Are Bilinguals at an Advantage in Metalinguistic Awareness? A Meta-Analysis

Dominique Hyler Author

04/05/2021 Added

44 Plays

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The purpose of this research was to see if bilinguals students are at an advantage in metalinguistic awareness over monolingual students.

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[00:00:01.130]Hello, my name is Dominique Hyler.
[00:00:03.020]And today I will be recording
[00:00:06.430]about the project that I got to work on
[00:00:09.540]during the school year for Ucare.
[00:00:14.417]Are Bilinguals at an Advantage in Metalinguistic Awareness?
[00:00:17.450]A Meta-Analysis.
[00:00:22.530]Meta analysis is a concept of combining
[00:00:24.760]different scientific studies addressing the same question.
[00:00:29.000]In our case, our purpose was to see
[00:00:30.980]the effect of bilingualism in metalinguistic awareness.
[00:00:35.610]But individual studies have limitations.
[00:00:38.250]For example, they tend to have small sample sizes.
[00:00:44.640]Also only one type of metalinguistic awareness measured use
[00:00:48.640]among other things.
[00:00:50.020]Therefore, the major benefits to do a meta-analysis
[00:00:53.620]is to provide many studies with different sample sizes
[00:00:56.770]and overcome the limitations of individual studies.
[00:01:06.100]So what is metalinguistic awareness?
[00:01:08.860]Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to reflect
[00:01:11.270]and understand how we use oral and written language.
[00:01:14.790]Many researchers have found some differences
[00:01:17.400]between bilinguals and monolingual students
[00:01:21.810]in metalinguistic awareness.
[00:01:23.860]While working on this project, we focused on students' age,
[00:01:29.030]age of acquisition of second language.
[00:01:31.890]What are the languages that are spoken,
[00:01:33.870]for example, at home or growing up bilingual
[00:01:39.000]in the community or at school.
[00:01:41.830]We also focused on the socio-economic status
[00:01:45.280]among other things.
[00:01:47.520]These are all principles to take into consideration
[00:01:51.836]when understanding how metalinguistic awareness develops.
[00:01:55.970]An example of metalinguistic awareness
[00:01:57.970]is being able to analyze rules for how we use language.
[00:02:02.460]From a theoretical perspective, We might assume
[00:02:06.510]that bilinguals have a better advantage than monolinguals
[00:02:09.450]because having to think and manipulate language
[00:02:12.260]in two different languages
[00:02:15.480]might give them better opportunities to practice more
[00:02:21.090]how to interpret word meanings in more than one language.
[00:02:25.070]So bilinguals, for example, will always be able
[00:02:30.210]to think critically and organize written and oral language
[00:02:38.110]in different languages.
[00:02:40.680]So therefore the metalinguistic awareness
[00:02:43.960]maybe just a little bit better.
[00:02:47.670]So the purpose of this study was to do meta-analysis
[00:02:51.440]to examine the average effect
[00:02:54.250]of bilingualism on metalinguistic awareness.
[00:03:04.580]So some of our methods.
[00:03:06.700]We searched through different
[00:03:09.040]education and psychology databases
[00:03:14.310]using these search terms and inclusion criteria.
[00:03:20.470]Based on a result of our search,
[00:03:21.990]we evaluated each study to see if they met our criteria.
[00:03:27.690]So some of the search words are listed here.
[00:03:32.210]And then some of the main things that we focused on
[00:03:34.670]on our inclusion criteria were both monolingual
[00:03:39.210]and bilingual participants had to be included.
[00:03:44.270]The studies also had to include
[00:03:46.350]a measure of metalinguistic awareness.
[00:03:48.500]For example, phonological awareness,
[00:03:52.110]morphological awareness, and grammatically judgment.
[00:03:56.470]The studies also had to have a typical sample
[00:03:59.560]excluding deaf participants
[00:04:01.650]or students with learning disabilities.
[00:04:05.230]And then the study also had to have reported
[00:04:07.350]quantitative data and were available in English.
[00:04:14.570]So after we kind of filtered
[00:04:16.850]and read through all the inclusion criteria,
[00:04:21.120]we ended up with 77 studies.
[00:04:29.389]With those studies, we 611 effect sizes.
[00:04:37.210]So we ended up with 77 studies.
[00:04:40.150]For each of the studies, we read and extracted
[00:04:42.490]specific information about bilinguals
[00:04:44.690]such as age of acquisition, where studies took place,
[00:04:48.680]socio-economic status, their age, et cetera.
[00:04:52.330]So that's how we coded the articles,
[00:04:56.700]or excuse me, the studies.
[00:04:58.700]And in our inter-rater reliability of twenty-five percent
[00:05:01.680]of studies where 95.6% agreement.
[00:05:05.520]So that was a pretty high reliability percentage
[00:05:11.100]when we coded the project.
[00:05:20.400]So overall, do we think bilinguals
[00:05:22.920]have a metalinguistic awareness?
[00:05:24.690]Although no overall effect was proved,
[00:05:28.580]there were a few significant moderators
[00:05:30.570]that showed specific situations
[00:05:32.240]in which the bilinguals advantage emerged.
[00:05:35.570]So overall there isn't a difference,
[00:05:38.190]but we were able to focus and see different moderators
[00:05:42.720]that kind of showed a little bit more advantage
[00:05:45.890]than monolingual students.
[00:05:50.280]So for example, bilinguals tested in their first language
[00:05:53.820]showed an advantage in metalinguistic awareness.
[00:05:57.250]And I think this goes back to what I had said earlier
[00:06:02.740]how bilingual students have a better opportunity
[00:06:07.210]to practice more than one language.
[00:06:09.460]So therefore they are able to receive different languages
[00:06:15.380]and organize their meanings
[00:06:18.490]and how we use language in multiple languages.
[00:06:22.270]So therefore there might just have a better understanding
[00:06:26.420]when they're tested in their first language.
[00:06:28.600]On the other hand, monolinguals showed an advantage
[00:06:31.050]in metalinguistic awareness when bilinguals were tested
[00:06:33.670]in their second language, which that makes complete sense.
[00:06:37.980]Obviously, if students are being tested
[00:06:39.980]in their second language,
[00:06:41.930]they're gonna not be able to understand the test as well.
[00:06:49.000]Another moderator that we noticed had an effect difference
[00:06:55.420]were bilinguals were at a slight advantage
[00:06:57.760]when the tests were unstandardized
[00:07:00.290]whereas monolinguals were at an advantage
[00:07:02.550]when tests were standardized.
[00:07:05.930]So some of the things we pointed out were that bilinguals
[00:07:08.597]who tested in their first language
[00:07:10.173]show an advantage in metalinguistic awareness.
[00:07:12.660]And this goes back to what I have discussed earlier
[00:07:15.400]about how bilinguals might have a better understanding
[00:07:18.270]of word meaning since they get to practice it
[00:07:20.540]in more than one language.
[00:07:22.600]So overall, with this project,
[00:07:25.450]we weren't able to see any significant differences
[00:07:28.570]but there were enough moderators to show
[00:07:34.780]a significant advantage when it came to bilinguals
[00:07:38.956]and metalinguistic awareness.
[00:07:45.200]Again, thank you for your time.
[00:07:46.810]My name is Dominique Hyler.
[00:07:48.720]And thank you.

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Are Bilinguals at an Advantage in Metalinguistic Awareness? A Meta-Analysis​

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