vocabulary used in research papers

50 Useful Academic Words & Phrases for Research

Like all good writing, writing an academic paper takes a certain level of skill to express your ideas and arguments in a way that is natural and that meets a level of academic sophistication. The terms, expressions, and phrases you use in your research paper must be of an appropriate level to be submitted to academic journals.

Therefore, authors need to know which verbs , nouns , and phrases to apply to create a paper that is not only easy to understand, but which conveys an understanding of academic conventions. Using the correct terminology and usage shows journal editors and fellow researchers that you are a competent writer and thinker, while using non-academic language might make them question your writing ability, as well as your critical reasoning skills.

What are academic words and phrases?

One way to understand what constitutes good academic writing is to read a lot of published research to find patterns of usage in different contexts. However, it may take an author countless hours of reading and might not be the most helpful advice when faced with an upcoming deadline on a manuscript draft.

Briefly, “academic” language includes terms, phrases, expressions, transitions, and sometimes symbols and abbreviations that help the pieces of an academic text fit together. When writing an academic text–whether it is a book report, annotated bibliography, research paper, research poster, lab report, research proposal, thesis, or manuscript for publication–authors must follow academic writing conventions. You can often find handy academic writing tips and guidelines by consulting the style manual of the text you are writing (i.e., APA Style , MLA Style , or Chicago Style ).

However, sometimes it can be helpful to have a list of academic words and expressions like the ones in this article to use as a “cheat sheet” for substituting the better term in a given context.

How to Choose the Best Academic Terms

You can think of writing “academically” as writing in a way that conveys one’s meaning effectively but concisely. For instance, while the term “take a look at” is a perfectly fine way to express an action in everyday English, a term like “analyze” would certainly be more suitable in most academic contexts. It takes up fewer words on the page and is used much more often in published academic papers.

You can use one handy guideline when choosing the most academic term: When faced with a choice between two different terms, use the Latinate version of the term. Here is a brief list of common verbs versus their academic counterparts:

Although this can be a useful tip to help academic authors, it can be difficult to memorize dozens of Latinate verbs. Using an AI paraphrasing tool or proofreading tool can help you instantly find more appropriate academic terms, so consider using such revision tools while you draft to improve your writing.

Top 50 Words and Phrases for Different Sections in a Research Paper

The “Latinate verb rule” is just one tool in your arsenal of academic writing, and there are many more out there. But to make the process of finding academic language a bit easier for you, we have compiled a list of 50 vital academic words and phrases, divided into specific categories and use cases, each with an explanation and contextual example.

Best Words and Phrases to use in an Introduction section

1. historically.

An adverb used to indicate a time perspective, especially when describing the background of a given topic.

2. In recent years

A temporal marker emphasizing recent developments, often used at the very beginning of your Introduction section.

3. It is widely acknowledged that

A “form phrase” indicating a broad consensus among researchers and/or the general public. Often used in the literature review section to build upon a foundation of established scientific knowledge.

4. There has been growing interest in

Highlights increasing attention to a topic and tells the reader why your study might be important to this field of research.

5. Preliminary observations indicate

Shares early insights or findings while hedging on making any definitive conclusions. Modal verbs like may , might , and could are often used with this expression.

6. This study aims to

Describes the goal of the research and is a form phrase very often used in the research objective or even the hypothesis of a research paper .

7. Despite its significance

Highlights the importance of a matter that might be overlooked. It is also frequently used in the rationale of the study section to show how your study’s aim and scope build on previous studies.

8. While numerous studies have focused on

Indicates the existing body of work on a topic while pointing to the shortcomings of certain aspects of that research. Helps focus the reader on the question, “What is missing from our knowledge of this topic?” This is often used alongside the statement of the problem in research papers.

9. The purpose of this research is

A form phrase that directly states the aim of the study.

10. The question arises (about/whether)

Poses a query or research problem statement for the reader to acknowledge.

Best Words and Phrases for Clarifying Information

11. in other words.

Introduces a synopsis or the rephrasing of a statement for clarity. This is often used in the Discussion section statement to explain the implications of the study .

12. That is to say

Provides clarification, similar to “in other words.”

13. To put it simply

Simplifies a complex idea, often for a more general readership.

14. To clarify

Specifically indicates to the reader a direct elaboration of a previous point.

15. More specifically

Narrows down a general statement from a broader one. Often used in the Discussion section to clarify the meaning of a specific result.

16. To elaborate

Expands on a point made previously.

17. In detail

Indicates a deeper dive into information.

Points out specifics. Similar meaning to “specifically” or “especially.”

19. This means that

Explains implications and/or interprets the meaning of the Results section .

20. Moreover

Expands a prior point to a broader one that shows the greater context or wider argument.

Best Words and Phrases for Giving Examples

21. for instance.

Provides a specific case that fits into the point being made.

22. As an illustration

Demonstrates a point in full or in part.

23. To illustrate

Shows a clear picture of the point being made.

24. For example

Presents a particular instance. Same meaning as “for instance.”

25. Such as

Lists specifics that comprise a broader category or assertion being made.

26. Including

Offers examples as part of a larger list.

27. Notably

Adverb highlighting an important example. Similar meaning to “especially.”

28. Especially

Adverb that emphasizes a significant instance.

29. In particular

Draws attention to a specific point.

30. To name a few

Indicates examples than previously mentioned are about to be named.

Best Words and Phrases for Comparing and Contrasting

31. however.

Introduces a contrasting idea.

32. On the other hand

Highlights an alternative view or fact.

33. Conversely

Indicates an opposing or reversed idea to the one just mentioned.

34. Similarly

Shows likeness or parallels between two ideas, objects, or situations.

35. Likewise

Indicates agreement with a previous point.

36. In contrast

Draws a distinction between two points.

37. Nevertheless

Introduces a contrasting point, despite what has been said.

38. Whereas

Compares two distinct entities or ideas.

Indicates a contrast between two points.

Signals an unexpected contrast.

Best Words and Phrases to use in a Conclusion section

41. in conclusion.

Signifies the beginning of the closing argument.

42. To sum up

Offers a brief summary.

43. In summary

Signals a concise recap.

44. Ultimately

Reflects the final or main point.

45. Overall

Gives a general concluding statement.

Indicates a resulting conclusion.

Demonstrates a logical conclusion.

48. Therefore

Connects a cause and its effect.

49. It can be concluded that

Clearly states a conclusion derived from the data.

50. Taking everything into consideration

Reflects on all the discussed points before concluding.

Edit Your Research Terms and Phrases Before Submission

Using these phrases in the proper places in your research papers can enhance the clarity, flow, and persuasiveness of your writing, especially in the Introduction section and Discussion section, which together make up the majority of your paper’s text in most academic domains.

However, it's vital to ensure each phrase is contextually appropriate to avoid redundancy or misinterpretation. As mentioned at the top of this article, the best way to do this is to 1) use an AI text editor , free AI paraphrasing tool or AI proofreading tool while you draft to enhance your writing, and 2) consult a professional proofreading service like Wordvice, which has human editors well versed in the terminology and conventions of the specific subject area of your academic documents.

For more detailed information on using AI tools to write a research paper and the best AI tools for research , check out the Wordvice AI Blog .

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Useful Research Words and Phrases for All Sections

What are the best research words and phrases to use in a paper?

If you are a graduate student, researcher, and/or professor, you already know that composing academic documents can be a frustrating and time-consuming undertaking. In addition to including all the necessary study content, you must also present it in the right order and convey the required information using the proper institutional language. Deciding exactly which language to put in which section can get confusing as you constantly question your choice of phrasing: “ Does the Results section require this kind of explanation? Should I introduce my research with a comparison or with background research? How do I even begin the Discussion section? ”

To help you choose the  right  word for the  right  purpose,  Wordvice  has created a handy academic writing “cheat sheet” with ready-made formulaic expressions for all major sections of a research paper ( Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion ) and for reaching different objectives within each section.

This downloadable  quick-reference guide  contains common phrases used in academic papers, a sample journal submission cover letter, and a template rebuttal letter to be modified and used in case of receipt of a letter from the journal editor.

Each section includes annotations explaining the purposes of the expressions and a summary of essential information so that you can easily find the language your are looking for whenever you need to apply it to your paper. Using this quick reference will help you write more complete and appropriate phrases in your research writing and correspondence with journal editors.

Reference Guide Content

1. common research paper phrases (listed by manuscript section).

• Gathered from hundreds of thousands of published manuscripts, these frequently used key sentences and phrases are tailored to what each section of your paper should accomplish.
• From the abstract to the conclusion, each section is tied together by a logical structure and flow of information.
• Refer to this index when you are unsure of the correct phrases to use (in your paper/article, dissertation, or thesis) or if you are a non-native speaker and are seeking phrasing that is both natural in tone and official in form.

2. Acade mic Search Tools Index

• The search tools index is a concise compilation of some of the best academic research search tools and databases available that contain information about paper composition and relevant journals.
• Locate the sites and tools most useful for your needs using our summary of site content and features.

3. Sample Journal Submission Cover Letter with Formal Expressions

The  cover letter  is an essential part of the journal submission process, yet a great many researchers struggle with how to compose their cover letters to journal editors in a way that will effectively introduce their study and spur editors to read and consider their manuscript.

This sample cover letter not only provides an exemplary model of what a strong cover letter should look like but includes template language authors can apply directly to their own cover letters. By applying the formal language of the cover letter to the particular details of a particular study, the letter helps authors build a strong opening case for journals to consider accepting their manuscripts for publication.

4. Rebuttal Letter Template

The  rebuttal letter  is written as a response to previously received correspondence from journal editors that can take the form of a rejection, deferment, or request letter, which often requests changes, additions, or omission of content or augmentation of formatting in the manuscript. The rebuttal letter is therefore usually an author’s last chance to get their manuscript published in a given journal, and the language they use must convince the editor that an author’s manuscript is ready (or will be ready) for publication in their journal. It must therefore contain a precise rationale and explanation to accomplish this goal.

As with the journal submission cover letter, knowing exactly what to include in this letter and how to compose it can be difficult. One must be persuasive without being pushy; formal but yet candid and frank. This template rebuttal letter is constructed to help authors navigate these issues and respond to authors with confidence that they have done everything possible to get their manuscript published in the journal to which they have submitted.

5. Useful Phrases for the Journal Submission Cover Letter/Rebuttal Letter

As with research papers, there are usually dozens of options for how to phrase the language in letters to journal editors. This section suggests several of the most common phrases that authors use to express their objectives and persuade editors to publish their journals. And as with the section on “Common Research Paper Phrases,” you will find here that each phrase is listed under a heading that indicates its objective so that authors know when and where to apply these expressions.

Use this reference guide as another resource in your toolkit to make the research paper writing and journal submission processes a bit easier. And remember that there are many excellent resources out there if you require additional assistance.

Wordvice ‘s academic English editing services include paper editing services , dissertation editing services , and thesis editing services that are specifically tailored to help researchers polish their papers to get the very most out of their research writing. Visit our  Resources  pages for great articles and videos on academic writing and journal submission.

Wordvice Resources

A guide to paraphrasing in research papers, 100+ strong verbs that will make your research writing amazing , how to compose a journal submission cover letter, how to write the best journal submission cover letter,  related resources,   40 useful words and phrases for top-notch essays, “essential academic writing words and phrases”  (my english teacher.eu), “academic vocabulary, useful phrases for academic writing and research paper writing”  (research gate).

Training videos   |   Faqs

Useful Phrases and Sentences for Academic & Research Paper Writing

Overview |   Abstract   | Introduction | Literature Review | Materials & Methods | Results & Discussion | Conclusion & Future Work | Acknowledgements & Appendix

1. Abstract

An abstract is a self-contained and short synopsis that describes a larger work. The abstract is the only part of the paper that is published online and in most conference proceedings. Hence abstract constitutes a very important section of your paper.  Also, when you submit your paper to a journal, potential reviewers only see the abstract when invited by an editor to review a manuscript. The abstract should include one or two lines briefly describing the topic, scope, purpose, results, and conclusion of your work. The abstract is indexed by search engines, so make sure that it has all the right words that a fellow researcher in the same field will be using while searching for articles online. Also, make sure it is rich with data and numbers to demonstrate the scientific rigor of your article. Be very clear and confident about your findings. Keep it punchy and straight to the point.

The abstract section of your research paper should include the following:

Click here for the academic phrases and vocabulary for the abstract section of the research paper…

2. Introduction

Introduction section comes after the abstract. Introduction section should provide the reader with a brief overview of your topic and the reasons for conducting research. The introduction is a perfect place to set the scene and make a good first impression. Regarding word count, introduction typically occupies 10-15% of your paper, for example, if the total word count of your paper is 3000, then you should aim for an introduction of around 600 words. It is often recommended that the introduction section of the paper is written after finishing the other sections of the paper. This is because it is difficult to figure out what exactly to put in the introduction section of the paper until you have seen the big picture. Sound very confident about your chosen subject area and back up your arguments with appropriate references. After reading the introduction, the reader must have a clear idea of what to expect from the rest of your research paper.

The introduction section of your research paper should include the following:

• General introduction
• Problem definition
• Gaps in the literature
• Problems solution
• Study motivation
• Aims & objectives
• Significance and advantages of your work

Click here for the academic phrases and vocabulary for the introduction section of the research paper…

3. Literature review

The literature review should clearly demonstrate that the author has a good knowledge of the research area. Literature review typically occupies one or two passages in the introduction section. A well-written literature review should provide a critical appraisal of previous studies related to the current research area rather than a simple summary of prior works. The author shouldn’t shy away from pointing out the shortcomings of previous works. However, criticising other’s work without any basis can weaken your paper. This is a perfect place to coin your research question and justify the need for such a study. It is also worth pointing out towards the end of the review that your study is unique and there is no direct literature addressing this issue. Add a few sentences about the significance of your research and how this will add value to the body of knowledge.

The literature review section of your research paper should include the following:

• Previous literature
• Limitations of previous research
• Research questions
• Research to be explored

Click here for the academic phrases and vocabulary for the literature review section of the research paper…

4. Materials and Methods

The methods section that follows the introduction section should provide a clear description of the experimental procedure, and the reasons behind the choice of specific experimental methods. The methods section should be elaborate enough so that the readers can repeat the experimental procedure and reproduce the results. The scientific rigor of the paper is judged by your materials and methods section, so make sure you elaborate on all the fine details of your experiment. Explain the procedures step-by-step by splitting the main section into multiple sub-sections. Order procedures chronologically with subheadings. Use past tense to describe what you did since you are reporting on a completed experiment. The methods section should describe how the research question was answered and explain how the results were analyzed. Clearly explain various statistical methods used for significance testing and the reasons behind the choice.

The methods section of your research paper should include the following:

• Experimental setup
• Data collection
• Data analysis
• Statistical testing
• Assumptions
• Remit of the experiment

Click here for the academic phrases and vocabulary for the methods section of the research paper…

5. Results and Discussion

The results and discussion sections are one of the challenging sections to write. It is important to plan this section carefully as it may contain a large amount of scientific data that needs to be presented in a clear and concise fashion. The purpose of a Results section is to present the key results of your research. Results and discussions can either be combined into one section or organized as separate sections depending on the requirements of the journal to which you are submitting your research paper. Use subsections and subheadings to improve readability and clarity. Number all tables and figures with descriptive titles. Present your results as figures and tables and point the reader to relevant items while discussing the results. This section should highlight significant or interesting findings along with P values for statistical tests. Be sure to include negative results and highlight potential limitations of the paper. You will be criticized by the reviewers if you don’t discuss the shortcomings of your research. This often makes up for a great discussion section, so do not be afraid to highlight them.

The results and discussion section of your research paper should include the following:

• Comparison with prior studies
• Limitations of your work
• Casual arguments
• Speculations
• Deductive arguments

Click here for the academic phrases and vocabulary for the results and discussion section of the research paper…

6. Conclusion and Future Work

A research paper should end with a well-constructed conclusion. The conclusion is somewhat similar to the introduction. You restate your aims and objectives and summarize your main findings and evidence for the reader. You can usually do this in one paragraph with three main key points, and one strong take-home message. You should not present any new arguments in your conclusion. You can raise some open questions and set the scene for the next study. This is a good place to register your thoughts about possible future work. Try to explain to your readers what more could be done? What do you think are the next steps to take? What other questions warrant further investigation? Remember, the conclusion is the last part of the essay that your reader will see, so spend some time writing the conclusion so that you can end on a high note.

The conclusion section of your research paper should include the following:

• Overall summary
• Further research

Click here for the academic phrases and vocabulary for the conclusions and future work sections of the research paper…

7. Acknowledgements and Appendix

There is no standard way to write acknowledgements. This section allows you to thank all the people who helped you with the project. You can take either formal or informal tone; you won’t be penalized.  You can place supplementary materials in the appendix and refer to them in the main text. There is no limit on what you can place in the appendix section. This can include figures, tables, costs, budget, maps, etc. Anything that is essential for the paper but might potentially interrupt the flow of the paper goes in the appendix.

Click here for the academic phrases and vocabulary for the acknowledgements and appendix sections of the research paper…

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Thanks for your effort. could I have a PDF having all the info included here.

You can control + p and save as pdf

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thank you so much

if you can also add on verbs used for each section would be good further

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*Research 101

Library and research vocabulary.

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As you use the library or do research, there are specialized terms and words you will find. This list includes the more common words you will find, along with a definition.

Vocabulary List

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Guidelines for Researchers to Improve their Academic Vocabulary

Vocabulary knowledge helps people discover new ideas, appreciate the beauty of language, and learn about the world. A strong vocabulary strengthens what a person wants to say, especially when they want to write anything. It is evident that an educated person has a broad and varied vocabulary. One way to guarantee that there are consistent practices in all courses and that there is a cumulative effect on participant vocabulary development across topics and over time is to have a school-wide or district-wide commitment to research-based vocabulary training.

