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Evidence for the task-inducedinvolvement construct in incidentalvocabulary acquisition through digitalgamingBarry Lee Reynoldsabcd

a National Taipei University of Technology, Department of English,Taipei, Taiwan;b National Taipei University of Business, Department of AppliedForeign Languages, Taipei, Taiwan;c National Central University, School of Management, Jhongli,Taiwan;d Takming University of Science and Technology, Department ofApplied Foreign Languages, Taipei, TaiwanPublished online: 26 Aug 2014.

To cite this article: Barry Lee Reynolds (2014): Evidence for the task-induced involvementconstruct in incidental vocabulary acquisition through digital gaming, The Language LearningJournal, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2014.938243

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2014.938243

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Evidence for the task-induced involvement construct in incidentalvocabulary acquisition through digital gaming

Barry Lee Reynolds*

National Taipei University of Technology, Department of English, Taipei, Taiwan; National TaipeiUniversity of Business, Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Taipei, Taiwan; National CentralUniversity, School of Management, Jhongli, Taiwan; Takming University of Science and Technology,Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Taipei, Taiwan

This article reports on an investigation of the suitability of mobile vocabulary games forinducing a state of incidental vocabulary acquisition. Draw Something, a social digitaldrawing game in which players draw and guess words, was selected as a focus for thisinvestigation. Results from an exploratory factor analysis of the questionnaire datacollected from 92 Taiwanese undergraduate and graduate students found three factorscorresponding to the motivational and cognitive dimensions of the task-inducedinvolvement construct: Need, Evaluation and Search. ANOVA results investigatingparticipants’ perceptions of digital game interactions found participates involvedthemselves in Search the most, followed by Need and finally Evaluation. Investigationresults suggest that other digital games, under the right conditions, may also induceincidental vocabulary acquisition; however, it is suggested that future digital gamedevelopers increase game elements that can further induce Evaluation. This study alsoillustrates how exploratory factor analysis can be used to evaluate other digital gamesin terms of inducing involvement load to encourage incidental vocabulary acquisition,retention and resistance to decay.

Keywords: incidental vocabulary acquisition; digital games; task; involvement;motivation

1. Introduction

Digital gaming exposes second language (L2) learners to intensive form-focused activitiesthat intrinsically induce a state of incidental vocabulary acquisition. Although a teacher canprovide a lexically rich classroom environment, it is not always possible to supply thenecessary repeated exposure to newly encountered vocabulary in order to lead to long-term retention. However, digital gaming, especially with the convenience of mobiledevices, has begun to act as a supplement to traditional language instruction, providing lear-ners with not only exposure to newly encountered words but also enforcement of incremen-tal knowledge of known vocabulary.

Traditionally, any exposure to vocabulary that occurs due to engagement in a task hasbeen referred to as occurring incidentally. In other words, the exposure and likely

© 2014 Association for Language Learning

*Email: barry@cl.ncu.edu.tw. The author is currently at National Yang-Ming University, EducationCenter for Humanities and Social Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan.

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vocabulary acquisition is said to be incidental to the completion of the task, hence the termincidental. Incidental learning is especially important for vocabulary acquisition, since themajority of vocabulary acquired has been claimed to occur incidentally (Nagy and Ander-son 1984; Nagy, Herman and Anderson 1985). Digital gaming, where game implies a‘range of environments and user activity types’, could potentially be one of the mainsources of such incidental exposure to vocabulary, essentially providing L2 learners withample opportunities for repeated vocabulary exposure that needs to take place in order toacquire target language vocabulary (Cornillie, Thorne and Desmet 2012: 246). However,language acquisition research has largely ignored any possible role that digital gamingmay play in the incidental acquisition of vocabulary.

There is a need for researchers to not only investigate whether gaming can be effective atmeeting learning goals set by educators but to try to answer why games are effective atmeeting those goals (Rushby 2012). To bring insights into the probable benefits of digitalgaming for the incidental acquisition of vocabulary, in this article, the task-induced involve-ment construct put forth by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) has been used as a frame to help indetermining if mobile gaming is effective as other tasks, such as extensive pleasurereading, for the incidental acquisition of vocabulary. Draw Something, a social drawinggame in which players draw and guess words, was selected as a focus for this investigationdue to its intense popularity with Taiwanese university students (Zynga, Inc. 2013). It isanticipated that the results of this investigation can be used to provide future digital gamedevelopers with guidelines to ensure the next generation of mobile vocabulary games canfurther meet the needs of L2 learners.

