Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture to Beginning Foreign ...

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture to Beginning Foreign Language Students Carol Herron Sébastien Dubreil Emory University

Steven P. Cole Research Design Associates

Cathleen Corrie Emory University

ABSTRACT This investigation examines whether foreign language (FL) students learn cultural information embedded in videos. Fifty beginning French students participated. They viewed eight targeted videos as part of their multimedia-based curriculum. A pretest and a posttest assessed long-term gains in overall cultural knowledge and in the learning of little “c” culture (practices) and big “C” culture (products). Eight postvideo tests measured shortterm retention of culture in each of the eight videos. Oral dialogues tested students’ ability to interact culturally appropriately in a communicative setting. A questionnaire analyzed student perceptions of cultural learning. From pre- to posttesting, results indicated a significant gain in overall cultural knowledge. Posttest scores were significantly higher than pretest scores. Pretest and posttest scores were significantly higher for little “c” than for big “C.” On the postvideo tests, measuring short-term retention of culture, there was no significant difference between types of culture retained. Regarding oral performance, students performed culturally appropriately more than 60% of the time. Students perceived that the videos contained more little than big “C” culture and that they learned more little “c.” Results support using video an effective technological tool for presenting culture in the FL classroom. © 2000 CALICO Journal

Volume 17 Number 3

395

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture KEYWORDS Video, Culture, Beginning Foreign Language Students, Assessment of Technology, Classroom Research

INTRODUCTION Cultural awareness has made its way to the core of educators’ concerns in all disciplines. The 1998 American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference in San Diego, CA was entitled “Citizenship and Diversity in Multicultural Society.” Foreign language (FL) teachers are certainly not indifferent to this trend. The same year, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) annual meeting gathered under the title “Winds of Change,” and presenters devoted sessions to the cultural dimension of the FL classroom. In fact, FL classes may present a unique potential for strengthening intercultural education by teaching not only the language but also the culture in which it is embedded (Singerman, 1996). Learning about another culture is a fundamental goal in the FL classroom. Two performance guidelines, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1986) for adult language users and the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1998) for K-12 learners include sections on cultural competence as well as linguistic performance. Lange (1999, p. 57) affirms that “language cannot be taught without cultural content.” Video has been touted as a fruitful source for teaching culture as it presents students with an image of living, vibrant people (Shrum & Glisan, 1994, p. 249). Martinez-Gibson (1998) points out that today’s students are part of the television era and that they are therefore more visually oriented. These assertions suggest that video could facilitate students’ learning of a foreign culture. However, very little classroom research documents that FL video actually enhances the teaching of a foreign culture. The current research attempts to fill this void by investigating how much and what kind of culture beginning French students learn from a videobased curriculum.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE Official FL guidelines regarding the teaching of culture give specific criteria for instructional goals. A professional consensus regarding what students should know about culture as a result of their FL study was reached with the publication of Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century (1996). While the first goal emphasizes standards for communication, the second goal stresses the importance of learning 396

CALICO Journal

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie about both cultural practices and products. Cultural practices refer to patterns of behavior, or “what to do, where, and when.” Cultural products may be tangible (e.g., a sculpture) or intangible (e.g., a system of education) (Lafayette, 1996). Cultural practices reflect what theorists often label as little “c” culture and cultural products as big “C” culture (see Brooks, 1968; Seelye, 1994). Along these lines, the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) developed criteria to teach culture effectively in the classroom. The AATF Commission stressed that both categories of culture be evaluated: “the assessment of knowledge (cognitive skills) should include aspects of life (small ‘c’) and civilization (large ‘C’), but these should be evaluated as distinct features” (AATF National Commission on Cultural Competence, 1996, p. 76). As noted above, video appears to be an excellent use of technology to convey contemporary cultural information using the target language. It provides immediate access to images and to native speakers of the target language for students for whom that access could be otherwise limited. Vogely (1998, p.74) supports this notion and emphasizes that some neuroscientists (Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Nisbett & Ross, 1980) found that visual images have the most powerful influence on learners’ behavior, even though the visual input is not necessarily the focus of the activity. Alalou and Chamberlain (1999) argue that in relation to its value as a source of linguistic and cultural information, video is underutilized. However, this positive view of using video to teach culture is not unanimously shared. It could be that the first time students watch a video, the processing of syntactic information could place such a high cognitive demand on the students that they are unable to process any other kind of information (e.g., cultural information). This processing problem is one of the major tenets of the capacity theory of text comprehension (Just & Carpenter, 1992). According to this theory, it may be overly optimistic to think that first semester French students will be able simultaneously to process both the linguistic and the cultural information from an authentic video. In addition to video being underutilized, its effectiveness in teaching about a foreign culture remains largely unexamined. Two studies with fifth graders in a Foreign Language in Elementary Schools (FLES) program investigated the effectiveness of video as an advance organizer to a related written passage (Herron & Hanley, 1992; Hanley, Herron, & Cole, 1995). Results indicated that video did in fact facilitate the retention of cultural information in the subsequent written passage. Martinez-Gibson (1998) attempted to assess FL students’ ability to observe cultural differences between the target and the native culture as presented in television commercials. Her study showed evidence that the addition of pre- and postviewing activities focusing on the discussion of cultural issues seemed to enable the students to recognize cultural information from the foreign Volume 17 Number 3

