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Farkhondeh Mirzaei

April 9, 2022

MA thesis critical review

The Impact of Rule-based vs. Memory-based Learning on Iranian EFL Learner’s

Performance in Grammar Multiple Choice Achievement Tests

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Usually, an introduction is expected at the very start, but in this research paper we

see a jump start into the main idea of the entire research, we have the purpose right in the

start which is not exactly how we should start, “The present study investigated the effect

of rule-based versus memory-based learning on Iranian intermediate EFL learner’s

grammar performance on multiple-choice achievement tests.” This shows clearly that the

first move is not followed very thoroughly, hence there is no creativity, and much general

background is given, “The theoretical framework of the communicatively-oriented

approach of the present study was based upon Krashen’s (1981) Input Hypothesis and

Natural Approach which stated that to acquire a second language successfully, L2

learners need to be exposed to comprehensible input and be motivated to acquire L2

proficiency” as I mentioned before leaped onto the purpose.

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The second movie to be considered is narrowing down, which originally means:

general to specific, but in this research document we see the opposite, we move from

“rule-based learning, concept, mostly known as model-based learning, in this regard,

bears a close relationship with that of the explicit knowledge” and “memory-based is

consistent with theories of implicit learning” to what we normally define as broad topic:

grammar, “As one of the burning topics in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT),

grammar has received a significant attention regarding its role in mastery of the

language.” Therefore, we can say another move is not followed consistently, in other

words, the second move is gone downwards – up.

In the known section, we start with a small history and general background from

the field of study, which is grammar, “role of grammar, …………For advocates of such

methods, therefore, learning a language meant learning its grammar.” The paragraph

continues about the facts of grammar history, but only to become more specific about the

field of research, “the natural acquisition of grammatical rules through meaning-focused

communicative practice. Following this, when the language teaching inclined towards

the development of the communicational skills, it was even suggested that teaching

grammar was not only unhelpful but might be detrimental as well.” A smooth movement

is made at the end of the paragraph towards the gap, “The controversy has always been

whether grammar should be taught explicitly through a formal presentation of

grammatical rules or implicitly through natural exposure to meaningful language use.”

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The unknown is not mentioned directly, there are more facts provided on the

bases of the research, “In line with the benefits of grammar teaching and to fulfill this

purpose, a plethora of techniques ranging from very explicit to very implicit ones were

used.” In this paragraph, there are many more facts presented than anything unknown,

“the learners utilize two different knowledge sources to guide behavior within the

complicated cognitive tasks. One source, known as model-based (rule-based) processing,

is built on their explicit conceptual representation of the task (Johnson-Laird, 1982),

whereas the second, memory-based processing, draws on the automatic abstraction of

the resembling patterns using individual experiences with the task.”

And the final paragraph, states the purpose of the entire research, “The present

study examined the effect of rule-based as compared to that of the memory-based

learning in performance of proficiency tests of Iranian EFL language learners.”

A point worth mentioning is the frequent repetition of the purpose of the study

throughout the research document, “Correspondingly, the present study attempted to

examine the effect of rule-based vs. memory-based learning approach on Iranian

intermediate EFL learner’s grammar performance on multiple-choice achievement

tests.”

“Hence, in line with the present study’s focus, resorting to rule-based and memory-based

learning can be of assistance in L2 grammar performance.”

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“The present study investigated the effect of rule-based versus memory-based learning

on Iranian intermediate EFL learner’s grammar performance on multiple-choice

achievement tests.”

“The present study examined the effect of rule-based as compared to that of the memory-

based learning in performance of proficiency tests of Iranian EFL language learners.”

1.2 Statement of the problem

The language used is quite sophisticated, and there is no clear path as to what you

should find the facts provided have quite a strong background, but the information is not

very straight forward you need to poke and prod a lot to realize what is the ideal situation

or perfection the researcher is voting for, “suggested that being proficient about the

grammatical structures of a certain language is very significant because grammatical

competence is recognized to be equal to being fluent in communicative skills.”

Although a good amount of the reality is reflected in this piece, “Because grammar plays

a pivotal role in L2 learning, the learners from time to time find the meaningful,

accurate, and appropriate performance in the given system problematic, and this, to

some extent, descends from rote-learning of the forms which is defined as "a mechanical

way of learning without thought of meaning" (Biggs, 1997, p.1).”