What is common academic vocabulary?

Common academic vocabulary represents words and phrases you find in essays, academic papers, textbooks and articles across all fields. Some examples of these words are: analyze, constitute, derive, source, theorize and evidence.

Why is it important in research?

Nonfiction and technical books will quickly teach you new ways to think and speak with words you may be unfamiliar with, but any type of reading will help you along. It facilitates effective communication amongst researchers using the right vocabulary. The ability to understand word meanings is acknowledged as one of the key components to becoming proficient in reading, writing, listening, speaking and comprehension.

Some interesting strategies for learning academic vocabulary

Reading is Everything

The majority of people read every day for at least a portion of their time. While reading, you will find out a ton of unknown words. Your vocabulary abilities will increase through learning vocabulary that is particular to your field from sources including subject guides, reading lists, and textbooks as well as from endorsed websites and journals.

Word identification

Many words have the same or very similar meanings. To make fresh and original remarks in your writing and speaking, you can make a list of word groups. It’s helpful to check the definitions of related words before using them because some words have similar meanings but aren’t necessarily interchangeable. You can sound more polished and professional by changing the words you use in your writing.

Word Selection

Word choice is important. Consider terms that are crucial to comprehending the primary idea of the text or unit, are used often, or are regularly encountered across domains when choosing which words to target for explicit instruction.

Learn Roots

The development of strong vocabulary benefits from knowledge of word origins. A prefix or suffix on a lot of words with a common origin can help you determine what they might mean. The more roots you study, the more words that use that root you will be able to comprehend.

Create a word Journal

A word journal is one place (a notebook, a computer document, etc.) where you write down  words you don’t know.

keeping a word journal involves the following steps:

• To create a definition that you can fully understand.
• Exactly where you found the word in the sentence, copy it.
• Provide a unique explanation of that word in your writing.

Vocabulary Map

When creating a vocabulary map, you draw a circle around a word in the center of your computer document and connect it to other words or concepts. Include synonyms, antonyms, or examples of the word among the words or ideas on your map.

When writing the first draft of your academic work, use academic language in your essays and papers. Check to verify if the academic language is used correctly as you update your paper. Your academic writing will improve by including general and subject-specific academic terminology in essays and research papers. It demonstrates to readers that you are well-versed in the subject of your writing. Additionally, using these terms allows you to express yourself clearly and precisely. The appropriate vocabulary mix raises the quality of your articles and papers.

Hence, Increasing your vocabulary enables you to utilize the appropriate word, which shows that you comprehend and are familiar with the accepted terms of a given discipline.

https://bozemanmagazine.com/news/2020/11/24/109317-how-to-improve-vocabulary-for-research-writing .

https://www.academicwritingsuccess.com/5-unique-ways-boost-academic-vocabulary-elevate-academic-essays/

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Academic Vocabulary Use in Doctoral Theses: A Corpus-Based Lexical Analysis of Academic Word List (AWL) in Major Scientific Disciplinary Groups

2018, International Journal of English Linguistics

Related Papers

khalil Tazik

In the past few years, several cross-disciplinary corpus-based studies have been carried out on the frequency and coverage of 570 word families from Coxhead's (2000) academic word list (AWL). Some reported high coverage of this word list in their corpuses while some others questioned its generality and stated that this word list is far from complete. Hence, along with these studies, the present study attempted to examine the word frequency and text coverage of AWL on 80 research articles (RAs) written in English with 320310 running words across two Asian EFL and ESP journals. Using frequency and range as the criteria for word form selection, this study identified 438 words as the academic words and 144 new added academic words to the list which was called revised academic word list (RAWL). Applying both AWL and RAWL into the entire corpus, results support high coverage and importance of academic words in both ESP and EFL RAs. However, when two word lists were examined into ESP corpus (ESPC) and EFL corpus (EFLC) separately, academic words had higher coverage in ESPC than EFLC. From these findings it is concluded that (1) academic words play an important role in academic texts; therefore, acquisition of them seems to be essential for language learners and users, (2) because of the nature of ESP articles, ESPC holds higher coverage of academic words, (3) some of the words included in the AWL are field-specific and (4) direct attention to these words from behalf of the material and syllabus designers and teachers can lead to a better understanding of these words ;hence, students' development in their writing and reading.

LSP International Journal

Hadina Habil

In measuring the quality of written text, especially academic writing, lexical features are as important as grammatical features and should not be ignored. The highly computable nature of lexicons can make them a good criterion for determining and measuring the quality of text. In this article three lexical features: lexical density, complexity, and formality are reviewed and justified as measurement tools of academic texts. Furthermore, a measurement method is offered to evaluate lexical complexity level of an academic text.

Journal of Quantitative Linguistics

Shuyi Amelia Sun

This study employed a text mining method to investigate the lexical features and their dynamic changes of PhD theses across the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. Four quantitative indices, i.e. TTR, h-point, R1 and writer's view, were employed to analyze 150 PhD theses (50 theses from each discipline). Although h-point and writer's view were found counter-intuitively to show insignificant variation across disciplines, the results of TTR and R1 did reveal sharp contrasts between theses in humanities and natural sciences. While the second half of humanities theses showed a significantly higher level of lexical diversity, indicated by higher TTR, theses in natural sciences tended to be richer in content words in the first half, indicated by a higher R1. Meanwhile, theses in social sciences seemed to be more moderate, with features lying in the middle position. This study has implications not only for the widening of applications of quantitative linguistic methods but also for academic writing (especially PhD thesis writing) instruction and practice.

Magali Paquot

Research in Corpus Linguistics

Geraint P Rees

– This study examines the validity of the rationale underlying recent trends towards discipline-specific and phraseological approaches to vocabulary selection for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses. It examines the behaviour of Coxhead's (2000) New Academic Wordlist (AWL) using a 2,795,031 word corpus compiled from journal articles taken from the disciplines of History, Microbiology, and Management Studies. A two-stage method of analysis is employed. Firstly, coverage statistics for all AWL word families and their members are compared across the History, Microbiology, and Management Studies sub-corpora. This suggests difference in language use across disciplines. This difference is investigated further in a second stage of analysis which employs the Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al. 2004) Word Sketch Difference tool and Corpus Pattern Analysis (Hanks 2004) techniques to examine the collocational behaviour of a sample of 57 AWL headwords across the three sub-corpora. The results demonstrate that a large number of the AWL words have discipline-specific meanings, and that these meanings are conditioned by the syntagmatic context of the AWL item.

Applications of Language Teaching

Is'haaq Akbarian

CORPORUM: Journal of Corpus Linguistics

Rana Kashif Shakeel

The present study aims at compiling a Literary Academic Word List (LAWL) based on the HEC recognized Pakistani journals of English literature published from 2010 to 2019. A corpus consisting 215734 words with 16362 word forms was manually filtered to extract the most frequently used vocabulary items in 40 literature based research papers. The acquired wordlist (LAWL) of 766 words with a high frequency list (HFLAWL) consisting 20 words were chosen for critical analysis and discussion, considering the short and long contexts of the concordance lines and the external sources like key literary works. The results indicated that the selected timeframe was the period of frequent application of literary theories and critical approaches in Pakistani academic and research circles. The findings further stress the need for the compilation of subject specific word lists not only for literature but also for linguistics and other branches of knowledge. Finally, it is hoped that the availability of LAWL is going to be a significant contribution to the general process of learning English and to the specific process of exploring literary vocabulary in a robust manner.

Risky Ramdhani

Vocabulary profile can be used to identify the uniqueness of certain texts among sub-genres. In this study, some types of vocabularies are examined. The study aimed at identifying vocabulary profile consisting of General Service List (GSL) and Academic Word List (AWL) in three different subgenres of English major. This study used a qualitative method in identifying the elaboration on frequency of GSL and AWL as well as the dominant words emerging in 30 thesis abstracts. The thesis abstracts were retrieved from Linguistics, Cultural Studies, and Literature sub-genres. Only abstracts with A or AB score published from 2015 to 2016 were used. Based on types and tokens of GSL, it was found that Linguistics and Literature have higher number than Cultural Studies. For overall GSL, Linguistics covers more GSL compared to the other two subgenres. One of reasons to this case is because there are many plural forms of the same words used in the texts. In terms of AWL, Cultural Studies posseses ...

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Learning english vocabulary from word cards: a research synthesis.

• 1 Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao SAR, China
• 2 Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao SAR, China

Researchers' interest in the learning of vocabulary from word cards has grown alongside the increasing number of studies published on this topic. While meta-analyses or systematic reviews have been previously performed, the types of word cards investigated, and the number of word card studies analyzed were limited. To address these issues, a research synthesis was conducted to provide an inclusive and comprehensive picture of how the use of word cards by learners results in vocabulary learning. A search of the Web of Science and Scopus databases resulted in 803 potential studies, of which 32 aligned with the inclusion criteria. Coding of these studies based on an extensive coding scheme found most studies assessed receptive vocabulary knowledge more often than productive vocabulary knowledge, and knowledge of vocabulary form and meaning were assessed more often than knowledge of vocabulary use. Results of effect size plots showed that more of the reviewed studies showed larger effects for the use of paper word cards than digital word cards, and for the use of ready-made word cards than self-constructed word cards. Results also indicated more studies showed larger effects for using word cards in an intentional learning condition compared with an incidental learning condition, and for using word cards in a massed learning condition compared with a spaced learning condition. Although a correlation was found between time spent using word cards and vocabulary learning outcomes, this correlation was not statistically significant. Learners that were more proficient in English learned more words from using word cards than those less proficient. These results suggest that future researchers should report learner proficiency, adopt reliable tests to assess vocabulary learning outcomes, compare the effectiveness of ready-made word cards and self-constructed word cards, and investigate the learning of different aspects of word knowledge. Teachers should provide learners guidance in how to use word cards and target word selection for self-construction of word cards. In addition, teachers should encourage learners to create word cards for incidentally encountered unknown words and use massed learning when initially working with these new words before using spaced learning for later retrieval practice.

Introduction

Vocabulary knowledge is essential in second language (L2) learning ( Barkat and Aminafshar, 2015 ; Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ). When learning English as a second language, acquiring vocabulary is “more important than mastering other language skills,” such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing ( Lukas et al., 2020 , p. 305). This is because vocabulary “acts as the foundation for learners to communicate” using the language ( Lukas et al., 2020 , p. 305). Learning a second language (L2) involves the learning of thousands of words ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 ; Nation, 2013a ). In order to understand novels, newspapers, and spoken English, a vocabulary size of “3,000 to 4,000 word families” is needed ( Nation, 2013a , p. 14). Researchers, teachers, and learners are interested in knowing the most direct route to learn so many words to be able to use language for these and other purposes.

Learners often engage in different activities and use different strategies to learn vocabulary. Vocabulary-learning activities are often compared to determine which activity is most effective. It is advantageous to learn vocabulary from word cards. For example, Webb et al. (2020 , p. 16) suggested that word cards lead to “relatively large gains” in vocabulary knowledge compared to studying word lists. The strength of learning vocabulary from word cards comes from the fact that this activity is focused, efficient, and effective ( Nation, 2013a ). It is focused because “more attention can easily be paid to unknown words with the use of word cards” ( Reynolds et al., 2020 , p. 3). It is efficient because a large number of words “can be learned in a short time” using word cards ( Nation, 2013a , p. 439). It is effective because word cards can be used for both “receptive and productive learning” ( Nation and Webb, 2011 , p. 41). Moreover, learners have been shown to prefer learning vocabulary from word cards compared to other vocabulary learning activities (e.g., Kuo and Ho, 2012 ). Therefore, word cards were chosen as the focus of the synthesis among a variety of vocabulary learning activities available to learners.

Although there is generally a consensus that learning vocabulary from word cards is advantageous, one must acknowledge other variables could enhance or reduce their effectiveness. Previous researchers have indicated that many variables affect vocabulary learning outcomes regardless of the vocabulary learning strategy employed by learners. For most intentional vocabulary learning strategies—including the use of word cards—these include how the strategy is employed (e.g., Uchihara et al., 2019 ) and language learner proficiency (e.g., Webb et al., 2020 ). More specifically for word card use, these include aspects of word knowledge (e.g., Nation, 2013a , Ch. 11) and types of word cards (e.g., Chen and Chan, 2019 ; Reynolds et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, word cards can only be effective when learners have been trained and understand how to use them ( Reynolds et al., 2020 ). Therefore, these variables should be taken into consideration to understand whether word cards are effective for vocabulary learning.

It is worthwhile to conduct a synthesis of the word card literature to allow for generalization of the results reported in primary studies. A synthesis can help us to systematically review the word card literature, thereby providing a clearer picture of the overall effectiveness of word cards. Such a result can be useful for teachers, learners, and researchers, as a research synthesis can provide clear implications for research and teaching. Compared to meta-analysis, which “requires strict inclusion criteria for calculating effect sizes (ESs),” a research synthesis allows for “more varieties of relevant studies to be included” ( Yang et al., 2021 , p. 472). Therefore, this study gives a systematic and comprehensive review on the past research regarding vocabulary learning from word cards using a research synthesis methodology.

The current synthesis of primary empirical studies brings significance to the field of vocabulary learning from word cards for two main reasons. Firstly, there is growing interest in the effects that word cards have on vocabulary learning, evident through the large number of studies published on this topic. With this large body of research, it is not surprising that some existing meta-analyses and syntheses also touch on this topic. For example, Webb et al. (2020) conducted a meta-analysis to examine the effectiveness of many vocabulary learning activities including the use of word cards. As a meta-analysis requires some strict inclusion criteria, many relevant word card studies had to be eliminated. Similarly, several researchers have synthesized the word card literature. Unfortunately, their focus was on synthesizing the literature on one specific type of word cards rather than all types of word cards ( Nakata, 2011 ; Lin and Lin, 2019 ; Ji and Aziz, 2021 ). Therefore, the previous meta-analyses and syntheses have not given an exclusive picture of how word cards lead to vocabulary learning. To fill this gap, this study adopts an inclusive synthesis approach to examine how the learners' use of word cards can lead to vocabulary learning.

Secondly, there are several potential variables that may affect vocabulary learning from word card use. For example, the effect of the use of digital word cards has been compared to paper word cards (e.g., Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ; Chen and Chan, 2019 ). Some studies asked learners to self-construct word cards (e.g., Reynolds et al., 2020 ), while other studies provided word cards to learners (e.g., Oberg, 2011 ). However, it appears in the previous literature that researchers have not considered whether this could influence the effectiveness of word card use. The use of word cards is most often assumed to be an intentional vocabulary learning strategy. However, some researchers have reported to use word cards as an incidental learning strategy as well (e.g., Reynolds et al., 2020 ). Researchers have not considered whether the use of word cards is suitable for incidental learning. The literature usually suggests that learners use word cards in a spaced learning condition. However, some researchers have suggested learners to use massed learning as a large number of repeated encounters with the words will occur ( Uchihara et al., 2019 ). Word cards were also reported to have been used for different amounts of time in previous studies (e.g., Webb et al., 2020 ). The amount of time spent learning from word cards might influence vocabulary learning. Moreover, most of the previous research involved learners at different levels of proficiency (e.g., Tan and Nicholson, 1997 ; Nakata, 2008 ). Different levels of language proficiency might result in varied amounts of vocabulary learning from word card use. In this regard, this study extends the discussion of learning L2 vocabulary through the use of word cards and includes potential variables that may affect the reported effects in the published word card literature.

Practically, the findings of this synthesis have the potential to benefit two stakeholders. Firstly, this study provides some suggestions for researchers who have been investigating vocabulary learning from word card use. The results can provide suggestions for a future research trajectory. Secondly, this study has the potential to provide teachers with advice on how they can incorporate the use of word cards into their classroom teaching and skill training for learners.

Literature review

In this section, we review relevant vocabulary, word card, and theory literature before summarizing existing findings about the variables of interest to the present synthesis. Doing this helps to situate the research questions that follow. The results of this research synthesis builds on the literature that is covered in this section.

Previous research syntheses on vocabulary learning from word cards

Previous meta-analysists and synthesists have conducted research related to English vocabulary learning activities and examined this field from different perspectives. For example, Webb et al. (2020) conducted a meta-analysis which focused on studies investigating “four types of intentional vocabulary learning activities, including flashcards, word lists, writing and fill-in-the-blanks” ( Webb et al., 2020 , p. 1). In their meta-analysis of 22 studies, Webb et al. (2020) found that “both flashcards and word lists led to relatively large gains in vocabulary knowledge while writing and fill-in-the-blanks lead to relatively small gains” ( Webb et al., 2020 , p. 19). However, their meta-analysis only included studies with treatments that lasted up to 1 day, i.e., studies with treatments that lasted longer than 1 day were excluded ( Webb et al., 2020 ). Uchihara et al. (2019) conducted a meta-analysis which focused on the effects of repetition on incidental vocabulary learning. In their meta-analysis of 26 studies, Uchihara et al. (2019 , p. 559) found that “there was a medium effect of repetition on incidental vocabulary learning.” However, their meta-analysis only included studies that adopted within participants design, i.e., studies that adopted between participants design were excluded. Various research designs deserve investigation, as there are an increasing number of empirical studies that have included separate groups with different interventions ( Kose and Mede, 2018 ; Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ; Wulandari and Musfiroh, 2020 ). Both Webb et al.'s (2020) and Uchihara et al.'s (2019) meta-analyses focused on the form and meaning aspects of word knowledge. Other aspects of word knowledge should also be given attention by meta-analysists and synthesists. Other aspects of word knowledge require more rigid attention in vocabulary learning from word cards research ( Uchihara et al., 2019 ), as vocabulary learning involves more than “associating the new words with their meaning” ( Nakata, 2011 , p. 20).