2. Incidental vocabulary acquisition and task-induced involvement

In the context of incidental vocabulary acquisition, learners engaged in a task acquirevocabulary as a by-product. Similarly, Swanborn and de Glopper (1999) define incidentalvocabulary learning as the opposite of intentional vocabulary learning, where ‘[t]he wordincidental implies that the purpose for [task involvement]… does not specificallyprovoke learning or directing attention to the meaning of unknown words’ (262). Huckinand Coady (1999) further point out that:

Incidental learning is not entirely ‘incidental’, as the learner must pay at least some attention toindividual words. However, the amount of attention and the amount of learning varies accord-ing to a number of factors, including context, type of attention, and task demands. (190)

In the incidental vocabulary acquisition research community, ‘incidental’ is not assumed tobe the same as ‘unconscious’; therefore, the term ‘incidental vocabulary acquisition’ issuited to describe situations in which learning is a by-product of the task instead of themain or initial purpose of completing the task (e.g. Hulstijn, Hollander and Greidanus1996; Paribakht and Wesche 1999; Huckin and Coady 1999; Reynolds 2012; Swanbornand de Glopper 1999; Waring and Nation 2004). Bruton, López and Mesa (2011) havesuggested instead of referring to learning as an ‘incidental’ and ‘intentional’ dichotomy,researchers should replace these terms with ‘induced vocabulary salience’. They claimdoing so would allow researchers to focus on external intervention (focusing more onthe task manipulated by the researcher or teacher) rather than how the individual interpretsthe task (focusing on what is going on with the individual learner). Reynolds (2012, 2013)although agreeing that a focus on tasks given to learners is needed, further suggests thatwithout taking into consideration the views of learners, researchers cannot be certain

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interpretation on part of the researchers is truly representative of what is taking place whenlearners are involved in completing a particular task.

Although it is agreed upon by language educators that the majority of vocabulary isacquired incidentally, previous empirical research has shown a large variation in theamount of vocabulary acquired between and within studies (Huckin and Coady 1999;Waring and Nation 2004). To account for the difference in retention of unknown wordsencountered incidentally, Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) introduced the construct of task-induced involvement. This construct includes the motivational and cognitive dimensionsof Need, Search and Evaluation to explain the degree to which unknown words are inciden-tally acquired and resistant to decay:

The Need component is the motivational, non-cognitive dimension of involvement. It is con-cerned with the need to achieve… based on drive to comply with the task requirements,whereby the task requirements can be either externally imposed or self-imposed.… Searchis the attempt to find the meaning of an unknown L2 word or trying to find the L2 wordform expressing a concept… by consulting a dictionary or another authority.… Evaluationentails a comparison of a given word with other words, a specific meaning of a word withits other meanings, or combining the word with other words in order to assess whether aword… does or does not fit its context. (14)

Under this construct, like tasks, digital games can also be evaluated for their effectiveness ininducing incidental vocabulary acquisition. Awell-developed digital vocabulary game willbe self-selected by learners and motivating enough for learners to continue game play,thereby inducing the Need component; Search will be induced if learners are motivatedto obtain further information regarding unknown vocabulary encountered during gameplay; and Evaluation will be induced if learners are motivated to go outside the game toexploit newly acquired words.

2.1. Digital game-based learning as incidental learning

Digital game-based learning is one form of incidental learning in that the learner is engagedin game play and not focused on learning; however, through game play a learner willacquire language knowledge incidentally (Fotouhi-Ghazvini et al. 2009). In fact, bothfirst language (L1) and L2 classroom reading research has shown the benefits of incidentallearning for vocabulary growth, in that it is considered by educators as a more practical sol-ution to providing learners a route to obtaining an extensive target language vocabulary(Nagy 1997; Nagy and Anderson 1984; Nagy et al. 1987; Nagy et al. 1985). Thus, manyeducators advocate extensive reading as a means of incidental L1 and L2 vocabularygrowth simply because there is not enough class time to individually teach every vocabu-lary word needed to become fluent in a language (Krashen 2001). Still, there has been adebate on whether one can truly acquire all the vocabulary needed to be proficient in anL2 through extensive reading alone (Cobb 2007, 2008; McQuillan and Krashen 2008).

Extensive digital gaming might be even more effective at inducing incidental learningin that learners may already be engaged in digital gaming as an after school activity andwould therefore not need to make learning adjustments. Sylvén and Sundqvist (2012),investigating 11–12 young English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ extracurricularactivity involvement, found them playing digital games an average of 2.6 hr. a week, spend-ing more time on game play than other media consumption such as the Internet (1.2 hours)or books (0.1 hours). Moreover, their study results showed a positive correlation betweendigital gaming and vocabulary acquisition with more frequent gamers having acquired a

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greater amount of vocabulary than moderate or non-gamers. Sylvén and Sundqvist (2012)go on to suggest that educators should take advantage of student involvement in extramuraldigital gaming by constructing related homework or tasks to encourage language acqui-sition. Unfortunately it is not always the case that educators take advantage of such self-modified informal learning of English. Toffoli and Sockett (2013), for example, surveyed30 professors of English in French universities to determine whether they were aware oftheir students’ online informal learning of English and whether this knowledge affected pro-fessors’ language instruction. Results of the survey analysis suggested that the professorswere aware of the types of input that learners received but they made little use of this knowl-edge in their classrooms. Toffoli and Sockett (2013) suggest educators begin to take noticeof informal learning of English or risk missing out on preparing students for communicativeopportunities they may encounter outside the classroom.