397

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture language commercial. Kitajima and Lyman-Hager (1998) suggested that students were able to apprehend cultural information while watching a video. In their study, students were invited to reflect on the cultural elements they saw in a one-minute-long, silent video on Japanese roads by stopping the video and saying what they noticed. More recently, Herron, Corrie, Cole, & Dubreil (1999) specifically addressed the effectiveness of using an instructional video series to teach both little “c” culture and big “C” culture to second semester French students. Following the AATF Commission guidelines stating that little “c” and big “C” culture should be assessed separately, the Herron et al. design (1999) allowed for two measures of little “c” and big “C” culture: a pre/ posttest (at the beginning and at the end of the semester, respectively) and postvideo viewing tests (immediately following each video). Three sections of a second semester French course participated in the study. Ten targeted videos from the instructional program French in Action (FiA, Capretz, 1994) contained all the cultural information tested on the pretest. At the end of the semester, the investigators administered a posttest (identical to the pretest) to all three sections of the course. Regarding the main effect of video on cultural knowledge over time, posttest scores (regardless of culture type) were significantly higher than pretest scores. Regarding the kind of culture learned, students scored significantly higher on little “c” items than big “C” items on both the pretest and posttest. Throughout the semester, the investigators also administered tests to the students immediately after viewing each weekly video. Test items pertained to cultural information embedded in the videos. Students did significantly better on little “c” items than on big “C” items on the postvideo quizzes. Finally, that study assessed students’ perceptions of how much culture was presented in the videos and how much of that amount they thought they had learned. Students thought that more little “c” than big “C” culture was presented. They also thought that they had learned more little “c” than big “C” from the video. The investigators concluded that the video-based curriculum did effectively teach cultural information, in particular, patterns of behavior.

RATIONALE FOR THE CURRENT STUDY This study addresses unanswered issues concerning the effectiveness of using video-based materials to teach culture to FL students. First, the present research is designed to determine whether first semester students of French, that is, students with no or virtually no prior experience in French, improve their overall cultural knowledge from viewing French videos. Previous research did not address the effectiveness of video to teach culture to novice learners. Second, the present study examines 398

CALICO Journal

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie whether beginning French students retain more little “c” culture than big “C” culture from the FiA video-based curriculum (described in detail below). The investigators expected students to recall more little “c” than big “C” on the pre/posttest and the postvideo quizzes (based on evidence from the Herron et al. study, 1999). However, the differences in the studies’ samples, especially regarding participants’ previous background in French, did not allow for the formulation of a definite directional hypothesis in favor of either type of culture. Third, this study investigates students’ ability to respond orally to a dramatic, culturally authentic situation, that is, a situation that contains a cultural crisis. A cultural crisis is an encounter between a native speaker and a foreigner in which there is a potential for a cross-cultural misunderstanding because, as Caroll (1990, p. 3) has pointed out, “As soon as there is contact with another culture, there is potential for conflict.” Herron et al. (1999) concluded their research with the hope that future studies would include an assessment of students’ oral performance of cultural knowledge. The present study responds to their call by investigating FL students’ ability to transfer cultural information from a video to a “real life” situation. Finally, this study assesses students’ perceptions of how much little “c” and big “C” culture is presented in the FiA videos and how much they thought they learned over the course of the semester. Perhaps novice learners of French concentrate more on the aesthetic details of big “C” culture embedded in the videos than on the anthropological aspects of little “c” culture since “high-brow” culture is what they are expecting to learn in a college foreign language classroom. Or perhaps, similar to the Herron et al. (1999) findings, novice learners of French think that they learn more from the videos about the patterns of daily living in France than they do about French artistic and institutional endeavors. The current study again explores the relation between student perceptions and actual learning.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS The purpose of this study is to investigate the following research questions: 1. Does beginning French students’ overall knowledge of French culture improve over the course of one semester when exposed to a video-based curriculum? 2. Do beginning French students retain more little “c” or big “C” culture when exposed to culture embedded in a video-based curriculum? 3. Is there a significant difference for beginning French students between the short-term retention of little “c” and big “C” culture immediately after watching each video? Volume 17 Number 3