Nakata (2011) conducted a systematic review on digital word card programs for vocabulary learning. In this systematic review of 9 digital word card programs, Nakata (2011 , p. 17) found that most digital word card programs “have been developed in a way that maximize vocabulary learning.” Lin and Lin (2019) conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on vocabulary learning from digital word card use. In their systematic review and meta-analysis of 33 studies, Lin and Lin (2019) found that there was a positive and large effect of engagement in activities using digital word cards on vocabulary learning. Later, Ji and Aziz (2021) also conducted a systematic review of vocabulary learning from digital word card use. In their systematic review of 18 studies, Ji and Aziz (2021) also found that the use of digital word cards enhanced learners' vocabulary knowledge. These previous syntheses and meta-analyses gave insights on the effects of digital word card use but did not report on paper word card use or compare digital word cards to paper word cards. It is necessary to synthesize the studies that used digital word cards and paper word cards as it is important to see which type of word cards can result in better vocabulary learning outcomes.

Although previous syntheses have been investigating English language learning activities, few comprehensive syntheses have been conducted that focus on the use of word cards for vocabulary learning. Studies that utilized different research designs and assessed different aspects of word knowledge should be included for analysis, as the existing word card research was implemented in various research designs and assessed various aspects of word knowledge. In addition, various variables that might affect the vocabulary learning from word cards should be extracted from the studies for analysis.

It is evident that there is a growing interest in the effects that word cards have on vocabulary learning. This is shown from the number of different syntheses and meta-analyses that have been conducted on this topic ( Nakata, 2011 ; Elgort, 2017 ; Lin and Lin, 2019 ; Kim and Webb, 2022 ). There is also a growing body of studies on word card use ( Chen and Chan, 2019 ; Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ; Reynolds et al., 2020 ). However, the syntheses and the meta-analyses have not been very comprehensive in terms of the aspects of word knowledge assessed and the types of word cards used. The current synthesis is an attempt to give a systematic and comprehensive review on the past vocabulary learning research with a focus on word card use, hoping to provide some teaching implications and suggestions for future research.

Theoretical perspectives of vocabulary learning from word cards

There are several theoretical perspectives that have been used to frame previous studies. However, the majority of studies have used the Involvement Load Hypothesis ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 ), the Pimsleur's Memory Schedule ( Pimsleur, 1967 ), or the Dual-Coding Theory ( Paivio, 1979 ). The word card studies included in the current synthesis relied on these theories for their research designs and interpretations of their results.

Involvement load hypothesis

The use of word cards is regarded as a task that has high involvement. The Involvement Load Hypothesis (ILH) is a “task-induced involvement” theory that consists of “three motivational and cognitive dimensions,” i.e., need, search, and evaluation ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 , p. 2). Need is the “motivational, non-cognitive dimension of involvement” and refers to “whether unknown words are needed to complete a task” ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 , p. 14; Yanagisawa and Webb, 2021 , p. 489). Need is absent when an unknown word is not required (need is 0) ( Yanagisawa and Webb, 2021 ). Need is moderate when it is “imposed by an external agent” (e.g., the learners are required to create word cards for teacher selected words) (need is 1), and it is strong when it is “imposed by the learners themselves” (e.g., the learners wish to create word cards for the incidentally encountered unknown words) (need is 2) ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 , p. 14; Reynolds et al., 2020 ; Yanagisawa and Webb, 2021 , p. 489). Search and evaluation are the “two cognitive dimensions of involvement” ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 , p. 14). Search refers to the attempt to find an unknown L2 word's form or its meaning ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 ). Search is absent when the L2 word's form and its meaning are provided in a task (e.g., a reading comprehension task where new words are glossed) (search is 0) ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 ; Yanagisawa and Webb, 2021 ). Search is moderate when the learners need to find an unknown L2 word's form or its meaning using external resources (e.g., dictionaries or teachers) (search is 1), and it is strong when the learners need to engage in both receptive learning and productive learning (e.g., looking at the L2 word forms and trying to recall the L1 translations, and looking at the L1 translations and trying to recall the L2 word forms on word cards) (search is 2) ( Reynolds et al., 2020 ; Yanagisawa and Webb, 2021 ). Evaluation involves “the comparison of a given word with other words” ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 , p. 14). Evaluation is absent when the learners do not need to decide which word to use (evaluation is 0) ( Yanagisawa and Webb, 2021 ). Evaluation is moderate when it entails recognizing differences between words with a context provided (e.g., a fill-in-the-blanks task with given words) (evaluation is 1), and it is strong when a word must be used in an authentic context (evaluation is 2) (e.g., a composition writing task using target words) ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 ; Yanagisawa and Webb, 2021 ). The strength of the involvement load can occur in any combination. ILH predicts that “higher involvement in a word induced by the task will result in better retention” ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 , p. 20).

Some researchers used the ILH as a framework for designing their studies. For studies that used word cards, the involvement load was calculated as 6 out of a possible 6. For example, in Reynolds et al.'s (2020 , p. 5) study, learners were required to “construct word cards for unknown words encountered while reading a class textbook.” In Reynolds et al.'s (2020 , pp. 5–6) study, need was 2 (as the learners initiated the need to understand “the unknown words incidentally encountered during reading class texts”), search was 2 (as word cards were used for both receptive learning, i.e., the learners recalled the L1 translations by looking at the L2 word forms, and productive learning, i.e., the learners recalled the L2 word forms by looking at the L1 translations), and evaluation was 2 (as the learners compared “multiple meanings of the words” and used the chosen word to write a sentence on the word card). However, the ILH can only suggest the predictability of a task being useful or not for vocabulary learning. To address the issue of how memory works in the learning of vocabulary from word cards, the Pimsleur's Memory Schedule ( Pimsleur, 1967 ) is more suitable.

Pimsleur's memory schedule

Previous researchers have suggested that the traditional way of memorizing words lacks scheduled repetition, which would lead to forgetting ( Mondria and Mondria-De Vries, 1994 ). Repetition is “essential for vocabulary learning” in a foreign language ( Nation, 2013a , p. 451). Pimsleur (1967) recommended “a memory schedule” which can be regarded as a guide “for determining the length of time that should occur between repetitions” ( Kose and Mede, 2018 , p. 5). Teachers can follow this schedule to space the recall of words previously learned by students. In this schedule, the rationale for determining the amount of time before recalling previously learned words is that most of the forgetting occurs after the initial learning of a word ( Kose and Mede, 2018 ). This forgetting will slow down as time passes by if the words are periodically encountered ( Kose and Mede, 2018 ). Pimsleur (1967) suggested how often new words should be repeated in order to keep them in a person's memory. It should be “5 s, 25 s (5 2 = 25 s), 2 min (5 3 = 125 s), 10 min (5 4 = 625 s), and so on” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 454). If learners are provided with opportunities for repetition of new words at the right time, their memories will be refreshed, and the retrieval of the words can improve retention.

Some researchers used the Pimsleur's Memory Schedule (PMS) ( Pimsleur, 1967 ) as a framework for designing their studies. For example, Kose and Mede (2018 ) investigated the effects of vocabulary learning using digital word cards with a spaced repetition system following the PMS. By enabling learners to repeatedly be exposed to the target words at the right time, the learners in their study demonstrated a high level of vocabulary acquisition. This is because after the initial learning of a target word, the forgetting is very fast, but the forgetting on the second repetition will be slower ( Nation, 2013a ). Knowledge of vocabulary decreases less rapidly after each repetition of target words if the spacing has been increased ( Mondria and Mondria-De Vries, 1994 ). However, most of the included studies used increased spacing rather than strictly following the PMS. However, if studies do not strictly use words cards only with printed text and instead opt for word cards containing pictorial elements, then the Dual-Coding Theory ( Paivio, 1979 ) should be considered to understand how this added multimedia element affects learning.

Dual-coding theory

It is possible for the use of word cards to “combine visual and verbal information” to optimize “memorization of words” ( Lavoie, 2016 , p. 22). The Dual-Coding Theory (DCT) ( Paivio, 1979 ) proposed that cognition occurs in two distinct codes, i.e., a verbal code for language, and a non-verbal code for mental imagery ( Sadoski, 2006 ). When information is processed through two channels (verbal and non-verbal) instead of one, learners can “benefit from an additional or compensatory scaffold that supports L2 vocabulary learning” ( Wong and Samudra, 2019 , p. 1187). Visual representations of word meanings, such as pictures or multimedia, play an important role in vocabulary learning. In addition, written word forms must also be processed visually and learned as visible units ( Sadoski, 2006 ). Therefore, dual coding of word cards might enhance memory recall of vocabulary.

Previous researchers have used the DCT as a framework for designing their studies. For example, in Lavoie's (2016 ) study, the experimental group that used word cards was compared to a control group. The word cards were presented with words and pictures to ensure the verbal and non-verbal information was processed at the same time. The results showed learners progressing in the learning of new words, demonstrating the additive effects of the two sources of input on vocabulary learning ( Lavoie, 2016 ).

Aspects of word knowledge

Vocabulary learning is not all or nothing. There are different aspects of word knowledge. At the most general level, vocabulary knowledge can be divided into three main categories, i.e., “form, meaning, and use” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 48). Form refers to the “spoken form, written form and word parts”; meaning refers to “the connection between form and meaning, concepts, references and associations of a word”; and use refers to the “grammatical functions, collocations and constraints on use of a word” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 539). Each of these aspects of word knowledge can be assessed productively or receptively. Receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge refers to the “learning direction” of vocabulary ( Nation, 2013a , pp. 51–52). Productive knowledge of a word is what a learner “needs to know in order to use the word while speaking or writing,” while receptive knowledge is what a learner “needs to know to understand a word while reading or listening” ( Crow, 1986 , p. 242).

Table 1 ( Nation, 2013a ) lists these aspects of word knowledge, indicating which ones are well dealt with by learning form word cards, and which ones are partly dealt with by this strategy. Ideal learning occurs when vocabulary has been acquired both receptively and productively. Word cards “can be used for both receptive and productive learning” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 441). For example, if the learners are using bilingual word cards with the “L1 on one side and the L2 on the other,” “looking at the L1 and trying to recall the L2 form” involves productive knowledge of form ( Nation, 2013a , p. 446; Reynolds et al., 2020 , p. 5). If the learners are “looking at the L2 and trying to recall the L1 meaning with the word cards,” it involves receptive knowledge of meaning ( Reynolds et al., 2020 , p. 5).

Table 1 . Aspects of word knowledge dealt with by learning from word cards ( Nation, 2013a , p. 442).

Variables that affect learning from word cards

Several variables have the potential of moderating the effectiveness of learning vocabulary from using word cards. These include the type of word cards used (i.e., paper or digital, ready-made or self-constructed), word cards used in different learning conditions (i.e., incidental or intentional, spaced or massed), period of time they are used, or if they are used by learners with different language proficiencies.

Paper and digital word cards

Paper word cards are defined as word cards made from paper-based materials ( Nation, 2013a ). The emergence of digital word cards allows learners to learn vocabulary on computers ( Nakata, 2008 ) or mobile devices ( Lai et al., 2020 ). The use of digital word cards can arouse learners' interest in vocabulary learning ( Lin and Lin, 2019 ) and potentially lead to learning gains ( Başoglu and Akdemir, 2010 ; Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ; Tsai, 2018 ; Chen and Chan, 2019 ; Xodabande et al., 2021 ).

Ready-made and self-constructed word cards

Ready-made word cards, which are prepared by teachers or bought in stores, are common in the language learning classroom. For example, McDonald and Reynolds (2021) presented ready-made cards based on words taken from storybooks for learners. In addition to using ready-made word cards, learners can also acquire vocabulary by self-constructing their own word cards. For example, Reynolds et al. (2020 ) required learners to construct 10 word cards for each of the 10 readings in a textbook. Previous researchers have indicated that learners might have a strong affective bond with self-constructed word cards ( Mondria and Mondria-De Vries, 1994 ). It is meaningful to know whether a learner should use self-constructed word cards or ready-made word cards. As learners may select the words by themselves for self-constructed word cards, this selection might affect their vocabulary learning.

Intentional and incidental learning conditions

The two broad approaches to vocabulary learning are intentional and incidental. Intentional vocabulary learning can be defined by whether learners know that “they will be tested on their vocabulary learning” ( Webb et al., 2020 , p. 2). If learners know of an “upcoming vocabulary test,” they may “pay special attention to vocabulary and engage in intentional learning” ( Uchihara et al., 2019 , p. 561). Incidental vocabulary learning is defined as “the learning that emerges through a meaning-focused comprehension task in which learners are not told of an upcoming vocabulary test” ( Uchihara et al., 2019 , p. 561). Thus, learners' awareness of a future assessment differentiates between incidental learning, where learners are “unaware of a subsequent vocabulary test,” and intentional learning, where “they know they will be tested” ( Webb et al., 2020 , p. 2).

Spaced and massed learning conditions

A massed learning condition refers to a learning condition in which words are repeated “during a single and continuous period of time,” while a spaced learning condition refers to a learning condition in which words are repeated “across a period of time at ever-increasing intervals” ( Kose and Mede, 2018 , p. 4). Spacing has often been operationalized “within a strictly controlled laboratory setting” in which learners study individual L2 words at different time intervals ( Uchihara et al., 2019 , p. 574). In this synthesis, the massed learning condition was operationalized as use of word cards within a single day, while the spaced learning condition was operationalized as use of word cards that lasted for more than 1 day ( Uchihara et al., 2019 ). Previous researchers have examined the effect of spacing on vocabulary development. For example, Kuo and Ho (2012 , p. 36) found a larger but non-significant effect on vocabulary learning when word cards were used in spaced learning conditions compared to massed learning conditions, because the effects of spaced learning might be reduced by retrieval activities in both learning conditions.

Time spent learning from word cards

Previous researchers were also interested in the amount of time that learners spent on learning from word cards ( Webb et al., 2020 ). In Webb et al.'s (2020) meta-analysis of vocabulary learning activities, results showed that the number of minutes learners spent per word did not significantly influence vocabulary learning. In the present research synthesis, time spent learning from word cards was operationalized as the number of minutes the learners spent learning vocabulary using the cards.

Proficiency level of learners

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) ( Council of Europe, 2001 ) is “the most influential language framework in the field of second language teaching and assessment” ( Fleckenstein et al., 2020 , p. 2). “It describes foreign language competencies in three broad stages which can be divided into six proficiency levels,” i.e., A1/A2 for basic users, B1/B2 for independent users, and C1/C2 for proficient users ( Fleckenstein et al., 2020 , p. 2). Previous researchers have indicated that more advanced learners usually acquire more vocabulary than less proficient learners, as greater L2 knowledge should help learners to understand and use language ( Webb et al., 2020 ).

Testing vocabulary knowledge

In the previous research investigating the effects of word card use on vocabulary learning, researchers have used standardized tests and researcher-constructed tests. These tests have been used to assess different aspects of vocabulary knowledge (i.e., receptive and productive knowledge of form, meaning, and use). In this section, the standardized tests and the researcher-constructed tests used in these previous studies are introduced.

Standardized tests

Three main standardized tests have been used in the published literature. These include the Vocabulary Size Test (VST) ( Nation and Beglar, 2007 ), the Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT) ( Webb et al., 2017 ), and the New General Service Lists Test (NGSLT) ( Browne et al., 2013 ). Table 2 provides example items from these standardized tests.

Table 2 . Standardized tests of vocabulary knowledge.

The VST ( Nation and Beglar, 2007 ) was designed to measure a learner's overall English receptive vocabulary knowledge. It is one of the most popular tests used to measure vocabulary size. The VST consists of 140 multiple-choice items. It consists of “10 sampled target words from each of the 1,000-level word family” lists up to the 14,000 level extracted from the “100,000,000 token British National Corpus” ( Reynolds et al., 2020 , p. 4). Answering all items correctly indicates that the test taker knows the most frequent “14,000 word families” of English ( Reynolds et al., 2020 , pp. 4–5).

The UVLT ( Webb et al., 2017 ) allows one to measure the mastery of vocabulary at different frequency levels. Specifically, the “first 1,000 most frequent words” of English to the “fifth 1,000 most frequent words” of English are assessed ( Webb et al., 2017 , p. 35). A test taker is presented with 30 questions per level. A test taker that scores “at least 26/30 (87%) has achieved mastery of that level” and might then focus on learning words from the next level ( Webb et al., 2017 , p. 56). However, the stricter criterion of 29/30 is recommended for masterly of the first three (1,000–3,000 word families) levels as those are commonly accepted as the basis for future vocabulary learning.

The NGSLT ( Browne et al., 2013 ) is “a diagnostic instrument” designed to assess “written receptive knowledge” of the words on the New General Service List (NGSL) ( Stoeckel et al., 2018 , p. 5; Xodabande et al., 2021 , p. 100). The NGSL is comprised of “2,800 high frequency words” and is designed to “provide maximal coverage of texts for learners of English” ( Stoeckel et al., 2018 , p. 5). The test is “a multiple-choice test that consists of 5 levels, each assessing knowledge of 20 randomly sampled words from a 560-word frequency based level of the NGSL” ( Stoeckel et al., 2018 , p. 5). The first level represents the most frequent words, the second level represents slightly less frequent words, and so forth. Answering correctly 16 or 17 items out of 20 indicates mastery of that level ( Browne et al., 2013 ).

Researcher-constructed tests

Looking at “how well a particular word is known” is called measuring “depth of knowledge,” while looking at “how many words are known” is called measuring “breath of knowledge” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 549). Table 3 ( Nation, 2013a , p. 442) lists various aspects of what is involved in “knowing a word” and provides a corresponding example test item that has been used in previous research to assess that particular knowledge aspect.

Table 3 . Researcher-constructed tests of vocabulary knowledge.

Previous word card research has assessed both receptive form knowledge and productive form knowledge. Receptive knowledge of form refers to whether a learner can recognize the “spoken form of a word, written form of a word, or the parts in a word” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 538). Productive form refers to whether a learner can “pronounce a word correctly, spell and write a word, or produce appropriate inflected and derived forms of a word” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 538). For example, Lukas et al. (2020 ) assessed the productive knowledge of form by having learners complete a word dictation task after they were provided a picture of an animal. Samad and Makingkung (2020 ) assessed the productive knowledge of form by having learners read aloud a word and spell it out loud.