The discussion of the benefits of gaming has included both ‘off-the-shelf’ games withtheir initial purpose intended strictly for entertainment as well as ‘edutainment’ titles target-ing an education market (Cornillie et al. 2012: 246). Some argue that off-the-shelf titles aresuperior in providing natural and context rich language experiences (Purushotma 2005).This preference for off-the-shelf games can partially be attributed to their incorporationof a communicative element in which players exchange information during conversationalturn taking and make adjustments to negotiate meaning, a process necessary for languageacquisition (Long 2003). Thorne, Black and Sykes (2009: 815) claim ‘participation in thesesemiotically mediated communities may help to strengthen the ecological linkages betweenforms of language use and identity dispositions developed within instructed L2 settings andcommunicative pursuits associated with other life contexts’. Moreover, from a practicalpoint of view, off-the-shelf titles may be easier for language educators to incorporate intotheir classrooms because they have not been designed with specific learning goals inmind. In fact, Godwin-Jones (2005: 20) specifically encourages language educators toapply to digital games what they have done in the past by ‘us[ing] technologies andtools intended for other uses to create richer opportunities for language learning’.

Although the research is sparse, some language researchers have used off-the-shelfgames to investigate how effective gaming can be in encouraging the incidental acquisitionof L2 vocabulary. DeHaan (2005: 278) found after one month of game play a subject wasable to improve Japanese ‘listening comprehension and kanji character recognition byplaying a Japanese baseball video game’. DeHaan (2005, 278) attributed the languagegrowth to ‘ … the video game’s repetitive, highly contextualized, and simultaneously pre-sented aural and textual language’. Anderson et al. (2008), selecting the free for downloadAmerica’s Army game, compared the vocabulary retention of one group of students that wasprovided direct instruction of vocabulary words taken from the game to a second group thatsimply played the game. They found no significant difference in the acquisition of targetvocabulary for the two groups of students involved in their study. These results led themto conclude that digital games should be used to supplement regular classroom-basedlanguage learning, since they can be just as effective as direct instruction. Purushotma(2005: 86) using the popular contextually rich The Sims game as an example shows howit ‘provides repeated interactive exposures to words, and automatically generates rich con-texts for associations’. In addition to vocabulary exposure provided during game play, TheSims allows for easy game module editing. This means an educator with minimal computerskills could modify a game interface so that textual interaction is provided bilingually, in agloss-like method. This not only allows for more exposure to the target language but thisalso gives learners the chance to ‘play’ with the language in a way that they may be lessinclined to do in formal language settings. Ranalli (2008) used The Sims along with

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vocabulary exercises in a classroom-based study to determine how learners would react tolearning vocabulary through gaming. Results showed that combining game play along withaccess to game play instructions, dictionary and cultural notes yielded significantly highervocabulary gains than cultural notes and dictionary access or instructions only. Althoughstudents did respond positively towards learning through game play, some complainedthat they felt not enough exposure to the vocabulary was made available through gameplay. Ranalli (2008) concludes that gaming is effective for vocabulary learning but suggeststhat educators should encourage gaming for additional vocabulary acquisition instead ofaiming to teach specific vocabulary through gaming.