399

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture 4. Are beginning students able to respond orally in a foreign language in a culturally appropriate manner when they face a cultural situation referred to in the narrative of the instructional videos? 5. What are beginning students’ perceptions of how much little “c” and big “C” culture is presented in the videos they watch, and what are their perceptions of how much of that cultural information is learned?

METHODOLOGY Participants

Participants in the study were 50 students (18 males [36%] and 32 females [64%]) enrolled in four sections of a 15-week, first-semester French course at a mid-size private university. Four different teachers were teaching the four sections; only one was a native speaker of the language. Classes were taught the same days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday). Of the 50 participants, 19 were freshmen (38%), 9 were sophomores (18%), 7 were juniors (14%), 9 were seniors (18%), 5 were graduate students (10%), and 1 was an alumnus who graduated the previous Spring (2%). Twenty-nine students (58%) never had French before while 21 (42%) had taken between one and five semesters (M = 2.10, SD = .92) of French prior to the class. No student had previously been exposed to FiA. Twelve students (24%) had no previous background in another foreign language (all of them however were among the 21 students who reported having taken French classes before). Thirty-eight students (76%) had experience in another foreign language (9 of them also had experience in French). Forty-five out of 50 students provided information on whether or not they had previously traveled to France. Of these 45, 28 (62%) reported that they had never visited France before. Of the 17 (38%) that reported prior travel to France, 8 went for a week or less and 9 went for a duration of two to four weeks.

General Classroom Procedures

The FiA package was the instructional program for all four sections. FiA uses a planned immersion approach to teaching foreign languages. In other words, students are plunged into the French language through a storyline that, though scripted, exposes them to both authentic language and authentic situations. The language spoken by the actors proceeds at a normal pace, but the care with which the script has been written reveals a 400

CALICO Journal

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie logically sequenced way of teaching the language. Beyond merely teaching the language, one of the strengths of FiA is its staging of authentic cultural situations whereby students can witness how native speakers of French interact within their own cultural world. Traditional grammatical exercises are relegated to workbook activities completed outside of class with the assistance of an audiotape. In class, in addition to viewing and discussing the FiA videos, students are involved in communicative oral and small-group activities including role-playing and contextualized structural drills. Weekly quizzes are administered to assess students’ knowledge of the weekly video and principal linguistic structures.

Target Videos

The study included eight target videos: videos 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 (listed both in the order in which they appear in the FiA series and in which they were taught). During the fall semester, four classes participated in the experiment. Each class watched the same video on the same day.

Teaching Procedures

All four sections followed the same procedure: the video of the week was shown in class on the same day without interruption. That viewing was the first time all students in the four sections saw the new video. The teachers provided no introductory remarks about the video. The students watched the 10-minute teleplay in its entirety and did not take notes while watching. After this initial viewing, no further discussion took place during that particular class session about the video. Following this initial inclass viewing, students were free to watch the videos outside of class in the language laboratory. The following week, teachers also replayed the video in class, intervening to check comprehension, before the weekly quiz.

Testing Procedures: Pre- and Posttests

To assess the effect of video on cultural knowledge over time, all students in the four classes took a multiple-choice pretest at the beginning of the semester, prior to watching the first of the target videos. At the end of the semester, after the last of the target videos was shown, an identical posttest was administered. The teachers informed the students that neither the pretest nor the posttest would count toward their final grade in Volume 17 Number 3