Previous word card research has also assessed both receptive and productive word meaning. Receptive meaning refers to whether a learner can “recall the appropriate meaning for a word form, understand a range of uses of a word and its central concept, or recall common associations for a word” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 538). Productive meaning refers to whether the learner can “produce an appropriate word form to express its meaning, use a word to refer to a range of items, or recall a word when presented with related ideas” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 538). For example, Oberg (2011 ) assessed the receptive knowledge of meaning by having learners take a sentence fill-in-the-blank test (see Table 3 ). Fukushima (2019 ) assessed the receptive knowledge of meaning by asking learners to complete a test that required them to provide L1 Japanese for displayed L2 English words. Productive knowledge of meaning was also assessed by asking the learners to provide L2 English words after L1 Japanese words were displayed ( Fukushima, 2019 ).

Previous word card research has assessed both receptive and productive knowledge of use. Receptive use refers to whether a learner can “recognize correct uses of a word in context, recognize appropriate collocations, or tell if a word is a common, formal, or infrequent word” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 538). Productive use refers to whether a learner can “use a word in correct grammatical patterns, produce a word with appropriate collocations, or use a word at appropriate times” ( Nation, 2013a , p. 538). For example, Alhuwaydi (2020 ) assessed the productive knowledge of use by asking learners to specify the part of speech for words.

Purpose of the study

With a view to broadening our understanding of English vocabulary learning from word cards, this study attempts to provide an overview of relevant empirical studies to identity potential variables that may affect learning from word cards. The synthesis was guided by the following research questions (RQs):

RQ 1: What aspects of word knowledge have been investigated in the published word card research literature?

RQ 2: Which type of word cards has a larger effect on vocabulary learning? Digital or paper? Self-constructed or ready-made?

RQ 3: Which condition has a larger effect on vocabulary learning? Incidental or intentional? Spaced or massed?

RQ 4: What is the strength of the correlation between the time spent using word cards and vocabulary learning?

RQ 5: Which language proficiency group (basic, independent, and proficient) can learn the most vocabulary from using word cards?

Methodology

Research synthesis in language learning research.

The primary goal of a research synthesis is to integrate empirical research findings by “drawing overall conclusions from many separate investigations that address identical or related hypotheses” ( Cooper, 2017 , pp. 170–171). The present study is a research synthesis of previous vocabulary learning studies which involve word card activities, attempting to provide generalizations of the practice of using word cards in L2 English learning and the effectiveness of word card usage in L2 English vocabulary development.

A well-designed research synthesis involves seven stages ( Cooper, 2017 , pp. 32–36): “(1) formulating the problem; (2) searching the literature; (3) gathering information from studies; (4) evaluating the quality of studies; (5) analyzing and integrating the outcomes of studies; (6) interpreting the evidence; and (7) presenting the results.” The seven stages for the current research synthesis are briefly summarized in this section and more detailed explanations are provided in the following sections. The first step is to formulate the problem. In this synthesis, after formulating the five research questions, the key concepts, constructs, and variables were clearly defined to distinguish relevant and irrelevant studies. The second step is searching the literature to identify relevant studies. To locate potential primary studies related to English vocabulary learning from word cards, a comprehensive literature search was conducted in the Web of Science (including SCI-Expanded, SSCI, AHCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, BKCI-S, BKCI-SSH, ESCI) and Scopus databases using search terms related to vocabulary and word cards. The third step is to gather information from studies. To identify the studies to include in the present research synthesis, a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria was applied to screen the retrieved studies after the literature search. Then, after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a systematic coding process was applied using a coding scheme that helped identify important data for analysis. The reliability of this coding process was checked before further data analysis. The fourth step is to evaluate the quality of studies. In this synthesis, the Study Design and Implementation Assessment Device (Study DIAD) was used to evaluate the studies ( Cooper, 2017 ). The fifth step is to analyze and integrate the outcomes of the primary studies. Results from the primary word card vocabulary learning studies were combined, identifying systematic data patterns regarding the practice of using word cards and its effects on vocabulary learning development (see Section Results). The sixth and seventh steps are to present and interpret the results. This was done through a discussion of this synthesis (see Section Discussion).

Literature search

To locate potentially relevant studies on English vocabulary learning from word cards, the following electronic databases were comprehensively searched: Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) (including Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index—Science, Conference Proceedings Citation Index—Social Science and Humanities, Book Citation Index—Science, Book Citation Index—Social Sciences and Humanities, Emerging Sources Citation Index). The search covered all document types including journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters. The literature search covered the period from 1945 to July 2021. There were no limits on the publication period for the included studies. All studies were searched and screened for inclusion within the databases, in order to be as inclusive as possible.

The key terms related to vocabulary and word cards were searched in the databases by title, yielding 803 results. A set of inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to determine the studies to be included in the synthesis (see Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria). Duplicated studies were removed. The combinations of search terms and Boolean operators (“AND” or “OR”) used in the database searches are presented in Table 4 .

Table 4 . The key terms used in the database searches.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

After the initially eligible studies for the synthesis were identified, they were carefully examined based on a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Studies that were based on empirical data were included. Besides quantitative empirical studies, qualitative empirical studies were also included in this synthesis. In addition, studies that were written in English were retrieved in this synthesis, as the published studies on international and English-language journals or conferences were generally regarded as quality studies. Studies with the following features were included:

1. The study was based on empirical data.

2. The study was written in English.

Studies with the following features were excluded:

1. The study was not related to language learning.

2. The study measured non-English language outcomes.

3. The study was not related to vocabulary.

4. The study participants were non-mainstream learners.

5. The study participants were native English speakers.

The 803 studies potentially eligible for the synthesis were then reviewed carefully to identify relevant studies based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The titles, abstracts, and full texts (when necessary) of all retrieved papers were reviewed. Seven hundred and forty four were excluded based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 26 duplicates were excluded, and 1 was removed due to an indexing error. Overall, the search yielded a sample of 32 studies that were included in the research synthesis. The corresponding full-text documents were obtained. The database search process is presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram ( Page et al., 2021 ) in Figure 1 .

Figure 1 . PRISMA flow diagram.

While the content of every research synthesis coding guide will be unique to the research questions asked, there are certain broad types of information that every synthesist will want to gather from primary research reports ( Cooper, 2017 ). The information to include on a coding guide is classified into eight categories: “(1) the report; (2) the predictor or independent variables; (3) the setting in which the study took place; (4) participant and sample characteristics; (5) the dependent or outcome variables and how they were measured; (6) the type of research design; (7) statistical outcomes and effect sizes; and (8) coder and coding process characteristics” ( Cooper, 2017 , p. 120). In addition, previous research syntheses on vocabulary learning from word cards coded various variables, including proficiency level and educational level of learners ( Webb et al., 2020 ), number of target words ( Wright and Cervetti, 2017 ; Webb et al., 2020 ), test timing ( Webb et al., 2020 ) and spacing ( Uchihara et al., 2019 ). Therefore, after the 32 studies that met the inclusion criteria were identified, Cooper's (2017) coding suggestions and the coded variables of previous research syntheses involving word cards were used to develop the coding scheme for this synthesis.

Specifically, this resulted in seven coding categories: (a) bibliographic information (e.g., author, year of publication), (b) learner characteristics (e.g., sample size, proficiency level), (c) word card characteristics (e.g., origin of word cards, digital integration), (d) methodological characteristics (e.g., study design, theoretical perspective), (e) learning conditions (e.g., spacing), (f) aspects of word knowledge (e.g., receptive form, productive form), and (g) results (e.g., mean of experimental group posttest scores). Supplementary Table 1 provides a detailed description of the coding scheme.

Some of the data was not available in the retrieved research, so the authors of the studies were contacted to request this information. Additional information was gratefully received from four authors ( Kose and Mede, 2018 ; Alhuwaydi, 2020 ; Hidayat and Yulianti, 2020 ; Xodabande et al., 2021 ).

To establish the reliability of the coding procedures, 5 studies (15.63%) were randomly selected and independently coded by a researcher familiar with the process of a research synthesis. Following Boulton and Cobb's (2017) approach, the inter rater reliability was assessed by counting the number of discrepancies between the two researchers' coding. The agreement was found to be 75%. Then, a discussion about the discrepancies was conducted with the researcher. Another 5 studies (15.63%) were randomly selected from the remaining 27 studies and independently coded, then the agreement was found to be 93%. Any remaining disagreements were satisfactorily resolved through discussion, and the coding book was refined where necessary.

Evaluation of included studies

The Study Design and Implementation Assessment Device (Study DIAD) ( Cooper, 2017 ) was applied to evaluate the included studies. Studies were evaluated with the following four global questions in the Study DIAD ( Cooper, 2017 , pp. 170–171):

1. Fit Between Concepts and Operations: Were the participants in the study treated and the outcomes measured in a way that is consistent with the definition of the intervention and its proposed effects?

2. Clarity of Casual Inference: Did the research design permit an unambiguous conclusion about the intervention's effectiveness?

3. Generality of Findings: Was the intervention tested on participants, settings, outcomes, and occasions representative of its intended beneficiaries?

4. Precision of Outcome Estimation: Could accurate estimates of the intervention's impact be derived from the study report?”

After detailed evaluation, all 32 included studies were verified to be quality studies.

Overview of primary studies

This section provides an overview of the 32 primary studies. Supplementary Table 2 presents the detailed information of these studies in chronological order. Bibliographic information, learner characteristics, word card characteristics, methodological characteristics and learning conditions are explained below.

Bibliographic information

In terms of the type of publication, 81% of the studies were journal articles ( k = 26), followed by conference papers ( k = 4) and a book chapter ( k = 1). In terms of the country or region, 25% of the studies were from Taiwan ( k = 8), 25% were from Iran ( k = 8), followed by Indonesia ( k = 4), Turkey ( k = 4), Japan ( k = 3), Malaysia ( k = 1), Macau ( k = 1), Canada ( k = 1), New Zealand ( k = 1), and Saudi Arabia ( k = 1).

The frequency of year of publication is reported in Figure 2 . Although the literature search covered the period from 1945 to July 2021, there was only one study ( Tan and Nicholson, 1997 ) from the 1990s that met the inclusion criteria for the synthesis. Thirty one out of the 32 studies were published from 2008 to 2021. As shown in Figure 2 , 9 studies were published between 2020 and 2021, 5 studies between 2018 and 2019, 4 studies between 2016 and 2017, 6 studies between 2014 and 2015, 4 studies between 2012 and 2013, 2 studies between 2010 and 2011, and 2 studies before 2010.

Figure 2 . Frequency of year of publication.

Learner characteristics

In terms of the proficiency level, 53% ( k = 17) of the studies reported the proficiency level of the learners. Among the 32 studies, 25% of the studies involved learners at the B1 level ( k = 8), 12.5% at the A1 level ( k = 4), followed by B2 ( k = 3), A2 ( k = 1), C1 ( k = 1), and none at the C2 level ( k = 0). 46.88% did not report this data ( k = 15). In terms of the educational level, 93.75% ( k = 30) of the studies reported the educational level of the learners. Among the 32 studies, 31.25% of the studies involved learners at the university level ( k = 10), 28.13% at the secondary level ( k = 9), 21.88% at the primary level ( k = 7), and 15.63% at the preprimary level ( k = 5). 6.25% did not report this data ( k = 2). With respect to L1 backgrounds, 88% ( k = 28) of the studies reported this data. Among these 32 studies, 25% recruited L1 Mandarin learners ( k = 8), followed by Turkish ( k = 5), Indonesian ( k = 4), Japanese ( k = 3), Farsi ( k = 3), Malaysian ( k = 1), Cantonese ( k = 1), French ( k = 1), Persian ( k = 1), and Arabic ( k = 1). 12.5% did not report this data ( k = 4).

Word card characteristics

In terms of the origin of word cards, 81.25% of the studies used ready-made word cards ( k = 26), and 18.75% used self-constructed word cards ( k = 6). In terms of the digital integration, 40.63% of the studies did not use digital word cards ( k = 13), 31.25% integrated used a computer program with word cards ( k = 10), and 28.13% used a mobile app with word cards ( k = 9). In terms of the semantic relatedness, 21.88% of the studies reported the data ( k = 7). Among the 32 studies, 18.75% of the studies used semantic clustering of words ( k = 6), 3.13% used thematic clustering of words ( k = 1), and 78.13% did not report this data ( k = 25). With respect to the type of assessed vocabulary, 69% of the studies reported the data. Among the 32 studies, 46.88% assessed specific vocabulary knowledge ( k = 15), 21.88% assessed general vocabulary knowledge ( k = 7), and 31.25% did not report this data ( k = 10). In terms of the type of vocabulary test used in previous studies, 90.63% used researcher-constructed tests ( k = 29), followed by VST ( k = 2), VLT ( k = 1), and NGSLT ( k = 1).

Methodological characteristics

In terms of the study design, 71.88% of the studies used an independent-group pretest-posttest design ( k = 23), 18.75% used a single-group pretest-posttest design ( k = 6), followed by other designs ( k = 3). In terms of the theoretical perspectives, only 9.38% of the studies reported the use of any theoretical perspective ( k = 3) for framing the studies. These perspectives included the Involvement Load Hypothesis ( k = 1) ( Laufer and Hulstijn, 2001 ), the Pimsleur's Memory Schedule ( k = 1) ( Pimsleur, 1967 ), and the Dual-Coding Theory ( k = 1) ( Paivio, 1979 ). With respect to a control group, 34.38% of the studies had a control group ( k = 11), and 66.63% did not have a control group ( k = 21). In terms of the pretest use, 87.5% conducted a pretest ( k = 28) and 12.5% did not ( k = 4). With respect to the test timing, 100% conducted an immediate posttest ( k = 32), 25% of the studies conducted a delayed posttest ( k = 8), and 25% conducted both ( k = 8).

Learning conditions

In terms of the approaches, 96.88% of the studies applied intentional learning ( k = 31), and 6.25% applied incidental learning ( k = 2). With respect to the spacing, 81.25% of the studies reported the data ( k = 26). Among the 32 studies, 75% asked learners to apply spaced learning ( k = 24), while 9.38% had learners apply massed learning ( k = 3), and 3.13% investigated both conditions ( k = 1). 18.75% did not report this data ( k = 6).

Calculation of effect sizes (ESs)

The studies included in the synthesis were not conducted with identical research designs, i.e., the included studies could be single-group pretest-posttest design or independent-groups pretest-posttest design. Due to the discrepancies in the designs, the guidelines suggested by Morris and DeShon (2002 , pp. 107–108) and Navarro (2013 , p. 382) were followed to calculate the ESs, as described below.

1. In the single-group pretest-posttest design (formula 1):

2. In the independent-groups pretest-posttest design (formula 2):

3. In the independent-groups pretest-posttest design (formula 3; when mean and standard deviation of pretest scores are not available in the published literature):

In the above formulas, post = posttest; pre = pretest; E = experimental group; C = control group; SD = standard deviation. In terms of formula 2 and 3, for independent-groups pretest-posttest studies that did not include a control group (e.g., only included two or more experimental groups), an experimental group, i.e., the least interfering experimental group, was treated as a control group. For example, Barkat and Aminafshar's (2015 ) study did not include a control group. In their study, learners were assigned into three experimental groups, i.e., paper word cards group, digital word cards group, as well as paper and digital word cards group. In this synthesis, only the first two experimental groups in their study were analyzed, and the second experimental group was treated as a control group.

It has been recommended by researchers that one study should ideally provide only one ES ( Light and Pillemer, 1984 ). As all included studies conducted an immediate posttest, only immediate posttest scores rather than delayed posttest scores were extracted for ES calculation in each study. It should also be mentioned that the included studies did not assess identical aspects of word knowledge. However, the word knowledge was assessed sequentially in most studies. To calculate the ESs, the data of the first receptive knowledge assessment was extracted from each study to prevent practice effects (i.e., the previous test could affect the subsequent test performance) and gather unified data.

Specifically, 78.13% of the studies ( k = 25) provided means and standard deviations needed for the computation of effect sizes in this synthesis. Conservative estimates of ESs were filled in for the remaining studies ( k = 7) that had missing data, i.e., assigning ESs of zero, as minimum treatment effect was assumed ( Light and Pillemer, 1984 ).

When the ESs were calculated, an effect direction plot, i.e., a visual display of non-standardized effects across included studies, was then generated ( Thomson and Thomas, 2013 ). In addition, an effect size plot was constructed, i.e., ESs were categorized by their size and visually presented. This synthesis method was utilized to answer RQ 2, 3, and 5, which, respectively, concern the type of word cards used, word cards used in different learning conditions, and word cards used by learners with different language proficiencies.

Research question 1: What aspects of word knowledge have been investigated in the published word card research literature?

The first research question concerns the aspects of word knowledge investigated in the previous studies. To examine what aspects of word knowledge were investigated by researchers, 29 out of the 32 studies (91%) which indicated the aspect of word knowledge assessed were included for analysis ( Tan and Nicholson, 1997 ; Nakata, 2008 ; Başoglu and Akdemir, 2010 ; Oberg, 2011 ; Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ; Komachali and Khodareza, 2012 ; Kuo and Ho, 2012 ; Chien, 2013 , 2015 ; Nikoopour and Kazemi, 2014 ; Barkat and Aminafshar, 2015 ; Hamzehbagi and Bonyadi, 2015 ; Özer and Koçoglu, 2015 ; Galedari and Basiroo, 2016 ; Lavoie, 2016 ; Aminafshar, 2017 ; Saputri, 2017 ; Wu et al., 2017 ; Chen and Chan, 2019 ; Fukushima, 2019 ; Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ; Alhuwaydi, 2020 ; Hidayat and Yulianti, 2020 ; Lukas et al., 2020 ; Samad and Makingkung, 2020 ; Wulandari and Musfiroh, 2020 ; Yüksel et al., 2020 ; Xodabande et al., 2021 ).