Other language researchers have designed their own games with the intent to measurewhether the learning effects through gaming would bring about different results than tra-ditional direct vocabulary instruction. Fotouhi-Ghazvini et al. (2009) developed an adventuregame called MOBO City to determine whether game play would be an effective method forIranian graduate students to learn computer motherboard technical terminology. The player ofMOBO Citymanipulates an on-screen character in order to have dialogues with other charac-ters in the virtual world to complete goals and win. The game is meant to represent a metaphorof a computer motherboard where the main goals are to get data safely through the mother-board to a monitor. The 15 graduate students involved in their study were equally split intotwo control groups and one experimental group. The first group was given an essay onmotherboard usage that incorporated an unmarked set of 45 technical vocabulary words;the second group was given the set of technical vocabulary words and a dictionary andtold to memorise the meanings and spellings of the words; and the third group was told toplay the game that, unbeknownst to the players, contained the set of technical vocabulary.Afterwards all three groups were administered the same vocabulary meaning and spellingtest. Their results showed that students who intentionally memorised the spellings and mean-ings outperformed the incidental reading group that read the article incorporating the set oftechnical vocabulary. Furthermore, the incidental game group outperformed the other twogroups on the meaning test but only outperformed the incidental reading group on the spellingtest. Fotouhi-Ghazvini et al. (2009) suggest that the reason for the higher gains in vocabularyof the game group was due to their being engaged until the educational goals were achieved.Follow-up interviews with the students showed that those who read found the task very chal-lenging, students that used the dictionary for intentional learning considered the task boringand the students who simply played the game enjoyed themselves. The results of Fotouhi-Ghazvini et al. (2009) indicate that game play may be just as effective as direct instructionfor the acquisition of vocabulary meaning, with the added incentive of game-based learningbeing considered more enjoyable. McGraw, Yoshimoto and Seneff (2009) also developed agame, Word War, in which flash cards, normally something associated with explicit learning,became incidental to the game goals. In this study the retention results of 30 vocabulary wordsfor 13 learners of Chinese as a foreign language were compared based on the method ofexposure provided by the game: (1) traditional flash card game (intentional learning); (2) aspeaking mode, in which the user issued spoken commands to manipulate the game cards(intentional learning); and (3) a listening mode, in which the computer gives spoken directionsthat the students must follow by manipulating the cards manually with the mouse (incidentallearning). Although there was no significant difference between the three modes of learning,the mean scores for the listening mode were higher than the other two game modes. Theresults of their study indicate that the amount of incidentally acquired vocabulary was not sig-nificantly higher than that of the intentionally acquired vocabulary.

Although the idea of incidental acquisition of vocabulary through gaming has not beenthoroughly investigated in the literature, the preliminary results of the few studies that have

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attempted some comparison to direct instruction are quite impressive. So far there is noproof that gaming is more effective than direct instruction, yet the results of studies seemto indicate they are just as effective as direct instruction. Furthermore, learners seem toenjoy gaming more so than direct instruction. This result coincides with the view heldby Krashen (1994), who proclaimed free reading is such an effective method of languageacquisition due to the pleasure of reading; he refers to this as the Pleasure Hypothesis. ThePleasure Hypothesis claims that:

… those activities that are good for language acquisition are usually perceived by acquirers aspleasant, while those activities that are not good for language acquisition are not consistentlyperceived as pleasant, and are, in fact, often perceived to be painful. (Krashen, 1994: 299)

As with free reading, free gaming can also be a pleasurable experience encouraging the inci-dental acquisition of vocabulary.

2.2. Purpose

The study drew on a sample of Taiwanese university students that engaged in mobile voca-bulary game play simply for the sake of the ‘fun factor’ to gain insights on what aspects ofsuch games makes them effective at inducing a state of incidental vocabulary acquisition.These Taiwanese learners played the game for entertainment, not for learning vocabulary;therefore, any initial vocabulary acquisition was assumed to have occurred incidentally.Furthermore, the task-induced involvement construct was used as a frame to measure therelative effectiveness of the popular mobile social drawing game, Draw Something, at indu-cing a state of incidental vocabulary learning. Since this game has been found to be popularwith Taiwanese university students, the results of this investigation will provide futuredigital game developers with guidelines for mobile vocabulary game construction. Thetwo following research questions guided the investigation:

(1) What underlying factors induce incidental vocabulary acquisition through gaming?(2) The presence of which factor is more likely to induce the incidental acquisition of

vocabulary through gaming as perceived by Taiwanese university students?

2.3. Draw Something

Draw Something is a social drawing game available as a free download from the Apple AppStore or Google Play. Players can be found by linking the game to their social media accountor phone contacts (see Figure 1). The object of the game is for two players to guess whateach other has drawn by selecting letters from a number of tiles on the screen (see Figure 2).Player A, the ‘drawer’ after selecting a friend from their friend list, will be given a selectionof three words to draw. The words represent three levels of difficulty: easy, medium and hard(see Figure 3). After selecting a word, the drawer will be prompted to begin a drawing thatrepresents the chosen word (see Figure 4). A recording of the drawing, including all erases,will be made and sent to Player B, the ‘guesser’. Before sending the recording to the guesser,the game allows the drawer the option of sending a 100-character message to the ‘guesser’,which will only be displayed after the object has been correctly identified (see Figure 5). Therecording of the drawing will be played to the guesser who attempts to guess the word that isrepresented by the drawing. No restrictions are made on what can be drawn or the length oftime for drawing or guessing. Once the guesser has identified the drawer’s object, the

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guesser also has the option of sending a 100-charactermessage to the drawer. Then the roleswillbe reversed. The drawer will then be rewarded a number of coins depending on the level of thedifficulty of the word selected. The coins can be used to purchase colour pallets or bombs.Bombs can be used to remove unused letters when guessing and expands word selection fordrawing. Coins can be used to purchase bombs and coins can also be purchased with real cur-rency. This continues and the game keeps track of the number of turns that have occurredbetween the two players (see Figure 6). Players are encouraged to win badges by drawing anumber of thematically related words (see Figure 7). Although the words selected fordrawing are all in English, the user interface allows for a number of languages to be displayed.

