Impacts of an Information and Communication Technology-Assisted Program on Attitudes and English Communication Abilities: An Experiment in a Japanese High School

Yuki Higuchi, Miyuki Sasaki () and Makiko Nakamuro ()
Additional contact information
Miyuki Sasaki: Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, Japan. E-mail:
Makiko Nakamuro: Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University, Japan. E-mail:

Asian Development Review, 2020, vol. 37, issue 2, 100-133

Abstract: We conducted a randomized experiment targeting 322 Japanese high school students to examine the impacts of a newly developed English-language learning program. The treated students were offered an opportunity to communicate for 25 minutes with English-speaking Filipino teachers via Skype several times a week over a 5-month period as an extracurricular activity. The results show that the Skype program increased the interest of the treated students in an international vocation and in foreign affairs. However, the students did not improve their English communication abilities, as measured by standardized tests, probably because of the program's low utilization rate. Further investigation showed that the utilization rate was particularly low among students demonstrating a tendency to procrastinate. These results suggest the importance of maintaining students’ motivation to keep using such information and communication technology-assisted learning programs if they are not already incorporated into the existing curriculum. Having procrastinators self-regulate may be especially crucial.

Keywords: Japan; learning English; procrastination; randomized controlled trial; Skype (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 H40 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/adev_a_00151 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:adbadr:v:37:y:2020:i:2:p:100-133

Access Statistics for this article

Asian Development Review is currently edited by Yasuyuki Sawada and Naoyuki Yoshino

More articles in Asian Development Review from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().