Poster Presentation
A Longitudinal Study of Time on Task
and TOEIC Scores
Dubhgan Hinchey

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and TechnologyIntroduction
Demographic change in Japan is compelling many universities to relax admission
standards, or even move to an open enrollment policy in order to fill available
seats (Kinmonth, 2005). Consequently, teachers are challenged to improvestudents’ TOIEC scores while being supplied with students of continual lower
English ability. Krashen (2008) suggests that more exposure to comprehensible
input in the form of extensive reading is one way to help students with low levelsof English language abilities improve their English. Previous work in Japan
has attempted to find correlations between increases in TOEIC scores withextensive reading programs. Nishizawa, Yoshioka, & Fukuda (2010) found “astrong correlation between their [students’] TOEIC scores and the amount ofreading” (p. 637) over their 4-year extensive reading program. Mason (2013)
followed three adult learners doing voluntary extensive reading. Over a periodof several months, the three students showed substantial gains in TOEIC scores.
This paper tracks the total time on task that 20 Japanese engineering students
at a graduate school spent outside of class involved in the study of English andchanges in their TOEIC scores. Time on task was calculated from the use ofiKnow!, EnglishCentral, and a local installation of the Moodle Reader Module.

Rationale
When embarking on an extensive reading program, a central question is howto ensure that students comprehend a majority of the English texts they read.
Ideally, students should be able to understand 95% or more of the vocabulary
117

Hincheyin these texts, enabling students to incidentally learn vocabulary as they read(Nation, 2001). Unfortunately, it is very difficult to assess individual student’s
vocabulary comprehension in a timely and economical way. Hence, iKnow!
(iknow.jp) and EnglishCentral (www.englishcentral.com) were utilized to allow
students to scaffold newly met vocabulary in the texts they were reading. Given
that iKnow!, EnglishCentral, and graded readers are all levelled by vocabularyfrequency, it is logical to assume that students will meet the same vocabularymultiple times. For example, students reading a Cengage Foundations Level 1or equivalent book (word count: 525) will also encounter the same vocabulary
in the iKnow! Eikaiwa Master 1000 Core 1 list of 200 words and in videos
denoted as “easy” in EnglishCentral. Consequently, students could achieve the95% vocabulary coverage, enabling fluent reading from the sufficient vocabulary
support of iKnow! or EnglishCentral, support that is not just limited to meetinga vocabulary item for the first time, but includes regular recycling and expansionof depth of vocabulary knowledge.

Methods
Depending on which class students were enrolled in, they had a choice of twoor more online tasks. For the Basic English course, students were encouraged touse iKnow!, a Web-based spaced repetition software, and a local installation ofthe extensive reading Moodle Reader Module. Students of the Introduction to
English course were required to use EnglishCentral, a Web-based, pronunciationand spaced repetition software to collect 2000 points (78 minutes) a week, andalso to pass two graded readers quizzes (a minimum score of 70% was requiredto pass) in Moodle Reader per week. Eighteen of the twenty students in thetracked group completed the Basic English course in 15 weeks and then moved
on to the subsequent Introduction to English course for an additional 15 weeks.
All students sat a TOIEC IP exam at the beginning of the Basic English course
in April and another exam 120 days later.
Time on task was calculated for each online task. Six self-selected students
recorded the time required to read one graded reader at their current readinglevel. From the six students an overall average reading speed (book word count118A Study of Time on Task, OnCUE Journal, 7(2), pages 117-120

divided by time) of 65 words per minute was applied to the group of twenty
students. The total word count of each student from Moodle Reader Module
was then divided by 65 words per minute to determine the total number ofminutes spent reading. EnglishCentral displays the percentage of the weekly
assignment completed for each student. In this study the weekly assignment wascalculated by EnglishCentral for students to need 78 minutes to achieve 100percent. Similarly, iKnow! tracks student use of the service in minutes. Reportswere downloaded from both services for the duration of the study.

Results
Ninety percent of the students that were enrolled completed the two
introductory English classes over 3 months. Total time on task was thencorrelated with the change in TOEIC scores over the same 3-month period. The
result of a Spearman Rank Correlation was a non-monotonic relationship with acorrelation coefficient of 0.324060. Therefore, the relationship between time ontask and change in TOEIC was not statistically significant. However, the averageof the two groups suggests that, with a larger sample, statistical significance could
be proven. This is supported by the finding that the cohort of 10 students who
displayed the greatest improvement in TOEIC score (average 122 points / 71hours on task) spent twice the time on task as the cohort of 10 students with theleast TOEIC improvement (average 33 points, 35 hours on task).
Three students who had completed both courses had unexpected negativechanges in their TOEIC scores. Interviews with these subjects revealed that they
were extremely fatigued or ill at the time they took the second TOEIC test in August.

Discussion
This paper shows that, with online services, it is possible to find how much time
students are spending on the tasks assigned to them outside of class time. It isworth noting that of the 20 students, six spent over 71 hours on task, with twostudents above 100 hours of study. While there was no correlation between timeon task and TOEIC improvement, the cohort with the greatest improvement,
122 points, is encouraging.
Although the sample size of this paper (N = 20) was small, the results do119

Hincheysuggest further research with larger groups of students and comparing thedifferent tasks to TOIEC improvement. It would be expected that time on task
data at six months and one year later would most likely yield results that are more
conclusive. Data is currently being collected on the subjects of this paper who arecontinuing to self-study.

References
Kinmonth, E. H. (2005). From selection to seduction: The impact ofdemographic change on private higher education in Japan. In J. S. Eades, R.
Goodman, and Y. Hada (Eds.), The ‘Big Bang’ in Japanese higher education(pp.106-135). Melbourne, Australia: Trans Pacific Press.
Krashen, S. (2008). Language education past, present and future. RELC
Journal, 39(2), 178-187.
Mason, B. (2013). The case of Mr. Kashihara: Another case of substantial gains
in reading and listening without output or grammar study. Shitenno-ji
Daigaku Kiyou [Shitenno-ji Temple University Bulletin ], 56. Retrieved
from http://www.shitennoji.ac.jp/ibu/toshokan/kiyou/056.html
Nation, I. S. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge,England: Cambridge University Press.
Nishizawa, H., Yoshioka, T., & Fukada, M. (2010). The impact of a 4-year extensive
reading program. In A. M. Stoke (Ed.), JALT2009 Conference Proceedings (pp.
632-640). Tokyo: JALT.

Author’s bio
Dubhgan Hinchey has taught English in Japan for over 10 years. He is a researchlecturer at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology where he is thewriting lab coordinator and Moodle online courseware administrator. His researchinterests include e-learning platforms, content management systems and extensive
reading. dhinchey@jaist.ac.jp
Received: October 1, 2013
Accepted: February 18, 2014120