3. Research methods and materials

3.1. Participants

A multistage cluster sampling method was used to locate participants. First, out of a pool of50 universities in Taipei, Taiwan, six were drawn. Then, two English classes from each of

Figure 1. Players can be found by linking the game to a social media account or phone contacts.Reproduced with kind permission © 2014 Zynga Inc.

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the six universities were randomly selected. In the final stage, the questionnaire was admi-nistered to students enrolled in the 12 classes. Permission from a number of facultymembers at universities was granted to administer the questionnaires at the end of classperiods. Participation was voluntary and respondents were assured anonymity. Amongthe 520 students in the sampled classes, a total of 92 (64 = undergraduates; 28 = graduates;28 = males; 64 = females) were suitable to complete the questionnaire. The players’ averagelength of studying EFL was 12 years. Their average length of Draw Something game playwas eight weeks and their average length of game play per week was three hours.

3.2. Materials

A set of steps was followed during the construction of the questionnaire. First, 10 Taiwaneseuniversity student players ofDraw Somethingwere recruited for unstructured interviews con-ducted in Chinese to gain insights regarding their game play. The general purpose of the inter-views was to understand how Taiwanese students interacted during game play. The players’perceptions of Draw Something were thus elicited from the interviews. Then the transcribed

Figure 2. The object of the game is for two players to guess what each other has drawn by selectingletters from a number of tiles. Reproduced with kind permission © 2014 Zynga Inc.

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responses during the interviews were discussed and examination of the interview transcriptsfurther revealed a tendency for users to consult external sources during game play. Followingthis and other discoveries, the interview responses were grouped together to help in forming18 questions informed by the task-induced involvement construct related to game play (seeTable 1). In other words, the questionnaire was developed based on the actual opinions ofa sample from the population recruited for this study. Developing a questionnaire based onthe responses gained during an unstructured open-ended interview is an acceptable practice(Dörnyei 2003). Moreover, such a process can provide data that is qualitative and exploratoryin nature to aid in questionnaire construction (Yabukoshi and Takeuchi 2009).

The 18-item questionnaire developed for the current study was constructed to gaininsights regarding game play with a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Dis-agree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). In addition to the items, bio data including sex, age, education,length of studying EFL, length of game play and frequency of game play was collected.A Chinese translation of the questionnaire was used to ensure participants’ clear under-standing of the item descriptions. A native Chinese-speaking professor in the field of

Figure 3. Words represent three levels of difficulty: easy, medium and hard. Reproduced with kindpermission © 2014 Zynga Inc.

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digital learning checked the Chinese-version questionnaire. After the design, two expertswho have research experiences in computer assisted language learning reviewed the ques-tionnaire items. The agreement among experts for the item descriptions reached 100%. Thewhole procedure was conducted to ensure the content validity of the questionnaire.

4. Data analysis

4.1. Results

An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to discover factors. Before the factor analysis,data should be evaluated whether they are suitable for factor analysis. The results showedthat KMO is .653 and Bartlett’s test of Sphericity reached a significant level. This means thedata in the current study is suitable for the factor analysis (Kaiser 1974). In the factor analysis,themethod of Principal Component was used for factor extraction and themethod of ‘Varimax’was used for factor rotation. After the first factor analysis, two question items were deleted andthree factors were found. According to Tabachnick and Fidell (2007), the acceptable loading

Figure 4. After selecting a word, the drawer will be prompted to begin a drawing that represents thechosen word. Reproduced with kind permission © 2014 Zynga Inc.

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factor should be between .32 and .71 and factors should be able to explain more than 50% var-iance of the observed variable. The three factors extracted in this study can explain 54.422% ofvariance and the loading factors are all within acceptable range as shown in Table 2. The initialEigen values showed that thefirst factor (Need) explained29%of the variance, the second factor(Evaluation) 15.543% of the variance and a third factor (Search) 9.88% of the variance.

After the factor analysis, reliability analysis was performed to ensure the reliability ofthe extracted factors. According to Field (2005) and Nunnally (1978), the reliability coeffi-cient should be more than 0.7 and the data is reliable. The Cronbach’s a is calculated tomeasure the reliability of the three factors in this study. It was found that the three reliabilitycoefficients in these factors were more than 0.7 as shown in Table 3.

