Student Survey and Questionnaire

We gave students as much time as they needed to look up the words on List A. In practice, this was about ten minutes. This was to let students get used to the particular PD or ED they would use in the test. The actual test didn't begin until all students felt comfortable with their dictionary.

Then, we gave the PD students copies of List B and the ED students copies of List C, face down. At the start command, they turned over their papers and looked up each word in order. They were told not to take time to read any definitions. As each student finished the list, she raised her hand, and we recorded the time taken.

Finally, when all the students had finished, they changed places with a student in the other group, leaving the dictionaries and the word lists, face down, on their desks. They then looked up the ten words on the other list with the other type of dictionary.

The experiment was repeated with several first year English conversation classes.