The effect of using mobile applications on literal and contextual vocabulary instruction

Abstract

Abstract
Smartphones have been an indispensable part of our lives and function in all fields of life effectively. Mobile applications, which are one of the core components of smartphones, are the main agent in integration of smartphones into education. After the mobile applications started to be used for educational purposes, a radical change took place in the nature of education. With the contribution of mobile applications, education has turned out to be more individualized, ubiquitous, learner-centred and, disquietly, uncontrolled. Language learning is highly affected by this prevalent impact of the mobile applications and vocabulary applications have taken the lead in number in application markets. This study aimed to find out the effectiveness of mobile applications on contextual and literal vocabulary instruction. 84 university freshman students were chosen as the participants of the study. The participants were divided into two groups as literal and contextual vocabulary instruction group, 42 in each. A four-week training session was administered to both groups using the particular vocabulary apps that comply with the necessity of the groups. The data obtained were analysed with Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15. Consequently, it was found out that both groups showed improvements in their post-test scores, but literal instruction group outperformed the contextual instruction group. Along with this finding, some recommendations were made for further studies.