To investigate which factor was induced significantly more than the others duringgame play as perceived by the Taiwanese university students, a one-way ANOVAwas applied. The results shown in Table 4 indicate Factor 3: Search was induced themost (M = 4.120; SD = .772), followed by Factor 1: Need (M = 3.573; SD = .684) andfinally Factor 2: Evaluation (M = 3.130; SD = .729).

Figure 5. Draw Something allows the drawer the option of sending a 100-character message to theguesser. Reproduced with kind permission © 2014 Zynga Inc.

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5. Discussion

5.1. What underlying factors induce incidental vocabulary acquisition throughgaming?

The factor analysis performed on the questionnaire responses from the Taiwanese univer-sity students found three factors inducing incidental vocabulary acquisition throughgaming. The three factors match the motivational and cognitive dimensions of the task-induced involvement construct: Need, Evaluation and Search.

During the game play of Draw Something, Need was induced through the intrinsicallymotivating task of drawing as well as the extrinsically motivating reward of game coins thatcould further be used to buy colour pallets to enhance drawings. Search was inducedthrough players’ intentional selection of unknown words to acquire coins and theirsearch for the meanings of selected unknown words through web searches or referencingdictionaries. Lastly Evaluation was induced when players attempted to use the newlylearned words to construct sentences, confirm meanings through dictionary/web referen-cing and communicating with other players about those unknown words.

Figure 6. Draw Something keeps track of the number of turns that have occurred between the twoplayers. Reproduced with kind permission © 2014 Zynga Inc.

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The analysis of the questionnaire data obtained from the Taiwanese university studentsindicate the mobile game Draw Something does support the motivational and cognitivedimensions of the task-induced involvement construct. This result further indicates thatlike reading, gaming can also be a means of inducing a state of incidental vocabulary learn-ing. The exploratory factor analysis illustrates how other vocabulary games too can be eval-uated in terms of inducing involvement load to encourage vocabulary acquisition, retentionand resistance to decay.

5.2. The presence of which factor is more likely to induce the incidental acquisitionof vocabulary through gaming as perceived by Taiwanese university students?

The loading of each factor of the task-induced involvement construct can vary. Laufer andHulstijn (2001: 15) define involvement load as ‘the combination of the presence or absenceof the involvement factors Need, Search, and Evaluation’. Laufer and Hulstijn (2001: 17)further claim ‘teacher/researcher-designed tasks with a higher involvement load will be

Figure 7. Players are encouraged to win badges by drawing a number of thematically related words.Reproduced with kind permission © 2014 Zynga Inc.

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more effective for vocabulary retention than tasks with a lower involvement load’. Like-wise, digital games that are designed with a higher involvement load will be more effectivefor vocabulary retention. All three factors do not need to be present or equal in their loading;

Table 1. Summary table of descriptive statistics (N = 92).

Items M SD

1. I choose hard words that are rewarded with three coins. 3.71 1.082. I choose harder words in order to get more coins. 3.61 1.143. If the turn number is high, I will try harder to guess the word. 3.83 1.044. If the turn number is high, I will try harder to draw better. 3.68 1.025. I choose medium words that are rewarded with two coins. 3.57 .876. If I cannot guess a word, shuffling the letters makes me want to try again. 3.61 1.157. I choose words I do not know. 2.95 1.118. After guessing a word correctly, I do a web search for the word. 3.19 1.129. After guessing a word correctly, I check an online dictionary. 3.29 1.1410. After drawing a word, I try to use the word in a sentence. 2.76 1.0211. After guessing a word, I try to use the word in a sentence. 2.84 1.0312. Watching the recording of my drawing helps me remember the word. 3.00 .9713. Watching the recording of the other player drawing helps me remember the word. 3.28 .9414. After guessing a word correctly, I communicate with the other player. 3.53 1.1215. If I cannot guess a word, I check an online dictionary. 4.38 .8716. If I cannot guess a word, I do a web search. 4.31 .8717. I choose words I do not know and do a web search before drawing. 3.84 1.0518. I choose words I do not know and check an online dictionary before drawing. 3.93 1.01

Table 2. Summary table of factor analysis.

Items 1 2 3

I choose hard words that are rewarded with three coins. .686 .060 .164I choose harder words in order to get more coins. .623 .022 .282If the turn number is high, I will try harder to guess the word. .531 .167 .117If the turn number is high, I will try harder to draw better. .529 .163 .115I choose medium words that are rewarded with two coins. .472 .044 −.022If I cannot guess a word, shuffling the letters makes me want to try again. .377 .243 .270I choose words I do not know. .352 .289 .240After guessing a word correctly, I do a web search for the word. −.182 .880 .207After guessing a word correctly, I check an online dictionary. −.110 .815 .169After drawing a word, I try to use the word in a sentence. .420 .630 −.228After guessing a word, I try to use the word in a sentence. .380 .619 −.259Watching the recording of my drawing helps me remember the word. .351 .516 −.125Watching the recording of the other player drawing helps me rememberthe word.