But as for consequence, not much information is provided on what exactly happens, if the

reality is checked.

The statement of the problem should not be ambiguous, but this statement almost feels

ambiguous. Aside from the gap which is directly mentioned “, an instructional gap in
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teaching and learning of the grammar has been marked by the researcher.”, the rest is a

treasure hunt.

1.3 Significance of the study

As it is known to most professionals in the academic field, this section should talk

about how research is going to help the field of study theoretically and practically.

Practicality and the theoretical basis of the research are explained rather descriptively and

those who shall benefit from this research and what they shall benefit from are mentioned

too, “This paper exclusively explored the impact of rule-based and memory-based

grammar in language learning, and the practical effect of ignoring grammar teaching to

reposition grammar teaching for a comprehensive understanding of the necessity of

teaching grammar. This way, the teachers would be able to benefit from the results of

this study to provide the best sorts of activities which benefit the learners’ mastery of

grammatical forms whether by more of a rule-based or memory-based knowledge

sources.” One point to mention is the absence of any sort of citation in the entire section,

it was all written by the researchers themselves.

1.4 Purpose of the study

There is no individual section for the mentioning the purpose of the study, but we

can account for a paragraph in the significance section to be passed as the purpose, “This

paper exclusively explored the impact of rule-based and memory-based grammar in

language learning and the practical effect of ignoring grammar teaching to reposition
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grammar teaching for a comprehensive understanding of the necessity of teaching

grammar.”

1.5 Research questions & hypothesis

The research question and hypothesis must be consistent with the design of the study

and the methodology adopted. A good research question must be researchable and

suitable for the researcher. This research is trying to find answers through experimenting;

therefore, we can consider the search to be quasi-experimental, hence we expect to see

experimental research questions, which usually cause and effect questions like the ones

presented in this research,

“RQ 1: Does rule-based versus memory-based learning similarly affect Iranians

EFL learners’ performance on multiple-choice achievement tests?”

As for the hypothesis, a null hypothesis is presented, which shows the research is not

qualitative it’s quantitative, the latter type of research needs informative questions, hence

yes/no questions are a possibility. Therefore, we can write a null hypothesis for

quantitative research,

“H01: there is no statistically significant difference between the grammar

performance of the rule-based group and memory-based group.”

1.5 Limitations and Delimitations of the Study

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The researcher provides limitations confronted while researching some are shortly

mentioned, “The first limitation was the choice of sampling.” while the rest are explained

in depth what the limitation was and how it may have caused problems, “The second

limitation was the scope of the study on the part of the researcher which was done

through a convenient one. This was done as a result of the rules and regulations of the

language schools which hardly ever grant the permission of running classes due to

customer satisfaction terms.”

“multiple-item test is not generally adaptable to measuring specific learning feedbacks

such as these items: organizing personal thoughts, producing original ideas, providing

examples, and deliberating explanation.”

Pointers are given as to how to eliminate these difficulties, “such feedback would

be obtained and better measured through short answers or open-ended questions. Also, a

well-written multiple-choice test is hard and time-consuming compared with other types

of tests. Thinking……….”

For delimitation, we see two features one is the research basis itself, “The present

study only measured the grammatical performance of the intermediate learners through

rule-based (explicit) and memory-based (implicit) learning.” The second delimitation

was what the research didn’t seem fit to follow, “Furthermore, the construct of the age

was not controlled either and could be notified as to the last delimitation of the present

study.”

1.6 Definition of Key Terms

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Defining key terms requires two categories to be met, one is the theoretical

definition which is usually a direct quotation, mostly followed by the page number.

The second characteristic of this section is the operational definition; how it’s going

to be used in the respective research context.

In this thesis, operational definition is not directly mentioned, but the reader can

understand the reason for its presence in the context this could be due to the type of

the terms chosen to define, “Grammar refers to the system and structure of a

language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and

morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics”

(Ellis, 2002; p. 84).”