401

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture the class. Of the 16 items on the pre/posttest, 8 tested little “c” cultural knowledge, and 8 tested big “C” cultural knowledge. The pre/posttest was constructed based on the cultural information contained in the target videos watched over the course of the semester. Five grammatical items were added at the end of the pretest/posttest to serve as distracters. This pre/posttest design follows the pattern of a testing project by Seelye (1968) designed to assess biculturation of Americans in Latin America. In Seelye’s project, test items reflected two major categories: the first contained the “items that are associated with the ability to function in a society” (little “c” culture) and the second one “items that measure knowledge not overtly associated with functioning in a society” (big “C”). Questions that are “based on abstract or implicit patterns of which the native is not aware” and “erudite academic knowledge” are placed in the big “C” category (cited in Seelye, 1994, pp. 216-217). In the current study, little “c” culture and big “C” culture had to be operationally defined to build the questions. Little “c” questions pertained to the ability to function in a society (e.g.., communication in a cultural context, social patterns, and conventions); big “C” questions reflected situations with social institutions (e.g., education, government, transportation, religion), history, geography, national products, literature and fine arts. When constructing the current pre/posttest, the validity of each cultural pattern or information was documented with three independent sources, as suggested by Seelye (1994). All three experts were natives of France and could therefore be considered well grounded in the target culture. Once the test had been designed, correction was completely objective. (For multiple choice pretesting of cultural information, see Seelye, 1994, p.219.) Each pre/posttest item consisted of a stem and four possible responses. All of the information on which students were tested could be found in videos 8 through 15. Below are four sample items, two for little “c” and two for big “C.” The correct answers are starred. (See the complete pre/ posttest in Appendix A.) 1. What city is at the very western extremity of France? a. Bordeaux. b. Brest. * c. Paris. d. Brittany.

(Big “C”)

2. What do French children usually do around 4:00 p.m.? a. Eat a snack. * b. Play cards. c. Take a shower. d. Surf the Internet.

(Little “c”)

402

CALICO Journal

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie 3. What are sailors traditionally wearing in case of bad weather? (Little “c”) a. Overalls. b. A black raincoat. c. A beret. d. A yellow slicker. * 4. Why is Pierre Cardin famous? a. He is a painter. b. He is a writer. c. He is a fashion designer. * d. He is a film director.

(Big “C”)

SCORING OF PRE/POSTTEST

Each test item was worth 1 point; incorrect answers received 0 points, and correct answers 1 point. A participant’s pre/posttest score was computed by dividing the total number of points awarded by the total number of points possible. Beside the total score, the little “c” score and the big “C” score were calculated by the same process. The pretest and the posttest were scored in the same manner. Three judges blindly scored students’ responses on the pre- and posttests to establish interjudge accuracy. All three judges scored all pre- and posttests. The interjudge accuracy was 100% on the pretest and 99.8% on the posttest. Once the scoring errors were identified, the data were corrected.

RELIABILITY OF PRE/POSTTEST

To assess the reliability of the pre/posttest instrument, a reliability sample was constituted. This sample consisted of 39 students enrolled in two sections of a first semester Italian class. The reliability sample took the test (pre/posttest) three times. Since these students were not enrolled in a French class, no grammatical distracters were included in the test. The reliability sample took the test for the first time (T1) two weeks after the French students’ pretest, and the second time (T2) ten days later. The goal in this test/retest procedure was to control for possible sequencing effects (Sprinthall, 1997). Finally the reliability sample took the test a third time (T3) a week after the French students took their posttest. All three tests were blindly scored by two judges following the same procedures as the pre/posttest. Interjudge accuracy was 100%. Means and standard deviations for all three tests are presented in Table 1.

Volume 17 Number 3

403

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture Table 1 Reliability Sample—Test Performance, Means (and Standard Deviations) for T1-T3 T1 T2 T3 Little “c” 0.53 (0.24) 0.45 (0.26) 0.52 (0.24) Big “C” 0.34 (0.19) 0.31 (0.22) 0.32 (0.20)

Even though information was collected on 39 students for the reliability sample, 28 actually provided information on each element of the procedure. For reasons of reliability, and even though the results did not differ with respect to the sample size used, the investigator chose to only use these 28 students in the final data analysis. Test performance did not increase from T1 to T2 or from T2 to T3 for little “c” or big “C,” indicating that scores were not biased by reuse of the same test instrument. Pearson correlation coefficients between T1, T2, and T3 for total, little “c,” and big “C” scores are presented in Table 2. Table 2 Reliability Sample—Pearson Correlation Coefficients (n = 28) Test T1 T2 T3 T1 — .28 .54** T1 c2 — .16 .35+ 3 C — .40* .63*** T2

T c C

— — —

— — —

.61** .58*** .56**

Notes. 1 All items, 2 Little “c” items, and 3 Big “C” items. * p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001, + p < .10 For this time frame of the main study (T1-T3), the correlations for total and big “C” scores were statistically significant and there was a marginal significance for little “c.” These results indicate good consistency of the pre/posttest instrument from the beginning to the end of the semester.