.351 .485 −.007

After guessing a word correctly, I communicate with the other player. .262 .304 .126If I cannot guess a word, I check an online dictionary. .051 −.092 .805If I cannot guess a word, I do a web search. .142 .034 .714I choose words I do not know and do a web search before drawing. .514 .199 .634I choose words I do not know and check an online dictionary beforedrawing.

.495 .012 .502

Eigen values 5.220 2.798 1.778% of variance 29.000 15.543 9.880Cumulative % 29.000 44.542 54.422

Note: Bold face type indicates items with higher loadings.

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however, if all are present and their loading is high, this is more likely to result in higherlevels of vocabulary acquisition that are more resistant to decay.

In the case of Draw Something the three factors of the task-induced involvement con-struct were present; however, it was found that Search (M = 4.120; SD = .772; p < .01) wasinduced significantly more than Need and Evaluation. This may be due to the affordanceof mobile devices allowing players to quickly switch between game play and the Inter-net/dictionaries when they needed to locate additional information regarding unknownwords. In a case study, Song and Fox (2008) found equipping three first-year universitystudents with mobile devices encouraged flexible and novel incidental vocabulary learning.The students in their study utilised the mobile devices for more than referencing diction-aries; in fact they began integrating vocabulary learning on the mobile devices with theirPCs.

More research needs to be done to evaluate whether other mobile digital games as wellas desktop digital games will yield similar results. In the research field of incidental voca-bulary acquisition through reading, tasks requiring a more concrete and absolute meaningof unknown words are known to induce Search significantly more (e.g. Hulstijn 1993;Hulstijn et al. 1996). It then is reasonable for a game like Draw Something to induceSearch more than the other factors – game play cannot successfully continue (i.e.,drawing) without a player knowing the concrete and absolute meaning of the word to bedrawn or guessed. This is in fact a good feature that should be incorporated into futuredigital vocabulary games.

If learners can be enticed to not simply ‘skip’ over unknown words or to always select‘known words’ in the case of Draw Something, then this is an indication of a good gamedesign. An examination of questionnaire responses indicate participants were not moreor less likely to select to draw words they did not know (see Table 1, Item 7); however,they did indicate a willingness to select unknown words and then do web searches orconsult dictionaries for their meanings (see Table 1, Item 17 and 18). Search wasinduced in order to continue game play. Moreover, if players could not guess anunknown word given to them by another player, they were also willing to seek meaningsfrom dictionaries or the Web (see Table 1, Item 15 and 16). These results indicate thatDraw Something was successful in motivating players to induce Search to continue

Table 3. Summary table of reliability analysis.

Reliability Coefficient

Factor 1: Need .760Factor 2: Evaluation .818Factor 3: Search .818

Table 4. Summary table of one-way ANOVA.

Source of variance SS df MS F η2

Between A 45.171 1.707 26.468 66.229** .421Within (error)Within B 13.743 1 13.743 Post hoc comparison: c > a > bResidual (A*B) 62.067 155.305 .400Total 120.981 158.012

Note: **p < .01; a =Need; b = Evaluation; c = Search.

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game play, which also results in an increase in likelihood of vocabulary acquisition andhigher resistance to decay.

Need (M = 3.573; SD = .684; p < .01) was found to be induced significantly less than thatof Search and significantly more than Evaluation. When referring to tasks given by teachers,Need would be the least important in terms of encouraging incidental vocabulary acquisitionbecause Need can often be induced just from the extrinsic motivation offered by tasks beingclass assignments. However, like self-selected reading materials, self-selected games increaseintrinsic motivation. A digital game must be entertaining enough to induce the Need of theplayer enough to become engaged in game play. In the case ofDraw Something, the question-naire results indicate elements of the game such as being able to boast about a high playnumber on a leaderboard and being rewarded with coins appear to have induced Need.Despite that, this result is a reflection of interview outcomes used to construct the question-naire items. Other motivational factors could have also influenced Need but were unable to beshown by the questionnaire. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) proposed by Deci and Ryan(1985) proclaims that people’s needs and motivations are dynamic under certain social con-texts. From this point of view, people’s motivations will be driven by three psychologicalneeds: competence, autonomy and relatedness (Ryan and Deci 2000). SDT has also beenapplied to the domain of education in order to tap into what motivational factors can influencethe performance of students. Future research should consider incorporating questionnaireitems that elicit information regarding other motivating factors besides those specific toDraw Something or the game under investigation.