2. Literature review

This section is to the point and the author was giving background information to

the reader by making it contextualize. The author has brought in up-to-date, acceptable,

and topic-related citations and references. Both the theoretical and Empirical aspects

were followed the variables are divided into separate parts and all the related variables

are brought together under different titles the variables are divided under many titles, it

was better if the ones related would come together under one related title, also a good

point here is the use of images, graphs, etc. This makes understanding the facts much

easier and less monotonous. In the empirical section, we have a lot of research related to

the field of study all are cited and not very old, but the amount of related research

presented makes it very lengthy all in all it’s very worthy.

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3. Method

A short briefing is given under design and variable to show the pathway the study

shall be taken, the instruments needed, variables present and to be tested, the groups that

shall be formed for the best results are all mentioned, and a short detail is given on how

everything is going to be used and what can be expected.

3.1 Participants

As mentioned previously, age was a delimitation in this study, hence it is not

mentioned, the number of participants for each gender is again not mentioned, which

could be because it was not considered a variable we can say some of the necessary

information is provided in this section, “The sample in the present study included 40

intermediate EFL learners including male and females who were selected from an

estimated population of almost 60 based on a placement test, in a private language

institute in Tehran.” except the proficiency of the participants, which was better to be

mentioned so we could at least have an idea on what level the participants fall into.

3.2 Instruments

The instruments used are Oxford Placement Test (OPT) Version 2, Teacher-made

Grammar Achievement Pre-test, and Teacher-made Grammar Achievement Post-test.

The number of sessions for the research is mentioned, and when the pre-test and post-test

were taken are mentioned. The amount of time allotted to each session is mentioned, and

what shall be discussed in each session. For each of the instruments used a detailed

explanation was provided for the test and why they choose this method of testing.

3.2 Procedure
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The stages of the procedure are mentioned in-depth with the help of pictures to

make a clearer understanding for the reader while reading and also for the future

references,

“The placement test was administrated to the language learners to sample out the

participants of intermediate proficiency level for further procedures. As for the

placement test, which only studied participants at intermediate level, the listening section

of the placement test…..”

“Prior to the main sessions of the instruction a pre-test of grammar structures including

items of grammatical functions, which was designed by the researcher, was administered

and the results were collected for further comparisons.”

“A posttest of grammatical structures equivalent to that of the pretest was designed and

administered to the learners to compare the results and measure their gain in terms of

both rule-based and memory-based grammar achievement.”

“After analyzing the course books that were being studied by the participants of the

present study, the grammatical functions which fell under the intermediate category

based on the Common European Framework of Reference, were selected to be instructed

under two rule-based and memory-based learning conditions.”

3.3 Data Analysis

In this section, we learn about how the researcher will analyze the data they have found

throughout the data collection procedures they talk about the tools they shall use to find

answers and test the hypothesis they made “The two types of statistics were used in the

present study. First, descriptive statistics were used to explore the sample characteristics
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such as the mean, mode, variance, and standard deviation and skewness to enable the

researcher display and describe under the study. Also some graphs were used to display

the groups graphically. Second, inferential statistics were used to compare two means of

the two groups. To have inter-group comparison an independent sample t-test was

employed to test the hypothesis, to find out whether the difference between the two

groups was statistically significant.”

4. Results

This section starts with a flashback of what has happened during the methodology, what

was sought in the research question and hypothesis, and next it introduces the software

used to analyze the data. “As previously mentioned, 40 students were randomly selected

and grouped into two experimental (20 participants) and control (20 participants)

categories. At first, they were requested to take the 60-item multiple-alternative pre-test

the results of which were pretty similar in both groups……..” In detail, all the statistical

data is provided with the use of tables and graphs. A result was finalized to prove the

hypothesis, “This indicated the success of the recommended approach. Though

participants in both groups showed better performance compared with their scores

obtained in pre-test, the students working in experimental group were considerably at a

higher position in comparison to the students in control group.” In the conclusion all the

necessary variables are mentioned.

6. References

The format followed was APA 7th edition for the following reasons,

i) No country or city name was mentioned.

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a) Brown, H.D. (2000). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (4th ed.), San

Francisco: Longman.

ii) The journal was italicized, and the starting letters were capitalized,

a) Ellis, R. (2014). Grammar teaching for language learning. The Journal of

Language Teaching and Learning, 2(14), 10-15.

iii) Volume number, issue number, etc, were all italicized

a) Ellis, R. (1988). The role of practice in classroom language learning. AILA

Review, 5(1), 20-39.