Firstly, the aspects of word knowledge assessed in each of the 29 studies were coded. Secondly, the frequency of studies that assessed each aspect of word knowledge (i.e., how many studies out of the 29 studies investigated the different types of word knowledge) was calculated. Results are presented in Figure 3 . In these 29 studies, 72.41% assessed receptive knowledge of meaning (RM) ( k = 21), 41.38% assessed receptive knowledge of form (RF) ( k = 12), 27.59% assessed productive knowledge of form (PF) ( k = 8), 20.69% assessed productive knowledge of meaning (PM) ( k = 6), 13.79% assessed receptive knowledge of use (RU) ( k = 4), and 6.90% assessed productive knowledge of use (PU) ( k = 2).

Figure 3 . Frequency of word knowledge type ( k = 29). Max = 29 as only 29 of the 32 studies provided necessary data. RF, receptive knowledge of form; PF, productive knowledge of form; RM, receptive knowledge of meaning; PM, productive knowledge of meaning; RU, receptive knowledge of use; PU, productive knowledge of use. As more than one aspect of word knowledge might have been assessed within a single study, the total is higher than 29.

Based on the frequency of studies that assessed each aspect of word knowledge, most studies assessed receptive vocabulary knowledge more often than productive vocabulary knowledge. In addition, knowledge of vocabulary form and meaning were assessed more often than knowledge of vocabulary use.

Research question 2: Which type of word cards has a larger effect on vocabulary learning? Digital or paper? Self-constructed or ready-made?

The second research question concerns the types of word cards that were used in the previous studies. To examine the effects of word card type on vocabulary learning, all 32 studies that provided the necessary data were analyzed. The digital integration and the origin of word cards for each of the 32 studies were coded and their ESs were calculated.

Firstly, results concerning the digital integration showed that among the studies, 50% of the studies used paper word cards that did not contain digital integration ( k = 16), 31.25% used digital word cards in a computer program ( k = 10), and 28.13% used digital word cards in a mobile app ( k = 9). Digital word cards (59.38%, k = 19) were used more often by researchers than paper word cards (50%, k = 16). Specifically, digital word cards in a computer program (31.25%, k = 10) were used more often than digital word cards in a mobile app (28.13%, k = 9).

Secondly, results concerning the origin of the word cards showed that among the studies, 81.25% used ready-made word cards ( k = 26), and 18.75% used self-constructed word cards ( k = 6). Among the two word card types, ready-made word cards were used more often by researchers than self-constructed word cards.

Thirdly, the effect direction plot was constructed and visually presented in Table 5 . Arrows were used to indicate reported effect direction (positive effect ▲, negative effect ▼, or no change ◀▶) ( Thomson and Thomas, 2013 ). Arrows were also used to indicate sample size (large arrow=sample size equals or >50, small arrow=sample size smaller than 50) ( Thomson and Thomas, 2013 ). Among the 32 studies, 75% reported a positive effect ( k = 24) and 25% reported no change ( k = 8). There was a trend showing most studies that applied the word cards, either digital or paper, ready-made or self-constructed, showed a positive effect on vocabulary learning.

Table 5 . Effect direction plot for type of word cards ( k = 32).

Lastly, the effect size plot was constructed, i.e., ESs were categorized by their size and visually presented in Figure 4 . ESs for these studies were interpreted according to Cohen's guidelines, i.e., < .2 is negligible, .2 is small, .5 is medium, and .8 is large ( Larson-Hall, 2010 ). In terms of digital integration, studies that used digital word cards showed varied effects, i.e., small (17%), medium (11%) and large effects (33%). Studies that used paper word cards also showed small (17%), medium (11%) and large effects (50%). In terms of the origin of the word cards, studies that used self-constructed word cards showed medium (20%) and large (20%) effects. Studies that used ready-made word cards showed small (15%), medium (11%) and large (44%) effects.

Figure 4 . Effect size plot for type of word cards ( k = 32).

Based on the results of the effect size plot, more of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for the use of paper word cards compared to digital word cards. In addition, more of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for the use of ready-made word cards than self-constructed word cards.

Research question 3: Which condition has a larger effect on vocabulary learning? Incidental or intentional? Spaced or massed?

The third research question concerns the learning conditions that were applied in the previous studies. To examine the effects of learning conditions on vocabulary learning, all 32 studies that provided the data on the approach (i.e., incidental or intentional learning condition) were analyzed, then 26 studies (81%) that provided the data on spacing (i.e., spaced or massed learning condition) were analyzed ( Nakata, 2008 ; Başoglu and Akdemir, 2010 ; Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ; Komachali and Khodareza, 2012 ; Kuo and Ho, 2012 ; Chien, 2013 , 2015 ; Nikoopour and Kazemi, 2014 ; Barkat and Aminafshar, 2015 ; Özer and Koçoglu, 2015 ; Galedari and Basiroo, 2016 ; Lavoie, 2016 ; Aminafshar, 2017 ; Saputri, 2017 ; Wu et al., 2017 ; Kose and Mede, 2018 ; Tsai, 2018 ; Chen and Chan, 2019 ; Fukushima, 2019 ; Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ; Hidayat and Yulianti, 2020 ; Lai et al., 2020 ; Lukas et al., 2020 ; Reynolds et al., 2020 ; Yüksel et al., 2020 ; Xodabande et al., 2021 ). The learning approach (i.e., incidental learning or intentional learning) and spacing (i.e., spaced or massed learning condition) for each of the studies was coded and their ESs were calculated.

Firstly, the approach results showed that among the 32 studies, 93.75% of the studies was conducted in an intentional learning condition ( k = 30), and 9.38% in an incidental learning condition ( k = 3). An intentional learning condition was used much more often than an incidental learning condition.

Secondly, the spacing results showed that among the 26 studies, 92.31% of the studies used a spaced learning condition ( k = 24), and 11.54% used a massed learning condition ( k = 3), and 3.85% used both learning conditions ( k = 1). More studies used a spaced learning condition than a massed learning condition or both conditions.

Thirdly, the effect direction plot was constructed and visually presented in Table 6 . Among the 32 studies, 75% reported a positive effect ( k = 24) and 25% reported no change ( k = 8). There was a trend showing most studies that applied these learning conditions showed a positive effect on vocabulary learning.

Table 6 . Effect direction plot for learning conditions ( k = 32).

Lastly, the effect size plot was constructed, i.e., ESs were categorized by their size and visually presented in Figure 5 . In terms of the approach, the only two studies that used an incidental learning condition showed negligible effects. Studies that used an intentional learning condition showed small (13%), medium (13%) and large (42%) effects. In terms of spacing, studies that used a spaced learning condition showed small (8%), medium (17%), and large (42%) effects. All studies that used a massed learning condition showed large (100%) effects.

Figure 5 . Effect size plot for learning conditions ( k = 32).

Based on the results of the effect size plot, more of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for using word cards in an intentional learning condition compared with an incidental learning condition. In addition, more of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for using word cards in a massed learning condition compared with a spaced learning condition.

Research question 4: What is the strength of the correlation between time spent using word cards and vocabulary learning?

The fourth research question concerns the word card usage time. To examine how time spent using word cards correlates with vocabulary learning, 14 out of the 32 studies (43.75%) that provided the data on time spent using word cards by the learners and the posttest mean scores on vocabulary learning were included for analysis ( Tan and Nicholson, 1997 ; Oberg, 2011 ; Kuo and Ho, 2012 ; Galedari and Basiroo, 2016 ; Wu et al., 2017 ; Kose and Mede, 2018 ; Tsai, 2018 ; Chen and Chan, 2019 ; Fukushima, 2019 ; Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ; Hidayat and Yulianti, 2020 ; Lukas et al., 2020 ; Reynolds et al., 2020 ; Xodabande et al., 2021 ).

Firstly, the time spent using word cards by the learners and the posttest mean scores on vocabulary learning were extracted from the 14 studies. Secondly, the assumptions for Spearman's Rho correlation were checked. The first assumption is that the data has to be ordinal, interval or ratio, and the second assumption is that the data has to be monotonically related, i.e., one variable increases (or decreases), the other variable also increase (or decreases) ( Prion and Haerling, 2014 ). The extracted data is ratio, i.e., has a true or meaningful zero. In addition, the variables have a monotonic increasing relationship.

Thirdly, a Spearman's Rho correlation was run to determine the relationship between the time spent using word cards and the posttest mean scores on vocabulary learning. Spearman's rho, r s , for these studies were interpreted according to the following guidelines: 0 to .2 is negligible, .21 to .4 is weak, .41 to .6 is moderate, .61 to .80 is strong, and .81 to 1 is very strong ( Prion and Haerling, 2014 ). There was a positive and weak correlation between the time spent using word cards and the vocabulary learning outcomes ( r s =.396, p =.161, and n =14). The correlation coefficient value of .396 confirmed there was a positive and weak correlation between the two variables, meaning that both variables moved in the same direction. The p -value of .161 showed that there was not enough evidence to show the correlation was significant.

Based on the results of the Spearman's Rho correlation, a weak relationship was shown between time spent using word cards and vocabulary learning outcomes; however, this relationship was not found to be statistically significant.

Research question 5: Which language proficiency group (basic, independent, or proficient) can learn the most vocabulary from using word cards?

The fifth research question concerns the proficiency level of learners that were assessed in the previous studies. To examine which proficiency group learned the most vocabulary from using word cards, 17 out of the 32 studies (53.13%) were included for analysis ( Tan and Nicholson, 1997 ; Nakata, 2008 ; Başoglu and Akdemir, 2010 ; Oberg, 2011 ; Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ; Komachali and Khodareza, 2012 ; Chien, 2013 , 2015 ; Hamzehbagi and Bonyadi, 2015 ; Özer and Koçoglu, 2015 ; Kose and Mede, 2018 ; Fukushima, 2019 ; Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ; Alhuwaydi, 2020 ; Hidayat and Yulianti, 2020 ; Reynolds et al., 2020 ; Yüksel et al., 2020 ).

Firstly, the proficiency level in each of the 17 studies was coded and their ESs were calculated. Secondly, the frequency of the studies that assessed proficiency level (i.e., how many studies out of the 17 studies investigated the proficiency level) was calculated. Results showed that among the 17 studies, 47.06% involved learners at the B1 level ( k = 8), 23.53% at the A1 level ( k = 4), followed by B2 ( k = 3), A2 ( k = 1), C1 ( k = 1), and none in the C2 ( k = 0). Learners at the B1 level were involved more often than learners at any other proficiency level.

Thirdly, the effect direction plot was constructed and visually presented in Table 7 . Among the 17 studies, 70.59% reported a positive effect ( k = 12) and 29.41% reported no change ( k = 5). There was a trend showing most studies that assessed the proficiency level of learners showed a positive effect on vocabulary learning. Lastly, the effect size plot was constructed, i.e., ESs were categorized by their size in terms of basic (i.e., A1 or A2 level), independent (i.e., B1 or B2 level) and proficient (i.e., C1 or C2 level) level group and visually presented in Figure 6 . In terms of proficiency level of learners, all studies that assessed basic learners showed negligible effects. Studies that assessed independent learners showed varied effects, i.e., small (20%), medium (20%) and large (30%) effects. The 1 study that assessed proficient learners showed a large (100%) effect.

Table 7 . Effect direction plot for proficiency level of learners ( k = 17).

Figure 6 . Effect size plot for proficiency level of learners ( k = 17).

Based on the results of the effect size plot, learners that were more proficient in English learned more words from using word cards than those less proficient in English. More specifically, learners at the proficient level (i.e., C1 or C2 level) learned the most vocabulary from using word cards, followed by independent (i.e., B1 or B2 level) learners and finally basic (i.e., A1 or A2 level) learners.

The vocabulary assessments used in the reviewed studies should have assessed the aspects of word knowledge learned by the learners. As the studies included in this synthesis were related to the use of word cards, there should have been a relationship between the assessments in these studies and the use of the word cards. More specifically, Nation (1982 , 2013a) suggested a simultaneous presentation of the L1 form of a target word and its meaning for the first encounter, and then a delayed presentation when using word cards. This is because a retrieval of a target word's form or meaning is necessary for learning to take place. If word cards were used to learn productive knowledge of form, i.e., learners looking at the L1 meaning and trying to recall the L2 written form, it is assumed that the productive knowledge of form would have been assessed by the researchers. Alternatively, if word cards were used to learn productive knowledge of meaning, i.e., learners looking at the L2 written form and trying to recall the L1 meaning, it is assumed that the productive knowledge of meaning would have been assessed by the researchers.

Surprisingly, researchers assessed receptive knowledge more often than productive knowledge in the reviewed studies. This might be due to two reasons. Firstly, the extent that the learners engaged in productive learning when using word cards were limited. Researchers might not have assessed productive knowledge due to learners not often using the word cards for productive learning. If word cards were used properly by the learners, the learning of productive knowledge would occur, as a retrieval of target words' forms or meanings would take place. In many of the reviewed studies, it is less certain if the learners used the word cards in this way, which could be the reason that researchers did not assess productive knowledge. Only some of the studies clearly indicated the learners used the word cards for the learning of productive knowledge ( Alhuwaydi, 2020 ; Lukas et al., 2020 ; Yüksel et al., 2020 ).

In contrast, some other studies simply asked the learners to create word cards but gave limited instruction to the learners on how to use those word cards. For example, in Kuo and Ho's (2012 ) study, learners were presented with the L2 forms of the target words and were required to write the L1 meanings on the other side of the word cards. The learners were then required to share their experience of using the word card strategy in class. However, it might have been possible that the learners did not know how to use the word cards properly to do the retrievals. It should be mentioned that word card creation is not the end of the learning process. Instead, the key to word card use is for learners to look at the L2 word or L1 meaning on one side, and test themselves to see if they can recall the L1 meaning or L2 word on the other side ( Komachali and Khodareza, 2012 ).

There were also studies that engaged learners in picture-word matching activities, but the number of retrievals were limited. For example, in Samad and Makingkung's (2020 ) study, learners were required to read the target words on the word cards, and then match the pictures with the target words by pasting them in task books. From what was reported in the article, it seemed the learners did not work any further with the target words. Likewise, in Oberg's (2011 ) study, learners were presented with L2 forms of the target words and were required to draw pictures to represent the target words on the other side of the word cards. Then they required learners to recall the L1 forms of the target words by looking at the pictures. From what was reported in the article, it appeared that was where the practice with the target words ended. However, previous research has suggested that learners should check their answers rapidly in an easy way by turning over the cards ( Özer and Koçoglu, 2015 ). The learners should come back to the word cards repeatedly, as this process will provide them with opportunities to encounter the vocabulary ( Nation, 2008 ; Komachali and Khodareza, 2012 ).

Many of the studies also seemed to indicate learners only used the word cards while they were in class. Learners should also “engage in retrieval activities” outside the classroom in their spare time ( Kuo and Ho, 2012 , p. 35), as word cards are convenient to carry around.

The second reason for productive knowledge being assessed less often than receptive knowledge is that productive knowledge is more difficult to assess. Although the creation of a productive knowledge test is simple, the marking of the test is potentially difficult. Usually, productive knowledge is assessed through translation ( Kuo and Ho, 2012 ; Fukushima, 2019 ). However, there may be multiple possible translations for a single target word. Unlike multiple-choice tests, productive knowledge translation tests do not necessarily have a single answer. However, even with multiple possible answers, there are still reliable ways to mark a productive knowledge translation test. Nation (2013b) suggested setting a way of marking any test, i.e., the use of an answer key and a set of rules for dealing with unusual or unexpected answers should be prepared before the marking begins. The key and rules for marking could be used by anyone that is asked to mark such a test. This can provide an easy way to mark a productive knowledge test. However, if the target words are selected by the learners, which often occurs when the learners are creating their own word cards for the words selected by themselves, it may be difficult for researchers to anticipate the words selected by learners. This would prevent the researchers from being able to create a single key for marking all learners' assessment outcomes. Therefore, under the circumstances of learners constructing their own word cards, it may not be possible to create a productive knowledge test.

Vocabulary form, meaning, and use did not receive an equal amount of attention from researchers. Most researchers were interested in assessing form and meaning, possibly because the initial learning of vocabulary occurs when a form-meaning connection is made ( Nation, 2013a ). On the other hand, vocabulary knowledge of use is a more advanced and complex aspect of vocabulary knowledge, and many learners may “lack the opportunities or motivation to use target words” in a short term study ( Yang et al., 2021 , p. 479). It is less likely that vocabulary knowledge of use would have been mastered by learners and able to be assessed by researchers, that is unless the study is longitudinal ( Nation, 2013a ).

Researchers used standardized tests or researcher-constructed tests as vocabulary measurements. If learners' general vocabulary knowledge was to be assessed, standardized tests were used by the researchers. Alternatively, if learners' knowledge of specific lexical items were to be assessed, researchers constructed special tests for this purpose. It should be mentioned that most standardized tests used in the previous studies measured the breadth of vocabulary knowledge, i.e., “the vocabulary size of learners” ( Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 , p. 48). It is not surprising that the main standardized tests that were used in the reviewed studies, i.e., VST ( Nation and Beglar, 2007 ), UVLT ( Webb et al., 2017 ) and NGSLT ( Browne et al., 2013 ), were all designed to assess learners' receptive knowledge of meaning.

These tests were found to possess the characteristics of reliability, validity and practicality, which are the three major characteristics of a good test ( Nation, 2013b ). These tests were a reliable measure of vocabulary size due to their adequate sampling of vocabulary items. These tests were valid because they were measuring what they were supposed to measure, i.e., a vocabulary size test should measure learners' vocabulary size. These tests were practical because they were easy to administer (a computer program can be used), easy to mark (layout of the tests facilitates marking) and easy to interpret (tested words represent the whole population of words from which they were chosen) ( Nation, 2013b ).

