Abstract
This chapter summarizes the findings from Chaps. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Seven studies were reported that evaluated the sensitivity of size, speed, and consistency to differences in proficiency and performance in domains of academic English. Key findings are identified.
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Notes
- 1.
The VKsize score is an indirect measure of the individual’s vocabulary size. A very rough estimate of what a VKsize score of 70 represents as overall vocabulary size can be calculated by taking 70% of 10,000, which is the word range sampled in almost all the tests here. That would be a minimum of 7000 words. Note this is based on the unlikely assumption that the false-alarm rate adjusts the hit rate exactly for the actual size. The individual will also know some words beyond the 10K level, but it will be a steadily diminishing percentage of these, maybe an additional 1500 words, for a total of 8500 words. This is a rough estimate of the actual size, and given that only four frequency bands are sampled, one that is closer to a guess than an estimate. For more precise estimation, the Vocabulary Size Test, which samples each level from 1K to 15K, is superior (Beglar 2010).
- 2.
Study 2 also had a much slower L1 group (M = 960) compared with the baseline L1 group in Study 1 (M = 777).
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Harrington, M. (2018). The Effect of Lexical Facility. In: Lexical Facility. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37262-8_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37262-8_11
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