
Accepted: 10 Sep 2019
Published online: 29 Oct 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article