Elicited imitation as a measure of second language proficiency: A narrative review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Elicited imitation (EI) has been widely used to examine second language (L2) proficiency and development and was an especially popular method in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, as the field embraced more communicative approaches to both instruction and assessment, the use of EI diminished, and the construct-related validity of EI scores as a representation of language proficiency was called into question. Current uses of EI, while not discounting the importance of communicative activities and assessments, tend to focus on the importance of processing and automaticity. This study presents a systematic review of EI in an effort to clarify the construct and usefulness of EI tasks in L2 research.The review underwent two phases: a narrative review and a meta-analysis. We surveyed 76 theoretical and empirical studies from 1970 to 2014, to investigate the use of EI in particular with respect to the research/assessment context and task features. The results of the narrative review provided a theoretical basis for the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis utilized 24 independent effect sizes based on 1089 participants obtained from 21 studies. To investigate evidence of constructrelated validity for EI, we examined the following: (1) the ability of EI scores to distinguish speakers

A Measure of Proficiency or Short‐Term Memory? Validation of an Elicited Imitation Test for SLA Research

“…Results of RQ3 showed that the only significant predictor of item difficulty was sentence length, accounting for almost 45% of the variance in EIT scores. This finding supports the results of Yan et al.’s () recent meta‐analysis which showed that “EI tasks with varied sentence length will more likely match the ability of speakers with different proficiency levels” (p. 26). The regression model was also in line with the findings from Graham et al.…”

“…Next, a hierarchical multiple regression was run to determine to what extent the selected features predicted variance in EIT scores. Based on previous literature demonstrating the importance of sentence length in determining item difficulty (e.g., Yan et al., ), the number of syllables variable was entered first in block 1 and the number of embedded clauses and vocabulary scores variables were entered together in block 2. The hierarchical regression yielded a significant model, F (1, 28) = 22.807, p < .001 r = .670, r 2 = .449.…”

“…As mentioned previously, research focusing on the use of EITs as measures of L2 proficiency has found sentence length to be a strong predictor of item difficulty (e.g., Graham et al., ; Hendrickson et al., ; Ortega et al., ). Findings from Yan et al.’s () meta‐analysis also demonstrated that sentence length was one of three task features that best distinguishes EIT performance across proficiency levels, in addition to nature of construct (e.g., general language proficiency, implicit knowledge) and scoring method (e.g., ordinal rating scales).…”

“…The potential of EITs as a measure of oral proficiency was addressed early on in Naiman () and Hameyer (); in a recent narrative review and meta‐analysis, Yan et al. () identified 76 studies from 1970–2014 that utilized EITs to measure global proficiency or particular aspects of L2 proficiency. Only 21 of those studies, however, met all the inclusion criteria for the meta‐analysis, which examined the construct‐related validity of EITs.…”

“…Yan et al. () found that insertion of a delay “did not show a significant moderating effect on the sensitivity of EI” (p. 26) but are cautious in their interpretation of this finding as some studies in their meta‐analysis may have included a pause but did not report it.…”