Considering the characteristics of reliability, validity and practicality can also help to explain the researcher-constructed tests used in the reviewed studies. More specifically, receptive knowledge multiple-choice tests are often very practical in terms of marking but could reduce validity, as it should be more valid for a learner to provide an answer than to choose from a range of choices ( Nation, 2013b ). For example, Oberg (2011 ) assessed receptive knowledge by having learners take a sentence fill-in-the-blank test with multiple-choice items given. On the other hand, productive tests are often valid but somehow not practical, as this test format might be challenging to mark. For example, Özer and Koçoglu (2015 ) assessed productive knowledge by having learners write a composition using target words. Even with the reduction of practicality, it is necessary to assess learners' productive knowledge gains from the use of word cards. This is because practicality is not as important as reliability and validity in a test ( Nation, 2013b ). However, this lack of practicality could also be the reason that less productive knowledge tests were used in previous research on word card use.

Types of word cards

Interestingly, more of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for the use of paper word cards compared to digital word cards. It should be mentioned that the comparison between paper word cards and digital word cards was an indirect comparison by looking at the ESs of the particular word card type used in the studies. More studies showed a larger effect for the use of paper word cards compared to digital word cards for two reasons. Firstly, the use of paper word cards might be more suitable for young learners ( Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ). Paper word cards allow for easier interaction between learners ( Komachali and Khodareza, 2012 ) and do not necessitate the learning of a computer program to use them ( Reynolds et al., 2020 ). The familiarization with digital word cards requires time and energy, so teachers or technical staff may be needed to assist the learners to use digital word cards ( Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ). Secondly, most studies compared the use of paper word cards to other vocabulary learning activities, i.e., gesture-based systems ( Wu et al., 2017 ), wordlists ( Kuo and Ho, 2012 ) or a control group without any intervention ( Komachali and Khodareza, 2012 ), rather than comparing the two types of word cards. As the use of paper word cards and other activities mentioned above were quite different, it is not surprising that paper word cards were found to be more effective than these other activities. Therefore, the results of this synthesis which indicated paper word cards were more effective than digital word cards should be considered with caution.

Certain studies compared the use of digital word cards and paper word cards. They showed no significant difference in the effectiveness of these two types of word cards ( Oberg, 2011 ; Nikoopour and Kazemi, 2014 ; Chen and Chan, 2019 ). However, some studies showed digital word cards had a larger effect than paper word cards on vocabulary learning ( Başoglu and Akdemir, 2010 ; Azabdaftari and Mozaheb, 2012 ). Unlike the studies that investigated paper word cards in comparison to other activities, these studies compared digital word cards to paper word cards. Under this circumstance, the use of paper word cards and digital word cards were two similar types of activities. Therefore, it is not surprising that there was a non-significant difference between the use of paper word cards and digital word cards. However, there still were some studies that showed a larger effect with the use of digital word cards. For these studies, the additional affordances of digital media such as incorporating sounds ( Başoglu and Akdemir, 2010 ; Barkat and Aminafshar, 2015 ; Fukushima, 2019 ), animations ( Barkat and Aminafshar, 2015 ; Chen and Chan, 2019 ) and videos ( Chen and Chan, 2019 ) could have been the reason for the better learning outcome, even though previous researchers have suggested that these could be distractions for learners ( Chen and Chan, 2019 ).

More of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for the use of ready-made cards than self-constructed word cards. Teachers are usually aware of their learners' proficiencies and could select target words at an appropriate level of difficulty for their learners. It is important for learners to focus on learning vocabulary that is at the right level of difficulty. Learners should focus on learning the most frequent words in a language first ( Nation, 2013a ). In other words, the first 1,000 words should be learned before the second 1,000 words, and the second 1,000 words should be learned before the third 1,000 words, and so on ( Nation, 2013a ). In this regard, if a learner had not mastered the first 1,000 most frequent words of English, the learner should not try to learn words from the third 1,000 most frequent words of English.

Teachers are usually aware of the proficiency level of their learners, so they may have been in a better situation to select the most appropriate target words for learners ( Read, 2000 ). On the other hand, the self-constructed word cards that were created by the learners on their own may have contained target words that were not at the appropriate level, i.e., the words could have been too easy or too difficult for learners. It could have been that the learners in the previous studies were not well-equipped at target word selection. Teachers should give guidance and training on how to select target words that are appropriate for learners, because the most frequent words of English need to be mastered first ( Nation, 2013a ). It is difficult to know exactly how the learners used the word cards in the previous research, as some studies only explained the steps involved in word card construction (e.g., Chien, 2013 ) or how the word cards were used (e.g., Kose and Mede, 2018 ), but not both. Overall, it is difficult to determine the difference in the effectiveness of ready-made word cards and self-constructed word cards, as none of the included studies compared these two types of word cards.

Use of word cards

More of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for using word cards in an intentional learning condition compared with an incidental learning condition. However, only 2 of the 32 studies used an incidental learning condition ( Özer and Koçoglu, 2015 ; Reynolds et al., 2020 ). Therefore, it is premature to conclude that the intentional learning condition would benefit vocabulary learning more than the incidental learning condition when using word cards. It is not surprising that most of the studies used an intentional learning condition as the use of word cards is an intentional learning strategy ( Nation, 2013a ). Unless the use of the word cards was manipulated by the researchers to create an experiment in incidental learning, it was less likely that use of word card could result in incidental learning.

Although word cards are usually an intentional learning strategy, they can be used for incidental learning purposes. This is important because intentional and incidental learning should complement each other ( Nation, 2013a ). For example, a learner who reads an article incidentally could come across an unknown word and then record that word on a word card for later review ( Reynolds et al., 2020 ). Except for the first few thousand most common words of English, most vocabulary should be learned incidentally ( Lin and Lin, 2019 ). After a mastery of these most frequent words using intentional learning strategies, the learner can work on increasing their vocabulary size with incidental vocabulary learning strategies ( Lin and Lin, 2019 ).

Interestingly, more of the reviewed studies showed a larger effect for using word cards in a massed learning condition compared with a spaced learning condition. A teacher who trains learners on how to use word cards usually tells the learners to use the word cards in a spaced learning condition ( Kuo and Ho, 2012 ). However, previous research has suggested that when new words are first introduced to learners, a massed learning condition may be more effective ( Uchihara et al., 2019 ). During this initial learning, learners should work with the word cards in a massed learning condition because that will result in a large number of repeated encounters with the words ( Uchihara et al., 2019 ).

There were still certain studies that found spaced learning led to better but non-significant differences than massed learning ( Kuo and Ho, 2012 ). Thus, spaced learning could still potentially be more effective than massed learning. However, it could be that learners should use massed learning initially and then follow up with spaced learning. Moreover, previous researchers have suggested to increasingly spread out the meetings with newly learned words using a distribution schedule where the repetitions become increasingly further apart ( Nation, 2008 ). Revisiting of previously learned words can strengthen retention of vocabulary knowledge ( Nation, 2008 ).

Time spent learning form word cards

A positive non-significant weak correlation was found between the time that learners spent using word cards and their posttest vocabulary scores. The positive relationship suggested that the more time learners spent on vocabulary learning from word cards, the more vocabulary they learned. There might be two reasons for the statistically insignificant result. Firstly, there were only 14 studies that provided necessary data that could be extracted for analysis in this synthesis. The relatively small sample size might increase variability, which resulted in a statistically non-significant correlation. Secondly, the lack of a meaningful relationship between the learning time and vocabulary learning may be due to the “limited ability of certain learners to learn effectively” from word cards ( Nakata, 2008 , p. 3). Even though certain learners spent more time, if they did not use the time efficiently, they might not learn no matter how much time they spent.

Although the correlation was not statistically significant, there is research that has indicated more time spent on using word cards results in more vocabulary learning ( Webb et al., 2020 ). It should be mentioned that what is more important than the overall amount of time that learners spend using the word cards is probably how they use those word cards. For example, learners should be repeatedly coming back to words instead of meeting them all at once, which is often referred to as spaced learning ( Nation and Webb, 2011 ; Nation, 2013a ).

Another issue that was unclear in the previous studies was whether the words that the learners worked on were semantically related or not. Previous researchers showed that when learners worked with a new group of words that are semantically related to each other, it could be more difficult to acquire them rather than if these words were not semantically related to each other ( Tinkham, 1997 ; Nation and Webb, 2011 ). When learners are trying to learn a set of semantically related words, they will confuse words that are too similar, which could increase the learning difficulty ( McDonald and Reynolds, 2021 ). In contrast, if the words are not related to each other or organized thematically, it may lead to a better learning outcome. This is because differences between lexical items facilitates learning ( McDonald and Reynolds, 2021 ).

Learner proficiency

Learners at the proficient level (i.e., C1 or C2 level) learned the most vocabulary from using word cards, followed by independent (i.e., B1 or B2 level) learners and finally basic (i.e., A1 or A2 level) learners. In other words, learners that were more proficient in English learned more words from using word cards than those less proficient in English. There is a possibility that learner proficiency has a moderating effect on vocabulary learning. Previous researchers have indicated that vocabulary development progresses differently for learners at different proficiency levels ( Elgort, 2017 ). However, it is a relatively under-researched area in the word card literature, as only one of the included studies involved learners at different proficiency levels in a single study ( Tsai, 2018 ). Tsai (2018 ) found that the learners at the higher proficiency level had more effective learning outcomes than learners at the lower proficiency level.

Language proficiency could be related to the amount of effort needed to invest in the learning task. Learners with lower proficiencies might have to work very hard to learn, which they might consider as a time-consuming task ( Elgort, 2017 ). However, it might be easier for learners with higher proficiencies to gain more vocabulary knowledge, so they might be more willing to invest more time in learning. More proficient learners have more autonomy to take better charge of their learning ( Lin and Lin, 2019 ), and therefore may be more skillful in vocabulary learning using word cards ( de Vos et al., 2018 ). For example, in a study conducted by Azabdaftari and Mozaheb (2012 ), proficient learners used the word cards both inside and outside the classroom. This may have allowed them to devote more attention to unknown words and may have increased the potential for vocabulary learning. Learners with lower proficiency might stop using the word cards when class is over, even if they are encouraged to use word cards outside of class.

Limitations

Although this synthesis uncovered some interesting findings, some limitations must be discussed. Firstly, a literature search was only conducted in Scopus and WOS (including SCI-Expanded, SSCI, AHCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, BKCI-S, BKCI-SSH, ESCI). Thus, the coverage of the synthesis is limited to these databases.

Secondly, this synthesis only included published research. Peer-reviewed studies were selected for review to ensure quality, but this opens up the possibility of publication bias.

Thirdly, a synthesis method was adopted to visually present the effect sizes. The studies included in the synthesis were not implemented with totally identical research designs and did not assess the same aspect of word knowledge. Although ESs were calculated for each included study, we did not look at the significant differences between moderating variables. Instead, the effect direction plots and effect size plots (ESs were categorized by their size) were presented. We took this approach which was different from what would be done with meta-analyses in order to be able to include more primary studies in this synthesis.

Finally, only the immediate posttest data was used for ESs analysis. We only looked at the immediate posttest data because all primary studies provided this data. Therefore, the long-term effects of vocabulary learning from word cards were not investigated in this synthesis. With these limitations in mind, the research implications and teaching implications of the current study results are reported below.

Research implications

One suggestion for future research is that learner proficiency should be reported. Fifteen of the 32 included studies (46.88%) did not report the proficiency level of the learners. It is difficult to interpret the results of studies that do not clearly describe learner proficiency. Due to the uncertainty of learner proficiency, it is also difficult to conclude whether the vocabulary learning reported in such studies can be generalized to certain learner populations. In addition, learners at different proficiency levels can be recruited for future studies. These studies could compare the effects of word card use on basic, independent, and proficient learners' vocabulary learning.

Another suggestion for future research is that appropriate tests should be adopted to test vocabulary learning performance. For example, future researchers can adopt more standardized tests or report the reliability for researcher-constructed tests. Since most of the included studies that used researcher-constructed tests did not provide any reliability measures for the tests, the effects of the word card intervention reported in the studies is questionable. In addition, productive tests should be used for testing learners' vocabulary knowledge gained from the use of word cards, as productive knowledge production should have taken place during word card use.

Future researchers can also compare the effectiveness of ready-made word cards and self-constructed word cards, as none of the reviewed studies compared the effect of these two types of word cards. In other words, the effects of both types of word cards had been studied separately but were not compared in a single study.

Another interesting area for future research may be to investigate the learning of different aspects of word knowledge. In this synthesis, most studies started with receptive knowledge in their vocabulary assessments. To prevent practice effects, i.e., previous tests could affect subsequent test performance, so the scores of the first receptive knowledge assessment in each study were extracted for analysis. This synthesis provides a certain understanding of how receptive knowledge of form and meaning can be acquired through the use of word cards. However, we are less certain of the effects of the variables in the current synthesis have on other aspects of word knowledge acquired through the use of word cards. As more time may be needed to develop vocabulary knowledge of use, future longitudinal studies can be conducted to address this gap in the literature.

Teaching implications

A teacher that decides to incorporate the use of word cards inside or outside their language classroom should take the following into consideration. Whether using digital or paper word cards, teachers should spend adequate time providing guidance to learners on how to use word cards properly ( Chen and Chan, 2019 ). Some digital programs could offer teachers some affordances such as ready-made word banks and streamlined use of the word cards. If a teacher chooses to use digital word cards, large screen tablets or computer should be used, because they can provide a better learning experience. While the synthesis did not aim to investigate how to use digital word cards for better learning outcomes, teachers who plan to use digital word cards should consider the screen size in a computer program or a mobile app. This is because previous researchers ( Ji and Aziz, 2021 ) indicated that learners might have difficulty leaning vocabulary on devices with limited screen sizes.

For some learners, self-constructed word cards can save teacher planning time ( Reynolds et al., 2020 ), but require proper guidance before learners begin constructing the word cards ( Reynolds and Shih, 2019 ) and additional checks afterwards by teachers ( Reynolds et al., 2020 ). For self-constructed word cards, teachers should guide the learners in target word selection, especially for those who have just received training on how to use word cards.

A teacher should consider encouraging different learning conditions when learners are using word cards. Intentional learning of vocabulary using word cards is very effective, but teachers can also consider asking learners to use word cards for new words they have incidentally encountered through engagement in other non-language learning tasks, such as reading, watching videos ( Lin and Lin, 2019 ), or classroom discussion ( Uchihara et al., 2019 ). Teachers should stress the importance of when spaced and massed learning should be applied to word card use. Teachers can encourage learners to use massed learning when they work with new words at the beginning, and use spaced learning later on. Learners also need to be reminded to use the word cards frequently throughout the day. Many of these guidelines for using word cards have also been incorporated into certain digital apps. However, if a teacher suggests digital apps to learners, the teacher should make sure the digital apps possess these qualities before recommending them to learners.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/ Supplementary material , further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Author contributions

BR contributed to the conception and design of the study and revised the paper. YL collected, organized, analyzed the data, and drafted the paper. BR and YL interpreted the results, approved the submitted version of the paper, responded to the reviewer comments, and revised the submitted version of the paper. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was supported by the University of Macau under Grant Number MYRG2019-00030-FED.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.984211/full#supplementary-material

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* ^ Studies included in this synthesis are marked with an asterisk.

Keywords: word cards, flashcards, vocabulary, receptive knowledge, productive knowledge

Citation: Lei Y and Reynolds BL (2022) Learning English vocabulary from word cards: A research synthesis. Front. Psychol. 13:984211. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.984211

Received: 01 July 2022; Accepted: 09 August 2022; Published: 06 September 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Lei and Reynolds. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Barry Lee Reynolds, barryreynolds@um.edu.mo

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Effective Vocabulary Instruction Fosters Knowing Words, Using Words, and Understanding How Words Work

Margaret g. mckeown.

a Department of Instruction and Learning, University of Pittsburgh, PA, Emerita

This clinical focus article will highlight the importance of vocabulary instruction, in particular, thinking about instruction in terms of focusing students' attention on words and their uses. Vocabulary knowledge that supports literacy and academic learning is extensive and multidimensional. Many learners accumulate high-quality vocabulary knowledge independently, through wide reading and rich language environments that provide abundant practice with words and language forms. However, instruction in vocabulary provides a more efficient way of getting that job done, especially for learners who are less likely to be experiencing rich language interactions, for example, because they struggle with reading and do little of it on their own.

Three aspects of vocabulary instruction, choosing words to teach, the inclusion of morphological information, and the importance of engaging students in interactions around words, will be explored. Considerations in choosing words include their role in the language and their utility to students. Morphology will be discussed in terms of using Latin roots in instruction as a resource for unlocking new word meanings and a framework for understanding language.

Effective instruction means bringing students' attention to words in ways that promote not just knowing word meanings but also understanding how words work and how to utilize word knowledge effectively.

How many words do you know? You deal with an abundance of words every day, comfortably and fluently. You are breezing along in this text right now with hardly a thought to what you know about each word. However, you have no idea, no way of knowing, just how many words you know. So many words are available to us to process with ease, yet an accounting of those words is beyond our reach. This illustrates why it is hard to get a handle on the role and importance of vocabulary learning. Just as the extent and depth of one's knowledge remains elusive, it is hard to understand the extent and depth of knowledge that needs to be acquired by students for them to experience literacy and academic success. Learning—and teaching—vocabulary is a bit of a stealthy process.

