Measuring Japanese University Students' Readiness for Second-language Group Work and Its Relation to Willingness to Communicate

Abstract

This study was an investigation of students' Readiness for L2 Group Work and its relationship to Willingness to Communicate in L2 Group Work in a Japanese university. Readiness for L2 Group Work is defined as learners' self-perception of the degree to which they are prepared cognitively and affectively for L2 group work. It consists of Communication Confidence in L2 Group Work and Beliefs about L2 Group Work. Two versions of the same questionnaire were administered to approximately 750 students with two English proficiency levels in the Communication and the Language and Culture courses at the beginning and end of the 2005 spring semester. A factor analysis identified six factors: Communication Apprehension in L2 Group Work, Self-perceived Communicative Confidence in L2 Group Work, Positive Beliefs about the Value of Group Work, Negative Traditional Instruction Orientation, Beliefs of Group Work Usefulness, and Willingness to Communicate in L2 Group Work. First, the descriptive statistics and the 2 × 2 ANOVA results for both questionnaires showed that the Communication course students had significantly higher Readiness for L2 Group Work than the Language and Culture students. However, there was also a statistically significant Level and Course interaction, which was caused by the lower proficiency Communication course students who displayed higher Radiness for L2 Group Work than their higher proficiency counterparts, and the higher proficiency Language and Culture students who showed higher Readiness for L2 Group Work than their lower proficiency counterparts. Second, the mixed between-within-subjects ANOVA results showed that the participants had significantly higher Readiness for L2 Group Work at the end than at the beginning of the course. The Level and Course interaction was statistically significant for the same reason as mentioned above. Finally, structural equation modeling showed that Willingness to Communicate in L2 Group Work was influenced by Beliefs about L2 Group Work via Communication Confidence in L2 Group Work. This study contributes a new concept, Readiness for L2 Group Work, to the group work literature. Further, the structural model specifies the relationship between Readiness for L2 Group Work and Willingness to Communicate in L2 Group Work.