Teaching vocabulary items in corpus-based wordlists to university students: comparing the effectiveness of digital and paper-based flashcards

Abstract The present study explored the relative effectiveness of digital flashcards used on smartphone devices when compared with traditional paper-based materials in teaching vocabulary items from recently developed corpus-based general and academic word lists. The participants were 71 English as a foreign language (EFL) students studying at two universities in Iran. Following an initial assessment of vocabulary knowledge (i.e., pretest), the participants were assigned into experimental and control learning conditions based on their own preferences. Those participants in the experimental group used flashcard applications with built-in spaced repetition technology to learn 1,600 general services and 963 academic words. Those in the control group employed traditional paper-based flashcards to learn the same words. The treatment lasted for around five months, and to document learning gains, the participants’ vocabulary knowledge was measured at the end of the academic semester (i.e., posttest). Additionally, a follow-up delayed posttest was administered after around four months to investigate the delayed effects of the treatments. Statistical analysis of the scores obtained by the participants on the vocabulary knowledge tests revealed a main effect for time in both learning conditions. The results also indicated a main effect for learning vocabulary with digital flashcards on mobile devices, and the participants in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in the posttests and delayed posttests. The study provided empirical evidence for the affordances of smartphone devices and digital flashcards for scaffolding significant developments in the vocabulary knowledge of EFL learners, highlighting a number of implications for teaching/learning vocabulary items in corpus-based word lists to university students.