The most obvious aspect of a word's meaning is its definition. However, knowing a definition is by no means the essence of word knowledge. A rich variety of information is needed about each word in order to support high-quality literacy and academic learning. Useful theoretical perspectives on word knowledge have been offered by many scholars (e.g., McKeown, Deane, Scott, Krovetz, & Lawless, 2017 ; Nagy & Scott, 2000 ; Perfetti, 2007 ). The emphases in their perspectives differ, but three key characteristics are clear in all three:

• There are many aspects to know about a word, including features of its meaning, situations in which it is used, associations with other words, and how it behaves syntactically in context.
• Words are polysemous; their meanings are not static but shift according to context. These shifts may be large or subtle; for example, accommodate can mean physically providing room for someone and providing for someone's need or request, or it can take a more metaphorical sense of being able to understand a new idea that may challenge your perspective.
• Word knowledge is incremental, gradually developing over multiple encounters.

Given the complex nature of word knowledge, learners need to develop knowledge that allows them to access meaning rapidly when reading and to use that meaning to make sense of the various contexts in which a word might be encountered. Rapid access to word meanings that are relevant to a given context is necessary to keep comprehension from slowing down and eventually breaking down. Making sense of the range of contexts in which any word might appear requires flexible knowledge that can adapt to different uses of words.

Many learners accumulate high-quality vocabulary knowledge independently, mainly through extensive reading and rich language environments that provide abundant practice with words and language forms. However, instruction in vocabulary provides a more efficient way of getting that job done. A more efficient route to vocabulary knowledge is especially critical for learners who are less likely to be experiencing rich language interactions, for example, because they struggle with reading and do little of it on their own. Lack of adequate vocabulary knowledge can too easily cause these students to be left behind in developing literacy, and many of them will never catch up. The consequence is that a great deal of individual and societal potential goes unrealized.

However, all students can benefit from high-quality vocabulary instruction. Even students who have a large vocabulary repertoire can enrich their knowledge in ways that make it more accessible and productive. For example, it is well accepted that words can be known to different levels of knowledge. As Carey (1978) pointed out in her seminal research on fast and extended mapping of word knowledge, every learner is working on as many as 1,600 word meanings that are in various stages of being known. It seems reasonable that instructional interactions around language can have benefits for a range of learners, even though the words being learned and the pace at which learning accumulates vary for different learners. Instruction may be initiating knowledge for some learners, whereas it may be reinforcing, clarifying, and extending knowledge for others.

As educators take on the responsibility of teaching vocabulary, issues of how to proceed center on which words to teach and the nature of the instruction. This clinical focus article first focuses on selecting which words to teach, based on their utility and role in the language. The focus then turns to an aspect of language that is both a feature of words and a potential aspect of instruction, morphology, which is the structure of words and word parts. The third focus of the clinical focus article is the nature of vocabulary instruction itself, in particular, features that make instruction most effective.

Which Words to Teach?

A starting point in considering which words merit instructional attention is the nature of the English language. Language is a dynamic human creation and, thus, inherently a bit of a mess.

Ancestry of English

English, even more than most other languages, is a mishmash, because of historical influences on how the language developed into the English we know today. English began as a Germanic language, Anglo-Saxon or Old English. However, this early language mingled with other languages, with the biggest influence being Latin. Latin influenced English over centuries, either directly or through other Romance languages, especially French. The greatest influence began with the Norman conquest of 1066, which brought French, as spoken by the upper classes, and Latin as the language of books and official documents. In fact, English mingled with Latinate vocabulary to such an extent that modern English seems as much a Romance language as a Germanic language, as far as its word-stock ( Baugh & Cable, 1978 ).

The Germanic versus Latinate divide is significant in how our language is used. The Germanic segment of our word-stock mainly consists of simple, concrete words that typify oral, conversational language. The Latinate portion includes more abstract words that characterize more academic language as found in texts. Of course, the common, high-frequency words are found in text as well. In fact, they make up the majority of words found there. However, the portion of words that particularly characterize text is key to comprehending text. Those words carry the semantic burden in written language.

Consider, for example, the text segment below from the New York Times ( Casey & Escobar, 2018 ). In this 49-word segment, the majority—about 38—of the words are high frequency. Yet, without the lower frequency, italicized, and bolded words, it would be difficult to make sense of this passage. The italicized words are considered academic words; the bolded words are more common, but are used here in a metaphorical sense:

“The peace accords …were meant to bring an end to five decades of fighting that left at least 220,000 dead. Behind the agreement, though, loomed a fear: That many of the thousands of fighters granted amnesty might sour on civilian life and pick up arms again.” (NY Times, Sept 19, 2018; front page)

The divide between conversational and written aspects of English has been labeled the lexical bar ( Corson, 1985 , 1995 ). Corson emphasizes the need for learners to cross this lexical bar or move from using everyday language to mastering text language. This move can be difficult but is crucial to academic success. Crossing the lexical bar requires understanding and using sophisticated, literate vocabulary.

The divide between everyday words and the language of text was the starting point for the notion of word tiers ( Beck & McKeown, 1985 ; Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002 , 2013 ). The concept originated when colleagues challenged our recommendations for direct vocabulary instruction, saying that there were too many words in the language to teach them all. We countered, saying that there was no need to teach all the words. We conceptualized a three-tier heuristic by considering that different words have different utility and roles in the language. Tier 1 words characterize everyday oral language, and children learn these readily when hearing them in context. Tier 3 includes words that tend to be limited to specific domains (e.g., chromosome) or extremely rare ( abecedarian ) and are best learned within their domains.

Tier 2 comprises words that are characteristic of written language (e.g., coherent, diminish, or eloquent) and not so common in conversation ( Hayes & Ahrens, 1988 ). These are words of high utility for literate language users. Tier 2 words overlap to a great extent with general academic words, that is, words that are common across various domains of academic texts. Good databases of academic words include Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL) and Gardner and Davies' (2013 ) more recent Academic Vocabulary List. Each of these lists is based on a large corpus of words from sources such as academic journals and university textbooks across broad academic areas. A difference between academic words and Tier 2 words is that Tier 2 includes words from fiction, whereas academic words are drawn from nonfiction, disciplinary texts. Thus, Tier 2 includes words that typically apply to characters and emotions, such as sinister, mutter, and obsessed . We think these kinds of words are good candidates for instruction, for several reasons. They can help students read and enjoy fiction, they provide students with interesting words to use in describing people and human interactions in writing, and they are rather delicious and fun! Students enjoy, for example, imagining what sinister characters might do or demonstrating muttering versus murmuring.

Children typically have a rather small repertoire of Tier 2 words when they enter school but increase Tier 2 knowledge as they become readers. Tier 2 words are more difficult to learn than Tier 1 words, partly because they are less frequent in the language as a whole—thus the frequent repetition that aided learning Tier 1 words is gone—but also because written context in which Tier 2 words typically appear provides less information about a word's meaning than the immediate oral contexts in which Tier 1 words are found. Think of it this way: When children hear words spoken every day, they have the physical surroundings, gesture, intonation, and familiarity of their everyday life to support figuring out word meaning. However, when they read, or are read to, they have only other words to glean information from.

An important caveat about word tiers is that it is an imprecise concept. It was meant as a heuristic to help bound the selection of words to teach and also to draw attention to properties of words and their roles in the language that make some words more useful to know. Classrooms are typically inundated with words from the various curricular materials that teachers and students deal with. The tiers concept can support teachers in selecting from among that sea of words those words that are most beneficial to attend to and keep around. Tier 2 words are beneficial to learn because they are found in a variety of texts and can thus provide access to a range of contexts.

Yet, the fact that Tier 2 words can apply to varied contexts also means that these words have multiple related senses or nuances—they are polysemous. Negotiating these shades of meaning can be tricky for learners. A typical sticking point in learning vocabulary is that, when we learn a word, we initially learn a particular sense and then we tend to use that sense to understand subsequent contexts we meet. Thus, if we learn the word foundation as an organization that provides funding and then meet a context about people building a “foundation of friendship,” we might think it means an organization that provides funding for friendships.

Rampant polysemy is, then, another reason for giving students supported practice with using these kinds of words. By providing varied contexts and supportive interactions around them, students become able, for example, to understand that a student with academic potential is one who has the ability to be a good student and a merchant's potential customer is someone who might buy from them. Probing two such contexts also helps students to see that at the core of potential is a meaning of “possibility of becoming something in the future.” Word knowledge needs to become decontextualized—generalized beyond specific contexts—to provide the kind of flexibility learners will need as they meet words in new contexts.

As the above discussion of polysemy suggests, it is important to give attention to different senses or nuances of word meaning in instruction. However, it is not necessary to try to include every sense that a word might have—that could get way too confusing! Part of the reason for focusing on different senses is to help students build a general understanding that words can shift their meaning in different contexts and to understand the limits of that. The way my colleagues and I have handled polysemous senses is to provide a definition that describes the core concept of a word, which is broad enough to cover various senses. We employed these kinds of definitions in the middle school vocabulary program we developed called RAVE (Robust Academic Vocabulary Encounters; McKeown, Crosson, Beck, Sandora, & Artz, 2012 ). For example, the definition of approach applied to getting physically closer to something and a way to deal with or solve an issue: “If you approach something, you get closer to it in order to reach it or to deal with it.” Then, we presented contexts that used the word in both ways and asked students to explain what the context meant. So, for example, for a context such as “Our group had to come up with a new approach for our science project,” the teacher would guide students to understand that the group was trying to figure out a new way to create a science project.

It is important not to confuse polysemy, multiple senses or nuances of related meaning, with words that have multiple unrelated meanings. The latter are actually homographs, words that are spelled the same but with no similarity in meaning. Examples would be fast as in speed and fast as in to forego food. There is no reason to make a habit of introducing homographs of instructed words. That is likely to breed confusion. The only circumstances for introducing a homograph would be to avoid confusion with an already known word. So, for example, if fast , meaning to forego food, is being taught, mention that students probably already know fast as meaning a high rate of speed but that this is another word that sounds and looks the same and has a different meaning.

Consideration of Tier 2 words can provide a focus and a mindset, but it still may not make it easy to find and select precisely which words to teach. It can seem that there are, at once, too many words to choose from and not enough “really good words” to share with students. Which are the right ones? First of all, there is no definitive list of words that students must know. The best guide is to choose from texts students are reading in the classroom, which already come with attached contexts to launch from. Thinking about how to choose among words that appear in texts and curricular materials can be spurred by inspecting lists such as the AWL and the Academic Vocabulary List. Other resources for lists of words include Stahl and Nagy (2006) and Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2008) , which present sets of lists for particular texts and websites that offer word lists for particular content areas, texts, and grade levels (see, e.g., https://www.vocabulary.com and https://www.spellingcity.com ). However, all of these lists should be used along with one's own prudent judgment, which should include considerations of the word's general utility and, specifically, if it seems useful to one's particular students—can you imagine your students finding a way to use the words?

A special case of selecting words can occur when students are reading at levels below their thinking or language comprehension levels. This can occur with both younger and struggling readers. Materials for these students may not offer abundant useful words to teach as far as vocabulary development. A strategy we have used is to select “words about” the text. For example, a simple story may tell the tale of a boy and his dog. You could introduce the word companion . Or a story might portray a child's excitement about an upcoming birthday. You could introduce anticipate or eager. The best overall strategy for selecting words is to tune your attention to be on the lookout for good words in texts or in experiences that students will interact with. Go for words that are important to a text and frequent enough in the language that learning them is worthwhile.

As far as appropriateness for students of different ages and reading levels, when focusing on increasing students' knowledge of word meanings, Tier 2 words are appropriate for every level. For example, here are some words we have taught—and students have learned and used—in kindergarten: extraordinary, commotion, inseparable, cautious, reluctant, delicate, stingy, and remarkable. Note that these words, although considered Tier 2, are not highly polysemous and not as abstract as many on the AWL. The point is to prepare students for language they will be meeting as they go up the grade levels and encounter increasingly academic language. Even if students are not mastering all words that are introduced, the initial experiences are valuable for this preparation.

Why Include Morphology?

One aspect of vocabulary instruction universally understood in the field is that not only would it be an impossible task to teach every word but it would also be impossible to teach even a majority of agreed-upon, important-to-know words. One way to leverage instruction is to attend to general patterns of language, with morphology being the most prominent among those.

What Are Morphemes?

Morphology is the study of morphemes, the smallest units of language that have identifiable meaning or function. Types of morphemes include prefixes, suffixes, and roots. So, for example, unthinkable has three morphemes: un, think, and able . Think is the freestanding root; that is, it can stand on its own as a word. However, our language also contains bound roots, which are word parts that have meaning across words but cannot stand by themselves, such as nov in novel and renovate or voc in vocabulary and advocate . These bound roots are mostly from our Latin heritage, although there are some Greek roots as well.

There are several ways to categorize morphemes:

• Bound or free: Free are basically single-morpheme words, whereas bound morphemes are either affixes or Latin roots.
• Inflectional or derivational: Inflectional morphemes are suffixes added to a word to change number or tense, for example, the – s in dogs or – ing in many verbs. Derivational morphemes are prefixes or suffixes that change the meaning of a word, such as prefixes un – and re– or suffixes –tion and – able .
• Content or function: Content morphemes are morphemes that carry semantic meaning. These include words that are nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, as well as derivational morphemes and bound (Latin or Greek) roots. Function (also called grammatical ) morphemes are words or suffixes that serve a functional role, such as prepositions, pronouns, or inflectional morphemes.

What Does Research Say About Including Morphology in Vocabulary Study?

A strong and growing body of research shows that knowledge of morphology contributes to reading comprehension ( Anglin, 1993 ; Carlisle, 1995 , 2000 ; Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, Vaughan, & Vermeulen, 2003 ). However, evidence that instruction in morphology leads to enhanced comprehension is less clear. Results of morphological instruction show that students often learned the meanings for the word parts they were taught but rarely generalized that to the learning of new words ( Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010 ; Curtis, 2006 ). However, recent meta-analyses by Goodwin and Ahn (2013) and Bowers et al. (2010) provided evidence of enhanced spelling and vocabulary learning across 21 morphological interventions and some, albeit small, transfer to new words and to reading comprehension. Virtually, all research on morphology has focused on derivational morphology (prefixes and suffixes). In some instances, Latin roots were occasionally included in instruction, but their effects were not analyzed separately.

Understanding of Latin roots can provide students with some generative knowledge of language that they can use to unlock meanings of unfamiliar words and a way to give students some understanding of how English got to be the way it is. Providing information about English and its Latin layer can “take the lid off language” to help students see its inner workings. Teaching students about the patterns that words follow makes students aware of the connections within language, such as that duplicate and duplicity have double at the core of their meaning. Understanding patterns of language would seem to help students deal with language and its oddities and feel more in control of their language.

My colleagues and I first added a component of Latin root instruction when we developed our middle school RAVE program ( McKeown et al., 2012 ). We called that component Becoming Aware of Language and introduced it by presenting two key concepts about language: that languages are constantly changing and that all languages adopt words from other languages—with English adding a lot of vocabulary from Latin. The RAVE program then introduced several Latin roots in each weekly cycle of instruction. We selected roots that came from the target words and then introduced several more words with the same root. For example, manipulate was one of the target words, and in the Becoming Aware of Language lesson, we introduced the root man, meaning hand, and root-related words manicure, manager, and emancipate (a good resource for identifying roots of words is an online etymological dictionary found at etymonline.com ).

A potential downside of teaching Latin roots is that roots lack consistency phonologically and orthographically. For example, the root sed, meaning to sit, can also be spelled sid —as in preside . Additionally, the meaning of a Latin root within a word is not always transparent. Consider a set of words that contain the root voc, meaning speak or call. That semantic component is easy to understand in the words vocabulary, vocal, vociferous, and even advocate, meaning to speak for someone. However, that same root also occurs in vocation, which has a more metaphorical relation to the root: A vocation is a calling to some endeavor or profession.

Because roots may demonstrate lack of consistent form or lack of transparent meaning, one principle built into our instruction was flexibility: teaching students to be alert to variations and ready to adapt their thinking about the meaning of a new word they meet. We provided practice in this concept by having activities that asked students to problem-solve by working out meanings of words given contexts that contained an unfamiliar root-related word. For example, we presented a picture of a group of people painting a room, with the caption “These friends are renovating an old house.” Students had already learned that nov meant new and then used the visual and semantic context to figure out that the friends were working to make the house new again.

Despite potential downsides of teaching Latin roots, our view is that knowing about roots, and having some knowledge of specific roots and the words in which they appear, is a resource that students can draw on when encountering a new word in context. This knowledge provides a little extra boost to using context alone to puzzle out new word meaning. Even though learners learn most of the words they know from context, it is notoriously unreliable, as writers write to express ideas, not to teach words. Context may hold strong clues to a word's meaning, or little or no clue, and may even misdirect readers as to word meaning (see, e.g., Beck, McKeown, & McCaslin, 1983 ).

In our RAVE work, we did find evidence that students could use their knowledge of roots to unlock the meaning of unfamiliar words ( Crosson & McKeown, 2016 ). For this study, RAVE and control students were given a task that asked them to provide the meaning of root-related words in context. For example, RAVE taught the word diminish and the root min, and in the study task, we presented the sentence “Most of their conversations were about the minutiae of daily life” and asked “What is this saying about their conversations?” We found that RAVE students were significantly more able to provide an accurate interpretation of the word and context, saying, for example, that the conversations were about small details of life.

In a subsequent project, a vocabulary program designed specifically for English learners focused even more strongly on Latin roots. That program is discussed in another article in this forum ( Crosson, McKeown, Robbins, & Brown, 2019 ).

Full instruction in lexical morphology is likely not appropriate for students younger than upper elementary. However, teachers or clinicians can certainly take advantage of opportunities when working with young students. For example, if the words vocabulary and vocal have been encountered, you might mention that they both have voc in them, which means speak, and ask how that relates to each word. No need to go into language history or Latin, but just plant the seed about language having meaningful parts.