Testing Procedures: Postvideo Viewing Tests

To assess the short-term effect on the acquisition of cultural knowledge, students in all four classes took the same test immediately after viewing the new video for the week. This test was a written test and took the form of two multiple-choice questions and two open-ended, short-answer ques404

CALICO Journal

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie tions. The test items could be answered correctly only from information found in the teleplay of the video. Each class had a total of eight postvideo tests. Each student answered a total of four questions for each video, two of them testing little “c” culture, the remaining two testing big “C” culture. For example, the postvideo test for video 8 is found below. The correct answer is starred. Video 8—Postvideo Viewing Test. Multiple Choice Please circle the letter of the correct answer below. 1. Who is called “Monsieur de Cro-Magnon?” (big “C”) a. A famous general. b. A president. c. A prehistoric man. * d. A famous statue. 2. How would a child’s birth typically be announced in France? (little “c”) a. Parents would send birth cards. * b. French people do not announce births in their families. c. The parents of the new child would telephone friends. d. It would be announced in church. Short Answer Please answer the questions below in English, as completely as possible. 3. When French people talk about la Guerre de 40 ‘the War of 40,’ to what are they referring? (big “C”) 4. What outdoor game from the South of France do French people like to play on a sunny afternoon? (little “c”) The teachers handed out the postvideo viewing test immediately after the class had finished watching the video of the week. They asked students to write their answers on the test sheets. All questions were in English, and students wrote their answers in English so as not to confound their cultural knowledge with their skills in writing in the foreign language. Since all participants received the same treatment, this was a completely within-subject experimental design.

SCORING OF POSTVIDEO VIEWING TEST

Each category of culture (little “c” and big “C”) received a separate score that was computed by adding the total number of points awarded for each correct answer and dividing the total points awarded by the total number of points possible. For example, a participant who answered corVolume 17 Number 3

405

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture rectly one question in each cultural category received a score of 0.50 for little “c” and the same score for big “C.” A student who correctly answered both questions on little “c” and none on big “C” received a score of 1.00 for little “c” and 0.00 as a big “C” score. Each postvideo quiz was blindly scored by two judges to establish interjudge reliability. Both judges scored all postvideo quizzes. The interjudge accuracy (for the multiple-choice items) was 100%. The interjudge reliability (for the short answer questions) was 90.7%. Once the mistakes were identified, both judges discussed the correction criteria to identify the source of their disagreement. Based on this discussion, the criteria were refined and made more explicit. Then the postvideo quizzes were integrally rescored according to the new criteria and the appropriate changes were made in the data used for analysis.

Testing Procedure: Oral Cultural Assimilator

At the end of the semester, students were put in a one-on-one cultural situation to which they were asked to react in French in a culturally appropriate manner. This oral test borrowed its form from the concept of the cultural assimilator. The technique of the cultural assimilator was developed by psychologists to facilitate adjustment to another culture (Fiedler, Mitchell & Triandis, 1971). The traditional cultural assimilator places a foreigner into a situation involving target cultural behavior. Each situation or episode gives a description of a “critical incident” of cross-cultural interaction that is usually a common occurrence, for example, a situation that Americans might find puzzling and that they might misinterpret or misunderstand, although that situation would be rather unequivocal for people possessing sufficient knowledge of the culture. After reading the episode, subjects write down what they think went wrong in the episode with which they have been presented. Please note that for the purpose of this investigation, the original format of the cultural assimilator was slightly modified. In this study, the assimilator was in a foreign language. It was not a multiple-choice but an openended item in which there was only one correct answer. The student and the teacher acted out a role-playing situation in the form of a short dialogue (two to three sentences) written in French. The cultural assimilator was set up so that one sentence was pronounced by the student. This sentence contained a blank space. The student had to fill in the blank with the (only) culturally appropriate answer in the given situation. The level of French used in the construction of the investigator-made dialogues took into account the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied in first semester French. (See sample assimilators in Appendix B.) Below is an example of a cultural assimilator, constructed following the model envi406

CALICO Journal

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie sioned by Levno (1977) and incorporating the design modifications (oral and in French) described above. In this example, the student would play the native speaker and the teacher would be the foreigner. Native Speaker:

