A Research Synthesis of L2 Working Memory Measurements

Yukiko Watanabe, SLS

Joara Martin Bergsleithner, NFLRC

Working memory (WM) is a cognitive psychological construct of a mechanism of retrieval and maintenance of information during cognitive processing. Various WM measurements have been created to measure how humans maintain information for a short period of time and efficiently process information. The WM measures in the language learning paradigm are still under debate as to what the measurements are tapping and what the relationships are between the second language (L2) WM capacity and L2 proficiency. This study employed a meta-analytic approach to investigate such relationships by synthesizing empirical studies published between 1985 and 2002. Empirical published studies that use L2 WM measurements were obtained through an electronic search (ERIC, LLBA, Psych Article, and PsychINFO), using ‘working memory’ or ‘short term memory’, and ‘second language learning’ or ‘second language acquisition’ as keywords. The research questions which guide this study are: (a) How do researchers measure L2 WM capacity; and (b) What are the relationships among L2 storage only measurements (e.g. digit, letter, and word span tests), storage plus processing measurements (e.g. reading and listening span tests), and reading/listening comprehension measurements. We believe that the synthesis of previous L2 WM studies and their link to second language acquisition (SLA) research will contribute to a better understanding of how this cognitive mechanism has been measured and analyzed in the literature. The preliminary results of the link between WM and SLA and research practices of WM in the area of SLA will be presented.