As indicated by the responses to the questionnaire, Evaluation was induced the leastduring game play (M = 3.130; SD = .729; p < .01). This result indicates that players weremore willing to interact with unknown words in a receptive rather than productivemanner. This is not surprising since players most likely sought out the receptive meaningof the unknown vocabulary items before selecting a word to draw, once drawing a wordfor a partner, or guessing a word drawn by one’s partner – in such cases there would beless of a need to consult game-external sources for word meanings. Some of the itemsgrouped under the Evaluation factor describe actions that players did immediately after around of game play including communicating with other players and writing sentencesabout the previously unknown word. It then appears that more motivating game elementsshould be included in similar vocabulary games to increase the likelihood of Evaluationbeing induced. In the case of Draw Something, coins could be awarded to increaseplayers’ extrinsic motivation to try to use a drawn or guessed word in a sentence.

6. Conclusion

Educational games are beneficial to vocabulary acquisition since the gaming element canoff-set the disengagement that may occur with rote learning, for example, with the use offlash cards or vocabulary lists (Jackson and McNamara 2013). Furthermore, gaming canoften be an effective means of encouraging vocabulary acquisition because of the intrinsicmotivation present for learners already self-engaged in gaming (e.g. Gee 2003, 2007).Likewise, there is an amount of gaming research that has shown a trend for vocabularyacquisition through gaming to be equal to direct instruction (Anderson et al. 2008;Fotouhi-Ghazvini et al. 2009; McGraw et al. 2009). Such research does not claim thatgaming should replace direct instruction; instead, gaming can be viewed as an additionalsource of language input that learners could tap into for vocabulary exposure, allowingfor contextualised and individualised vocabulary learning.

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The current research study is an example of how games can be evaluated for theirsuitability. Previous research has already examined, for example, how different readingtasks have resulted in a difference in vocabulary acquisition in terms of task involvement(Ghorbani and Rahmandoost 2012). Games, like tasks, can be evaluated based on thedegree of Need, Search and Evaluation induced. One may argue that all games that incorpor-ate a language element are useful for incidental vocabulary acquisition, yet how useful oneparticular game can be for inducing vocabulary acquisition depends on the amount of task-induced involvement. The motivation behind the present study was to not only investigatewhether one particular game induces a level of involvement load that leads to one particularlevel of vocabulary acquisition but instead aimed to show how teacher-researchers can beginusing the construct of task-induced involvement to aid in determining game suitability forlearners.

The results of the investigation indicate Draw Something induces the motivational andcognitive dimensions of the task-induced involvement construct, specifically Need, Evalu-ation and Search. This is a good indication that other digital games, under the right con-ditions, may also be supportive of incidental vocabulary acquisition through gaming.This investigation also illustrates how exploratory factor analysis can be used to evaluateother digital games in terms of inducing involvement to encourage vocabulary acquisition,retention and resistance to decay.

The learning of unknown words is directly connected to whether the learner recognisesthat word as being unknown and then decides if the unknown word is worth the time tolearn. When reading texts learners may simply skip over unknown words that they arenot familiar with and will only seek out their meanings if the task at hand requires it(Hulstijn 1993). ‘A crucial question in understanding vocabulary learning is whether reten-tion depends on what one does with a word rather than how often one meets it’ (Laufer andHulstijn 2001: 22). If there is a high degree of involvement in the processing of a word, thenit is likely that this word will be acquired and retained over time. The task of gaming forpleasure is somewhat different than that of reading for pleasure. In the case of Draw Some-thing, without knowing the meaning of an unknown word, game play cannot continue.Under such a scenario the learner will be more likely to activate Search in order toobtain this unknown information to continue game play. This result supports research inwhich a direct connection between the task given to students and the amount of timeinvested in seeking out the meaning of unknown words (Hulstijn 1993; Hulstijn et al.1996). Tasks requiring a greater command of the unknown word will induce a higher invol-vement load. However, results of this investigation also indicate adding game elementsthat further induce Evaluation are still needed to increase involvement load. This is necess-ary to encourage not only the likelihood of acquisition but also retention and decay resist-ance of newly acquired vocabulary. Such digital games as Draw Something appear to bemore likely to induce Search than that of Evaluation. When creating similar digitalgames, developers should incorporate elements that encourage players to go beyondsimply obtaining the meaning of unknown words but also practicing productive vocabularyknowledge.

The initial results of this investigation show a need for both further investigations ofdigital vocabulary games for incidental learning and empirical studies into the incidentalacquisition of vocabulary through gaming. It is suggested that future empirical researchshould investigate the variables of intentional vs incidental learning, self-selected vsassigned digital games and mobile vs desktop digital games in connection with incidentalvocabulary acquisition through digital gaming.

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