Tiens, Robert. Est-ce que tu veux voir la Joconde? ‘Say, Robert, do you want to see the Mona Lisa?’ Foreigner: D’accord. Samedi à 15h00. Rendez-vous à l’Arc de Triomphe. ‘OK. Saturday at 3 PM. Meet at the Arc de Triomphe.’ Native Speaker: Impossible! Parce que la Joconde __________. ‘Impossible! Because the Mona Lisa __________.’ If students were to complete this dialog, they should produce the following response: Native Speaker: Impossible! Parce que la Joconde est au Louvre. ‘is in the Louvre’ A set of two questions per category of culture (little “c” and big “C”), that is, a total of four questions, was constructed and each student answered all of them. The cultural information contained in these dialogs can be found in the targeted FiA videos. The test was taken at the end of the semester. Students went individually into the room where their respective instructors were sitting. The instructors handed out a sheet with the four dialogs to the students. They then proceeded to read the introductory paragraph and then immediately began the testing. Due to logistical constraints, the assimilator was not administered to one of the four sections, and only 31 scores could be collected. However, analyses comparing all four sections on the other major study measures revealed no performance differences by section. Each cultural pattern or information was checked by two natives of France and one nonnative speaker (one of the instructors), therefore three persons, as suggested by Seelye (1994). Moreover, each assimilator was pretested by two natives of France.

SCORING OF ORAL CULTURAL ASSIMILATOR

Each answer to the four cultural assimilator questions was worth 1 point. A grid of criteria was constituted for each question, regarding what constituted a right answer. An answer was either totally correct (1 point) or totally incorrect (0 points). Thus, for both types of culture, each participant received a score between 0 and 2 points. Each category of culture (little “c” and big “C”) received a separate score that was computed by adding the total number of students across categories of exposure. For Volume 17 Number 3

407

Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture example, a participant who made one correct utterance in each cultural category received a score 1.00 for little “c” and the same score for big “C.” A student who made two correct utterances in little “c” and zero in big “C” received a score of 2.00 for little “c” and 0.00 as a big “C” score. The instructors recorded students’ answers so that a second judge could score it blindly. Both judges scored all the oral tests and interjudge reliability was thus established (97.5%). Once the mistakes were identified, the discrepant items were rescored.

Testing Procedures: Cultural Questionnaire

At the end of the semester, all students answered a cultural questionnaire. (See the sample culture questionnaire in Appendix C.) At the top of the questionnaire students found a definition of little “c” and big “C” culture to guide them in answering the questions. The questionnaire included open-ended questions asking students for comments about the presentation of Culture/culture in FiA and comments about their learning of Culture/culture from this method. It also questioned the students about their perceptions of the learning of culture as well as their perception on how much culture they thought was presented in their class through FiA. Finally, students answered questions regarding whether they had previous experiences in France or previous exposure to FiA (and, if so, under what circumstances) so as to cross reference this information with that obtained at the beginning of the semester on the general information sheet. Students were also asked for possible exposure to French or other cultures and languages through noneducational settings (e.g., family members, friends, or an extensive stay in another country). Out of 45 students who provided information regarding exposure to a foreign (i.e., nonAmerican) culture, 9 (20.0%) reported having been exposed to French through family or friends, and 14 (31.1%) reported having been significantly exposed to another culture through study programs, family, travel, or work.

SCORING OF QUESTIONNAIRE

All questionnaires were blindly scored by a second judge to establish interjudge reliability. Interjudge accuracy was 97.5%, and interjudge reliability was 93.9%. Once mistakes were identified, those questionnaire items were rescored. With respect to the treatment of the open-ended questions, the criteria to code the data were made more explicit and the questionnaire rescored according to the new criteria.

408

CALICO Journal

C. Herron, S. Dubreil, S. Cole, and C. Corrie RESULTS An initial set of analyses was conducted to assess possible differences between class sections with regard to the main study variables. Chi-square tests for independence were used to assess possible differences between class sections for demographic variables. The sections did not differ in their composition with regard to gender, university status, or background. No student had ever been exposed to French in Action. A series of oneway analyses of variance (ANOVA) was conducted between sections for student outcome on the pretest scores (total score, big “C” culture, and little “c” culture), posttest scores (id.), cumulative postvideo quizzes (id.), and cultural assimilators (id.). There were no significant section differences for student performance (p < .05).

Item Analysis

Prior to assessing the research questions, a set of analyses was conducted to assess item difficulties for the little “c” and big “C” items separately. Analyses were conducted for the pretest, postvideo quizzes, and the assimilator items. To evaluate possible item difficulty between mean scores for the pretest, t-tests for independent samples were conducted. There was initially a significant difference between the mean difficulty for little “c” (M = .57, SD = .17) and big “C” (M = .31, SD = .22) items, t (14) = -2.60, p