Keys to Effective Instruction

Effective instruction means bringing students' attention to words in ways that promote not just knowing word meanings but also understanding how words work and how to utilize word knowledge effectively in higher level tasks, such as reading comprehension. Research on vocabulary development, vocabulary instruction, and its relationship to comprehension has a long and rich history (see Baumann, 2009 ). Over several decades of investigation, a strong consensus has formed about features of effective vocabulary instruction, which can be summarized as follows: present both definitional and contextual information, provide encounters with words in multiple contexts, and engage students' active processing of word meanings. This research has included reviews of multiple studies and individual intervention studies that compare more traditional instruction to instruction that included broad information about words and activities to engage students with using words. Table 1 presents some of the key research milestones that were instrumental in leading to that consensus. More recent intervention research has confirmed that consensus in studies that focus on students as young as kindergarten ( Coyne, McCoach, Loftus, Zipoli, & Kapp, 2009 ; Coyne et al., 2010 ; McKeown & Beck, 2014 ; Silverman, 2007 ) and even preschool ( Wasik & Bond, 2001 ) and on English learners ( Carlo et al., 2004 ; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012 ). Additionally, a recent meta-analysis confirmed that explicit instruction and depth of processing yield the strongest effects for children at risk ( Marulis & Neuman, 2013 ).

Research milestones in establishing consensus on vocabulary instruction.

To reiterate, these principles of effective instruction have been found to apply for teaching word meanings for all students—students of all levels, pre-K through high school; learners learning English as an additional language; and learners with learning disabilities. Note, however, that teaching word meanings differs from teaching students to read. Reading requires a different kind of instruction and practice. Although it is a good practice to at least familiarize students with the orthographic representations of words being taught for meaning, the emphasis and goals are different.

The need for instruction that focuses on definitional and contextual information, encounters in multiple contexts, and active processing stems from the nature of word meaning itself. Because word meaning is, as discussed earlier, multifaceted, polysemous, and flexible, it should be clear, first, that a definition of a word will not suffice for effective learning. A definition can only capture limited information, and although definitions can be a good starting point, or good shorthand for remembering a word's meaning, knowing definitions will not support comprehension ( McKeown, Beck, Omanson, & Pople, 1985 ; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986 ).

The multifaceted, polysemous nature of word knowledge also means that vocabulary learning is incremental. It is virtually impossible to learn everything you need to know about a word from just one encounter. Experiencing words in multiple contexts leads learners to build rich networks of connections to a word and across similar words. A word's meaning becomes generalized across encounters, losing its connection to specific contexts, which allows it to be applied flexibly to new contexts. Flexible knowledge enables learners to bring the most relevant aspects of a word's meaning to bear in making sense of subsequent contexts in which the word is met ( Reichle & Perfetti, 2003 ).

However, simply encountering words in multiple contexts does not maximize learning. A learner needs to engage in active processing of the information in those encounters in order to reap top benefits. Active processing means interacting with words—manipulating ideas around words in order to extend and deepen knowledge of the word, its uses, and its connections to other words and situations. This is requisite for building the kind of rich and flexible knowledge that will support students in comprehending and using language.

The focus of this section is what effective interactions that engage students' active processing look like. The core of such interactions is really pretty simple—prompt students to do something with the words that encompasses thinking about features of a word's meaning and how the word can be used. The activities presented are generally examples of activities that teachers have used with whole classrooms, but they could easily be used or slightly adapted to be used in a clinical setting, such as by a speech-language pathologist and an individual student. The activities are appropriate for all levels as well. The same activity formats can be used with kindergartners or high schoolers; the words themselves and the responses of the students drive the maturity level of the discussions. The examples used here are from first grade, second grade, and middle school.

The following examples illustrate interactions that are intended to prompt student thinking about different aspects and features of word meaning. Experiencing this variety helps students build a flexible, reflective approach to words and their uses. This first activity helps students think about how different words can relate to the same contexts and to choose the word they would apply. The teacher would then follow up by asking the student to explain how their choice fits:

• Try out a flying machine
• Taste a new food made of seaweed
• Taste a new kind of chocolate
• Enter a singing contest

Interactions that ask students to make choices can prompt them to reflect on a word's features, for example, the extent of change that refine entails.

• Making some small changes to your science project or starting all over with a new one?
• Getting your hair trimmed or having your head shaved?

It is important to include interactions that prompt students to think about different senses of a word, such as the different senses of expose in the following:

• How could middle school students be exposed to what it will be like in high school?
• How could you expose someone who was mistreating his dog?

Interactions can and should be quick and fun! We have seen teachers turn up the fun quotient in various ways. One example is the way they ask students to indicate their response. A teacher we worked with told her first-grade students, “If you think I'm talking about something that is mighty, show me your muscles,” and then provided examples such as “a strong woman lifting up a tiger” and “a big river that floods nearby homes.”

Interactions should include providing feedback to students, for example, asking “why” when a student responds to the eager/reluctant prompts. Feedback helps to build and reinforce connections to a word in the student's mental lexicon.

Asking students to provide their own examples of a word is an interaction strategy that is easily implemented and potentially effective. For example, simply ask “What is something in your life that you would like to refine?” or “What is something you are always eager to do?” Asking students to create their own examples, however, should not be one of the first activities students are asked to do with a newly introduced word. Students often have difficulty coming up with their own ideas initially and often repeat the context in which a word has been introduced. So calling on students' creative use of words is best employed after students have been exposed to a number of uses and had time to reflect on how it might apply to them.

Feedback is especially important for interactions that prompt student-created examples, to monitor understanding and keep responses on the right track or redirect if necessary. A good way to build an effective habit of feedback is to think about the rule of thumb of improv comedy—“Yes, and…,” which involves acknowledging what someone has said and then expanding on it. In an improv troupe, this keeps the comedy rolling; in vocabulary instruction, it keeps the connections building. Note the “yes, and”-ing in the following exchange:

Teacher: What is something you'd want if you were famished? Student: Pizza. Teacher: Mm, pizza! And what would you do with that pizza if you were famished? Student: Gobble it all right up! Teacher: Oh, boy, yeah, because if you're famished, do you want just one piece of pizza?

Note in this next example that the teacher's “and” allows her to prompt students to generalize about entailments of the target word delicate .

Teacher: What are some things that are delicate ? … Student 1: A glass vase. Student 2: A brand new baby. Teacher: What is it about delicate things, like vases and babies? How do we have to act around them? Student 3: Be really, really careful….

Although the above examples of “yes, and” are from a classroom discussion, that technique is strongly applicable to clinical interactions between one child and a clinician. A clinician is in a good position to tailor feedback to a student's individual needs and interests.

Because vocabulary learning requires multiple exposures and because time with students is a precious resource, we need to seek ways to leverage attention to words, or figure out how to get more bang for the buck! Having a clinician coordinate with a student's classroom teacher could offer an ideal opportunity to leverage attention to vocabulary. A clinician can ask the classroom teacher for words that the class is focusing on or words that a particular student needs help with. The clinician is in a good position, then, to apply playful techniques, such as the activities exemplified above; to provide practice in vocabulary; and to build enjoyment with language. The clinician is also in a good position to provide extension and enrichment, for example, by introducing other words that associate with the classroom vocabulary. Because the activities suggested set a conversational, spontaneous tone, they might allow the clinician to identify gaps in a student's vocabulary repertoire and both directly help with those and inform the teacher about words that seem unfamiliar to a student or difficult for a student to use.

Another way for clinicians to enhance vocabulary attention is through their own word use. This can start with awareness of their own language use, deliberately using sophisticated words—both those that are being taught and others that are appropriate to situations—in interactions with students. Challenge students to “catch” you using target words and then turn it around—challenge students to use target words during lessons and provide some sort of points or simple rewards when they do.

Another important leverage point in vocabulary instruction is prompting students to use and be aware of words outside formal instruction. Such prompting can start with informal coordination among school professionals—classroom teacher, clinician, and beyond. This might begin with posting a list of target words on the classroom door and privately encouraging other adults to use the words when they visit or when students work with them. A next level of increased attention could include a vocabulary bulletin board, posting interesting uses of target words, both those found in written materials and those that students have generated.

Going beyond instructional sites for vocabulary should also include going beyond school, motivating students to take their vocabulary awareness home with them. Clinicians can easily take a lead role in this and then prompt the classroom teacher to join in. Challenge students to find target words in books they are reading, in menus, music, and video games, and to use the words with their families. My colleagues and I have promoted these kinds of activities in two studies and found that students respond with enthusiasm! However, best of all, we found that it affects the outcomes. In a fourth-grade study, when students were offered the opportunity to find words outside class through an activity we called Word Wizard , we found increased comprehension effects over instruction that did not include the Wizard component ( McKeown et al., 1985 ).

In a study with sixth graders, we invited them to engage through In the Media , an activity that challenged them to find their words in any media outside school. We received great response, including students finding words in sports broadcasts— dynamic players—and in Sunday school verses! In that study, we found that students who engaged with In the Media had greater learning gains on a vocabulary posttest ( McKeown, Crosson, Artz, Sandora, & Beck, 2013 ). Although our direct experiences have involved fourth grade and middle school students, we have worked with teachers who have had success with such activities with students from kindergarten through high school.

If students do not respond at first to the idea of finding words, that activity can be seeded with some specific directions to spur students on. For example, ask them to notice in something they read, hear, or see, such as

• someone who does something voluntary
• someone who needs to adapt to a new situation
• someone who had to consult with another person.

Or you might ask them to choose one of their vocabulary words to describe

• a character in a book they are reading
• someone on the news or in the newspaper
• someone in a commercial
• an actor in a video or movie.

As a final point, it is necessary to include a caveat to clinicians: You may be disappointed to find that teachers you work with devote little, if any, time to vocabulary. Even if they do, the words they work with may not be the best choices for generative vocabulary building, but words with specific and narrow use in curricular materials. If that situation is in play, you are on your own—so I implore you to take up the mantle of vocabulary progenitor! This can flow from a cultivated interest and attention to words and word use. Choose words that appear in student materials or that emerge from current school or community events, for example. Use newspapers, websites, word lists such as the AWL ( Coxhead, 2000 ), or words you bump into in your own reading to create a set of words to use with students. Included in the Appendix are the words we taught in RAVE, all of which are taken from the AWL.

Wrapping Up

Always keep in mind that language is a strange, fascinating, vibrant human creation. Exploring its puzzlements and figuring out its patterns should be endlessly intriguing. Sparking that kind of attitude in students takes them a long way toward being successful, confident language users. Clinicians and teachers can propel students along that way by choosing useful, interesting words, helping students get an initial understanding of them through multiple exposures and lively interactions, and clinicians and teachers, as well as other school personnel in contact with students, can encourage students to notice and revel in words in their environment. The essence of all these activities that keep attention focused on vocabulary is to generate excitement around words and students' uses of them.

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the Institute for Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education for its support to some of the research described in this clinical focus article: Robust Instruction of Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students, Award R305A100440 granted to Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the institute, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

Words Taught in Robust Academic Vocabulary Encounters Program

Funding statement.

The author gratefully acknowledges the Institute for Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education for its support to some of the research described in this clinical focus article: Robust Instruction of Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students, Award R305A100440 granted to Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

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School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Te Kura Tātari Reo

Vocabulary research topics, vocabulary research topics for assignment, project, or thesis work.

These suggestions are organised according to the chapters and sections of the chapters in Learning Vocabulary in another Language .

Chapter 1: The goals of vocabulary learning

• Analyse a technical dictionary to see how many words it contains, and what types of words it contains. Compare the results with a corpus study.
• Examine the vocabulary load of your learners' textbooks.
• Develop a procedure for quickly assessing the coverage of high frequency words in text books.
• Make a replacement for the GSL.
• Prepare a low frequency word list taking account of range.
• Prepare a standardised graded reader list dividing the most frequent 3,000 word families into levels.
• Use the Range program to develop a high frequency word list for spoken language.

Chapter 2: Knowing a word

• Design a test to investigate the degree to which learners of English have control of important spelling rules.
• Investigate the qualitative differences between receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge.
• Classify and test proper nouns to see what categories can be assumed to provide minimal learning burden when looking at the vocabulary load of texts.

Chapter 3: Teaching and explaining vocabulary

• Thoroughly examine learners using a particular type of activity to see if the process examination (goals, conditions, signs and features) is confirmed by a product examination (measured learning outcomes).
• Experimentally test the differing effects of noticing, retrieving, and generating.
• Replicate Joe's (1998) study of the differing effects of differing degrees of generating.
• What unique information do different techniques add to word knowledge? What common information do they add?
• When is the best time for direct teaching to occur in the learning of a word - before or after gaining meaning focused experience?
• The forms and occurrences of definitions. The work on the different kinds of definition seems to have been thoroughly done, but it has focused only on limited areas of academic discourse. Bramki and Williams (1984) only looked at one writer's use of lexical familiarisation devices. Flowerdew (1992) looked at Biology and Chemistry lectures. There is scope for widening the data base.
• The effects of definition types on comprehension and learning. Is there a relationship between the different types of definitions as revealed in the corpus studies of Bramki and Williams (1984) and Flowerdew (1992) and learners' understanding of these definitions and learning from them? There are no studies of second language learners' skill in recognising these definitions let alone the understanding that comes from them.
• As well as looking at the effect of definitions, it would be useful to examine learners' skill. What range of skill do learners show in dealing with definitions? What aspects of the skill need attention? What diagnostic tests are most effective in showing degree of control of the skill? What kinds of training are effective in developing the skill?
• Write a comparative review of several CAVL programs.
• Use a CAVL program to evaluate the effect on learning of meeting the same item in different contexts.
• Determine the factors influencing incidental vocabulary learning by using a message focused computer game.

Chapter 4: Vocabulary and listening and speaking

• Compare the effects of types of defining (L1 or L2) on vocabulary learning while listening to a story.
• Look at the incidence of academic vocabulary in university lectures. Is it as common as in written academic texts? Do lectures contain other sources of vocabulary difficulty, for example through the use of examples?
• How does learners' focus of attention change as a text is listened to several times? Where does vocabulary fit in this range of focuses of attention?
• Does adding a role play feature to a task result in more generative use? That is, does it cause more changes to the written input?
• Analyse examples of semantic mapping to show the ways teachers use to encourage dialogue and participation. Make an observation checklist to grade semantic mapping performances.
• Do a corpus study to find the vocabulary which is much more frequent in certain spoken registers than it is in written registers.

Chapter 5: Vocabulary and reading and writing

• Do different kinds of learning occur from reading compared with learning from different kinds of exercises?
• Is the Lexical Frequency Profile of a text an effective measure of the readability of the text for ESL learners?
• Evaluate and investigate a reading based vocabulary activity for its effect on vocabulary learning and use.
• Honeyfield (1977) claims that simplified reading texts distort normal language use. Research this claim looking at a range of language use features including collocation and information density.
• Do simplified, elaborated and easified texts have similar effects on comprehension and vocabulary learning?
• How can vocabulary learning from graded readers be optimized?
• Experimentally test writing tasks to see what needs to occur to quickly enrich learners' written productive vocabulary.
• Test the effect of richness of vocabulary use on teachers' assessment of ESL learners' writing.
• Design and trial a checklist to guide teachers' response to vocabulary use in writing.

Chapter 6: Specialised uses of vocabulary

• What are the general discourse functions of academic vocabulary. For example, it may be interesting to take an academic function, like defining or referring to previous research, and see what role academic vocabulary plays in this.
• Do particular academic words behave differently in different subject areas? That is, does their meaning change? Do they have different collocates? This research would confirm or question the value of courses for academic purposes for students from a variety of disciplines, and would suggest how attention could be most usefully directed towards academic vocabulary.
• How much is the academic vocabulary parallelled by high frequency words. That is, is the academic vocabulary just a more formal version of part of the most frequent 2,000 words, or does it add new meanings?
• Compare several experimental reports to see if the same academic vocabulary occurs in the same parts of the reports. For example, do the method sections use a similar set of vocabulary which is different from the results section?
• Look at learners' written work to see what vocabulary discourse features are not properly used.

Chapter 7: Vocabulary learning strategies and guessing from context

• Are some vocabulary learning strategies superior to others?
• Develop a taxonomy for evaluating strategy use that considers both type of strategies used and the quality of their use.
• Evaluate the validity of a questionnaire approach to investigating strategy use.
• Experimentally check Haastrup's idea that bottom up guessing results in more vocabulary learning than top down guessing which works from a lot of background knowledge.
• What aspects of word knowledge are learned by guessing from context?
• What difficulties do homographs cause for guessing from context.? That is, is it harder to guess a new meaning for a familiar form that already has a different associated meaning?

Chapter 8: Word study strategies

• Devise a test of receptive knowledge of important derivational affixes for non-native speakers of English. Carroll's (1940) format could be a useful model. Make sure the test is reliable, valid and practical and would have a positive washback effect.
• Examine learners' written work to determine if complex words are deliberately avoided.
• Design an experiment to see what aspects of vocabulary knowledge are learned by dictionary use.
• Design and check a diagnostic test of learners' dictionary use skills.
• What additional information is provided by a sentence context?
• How well does direct learning transfer to normal language use?
• What is the effect of training on improving learning from word cards?

Chapter 9: Chunking and collocation

• Develop a list of frequent collocations using well defined and carefully described criteria.
• Look for evidence of unanalysed chunks in the language production of native speakers and non-native speakers.

Chapter 10: Testing

• Get learners to sit a yes/no test and then go through their wrong answers on non-words to examine the reasons why they said they knew the non-words (Paul, Stallman and O'Rourke, 1990).
• Compare multiple choice items containing L1 choices with items containing L2 choices.
• Devise a well based measure of total vocabulary size for non-native speakers.
• Measure the pattern of native speaker and ESL non-native speaker vocabulary growth.

Chapter 11: Designing the vocabulary component of a language course

• Design a needs analysis questionnaire to determine vocabulary needs outside the high frequency general service vocabulary.
• Design an evaluation form for evaluating the vocabulary component of a course.
• Develop a program for helping learners become autonomous vocabulary learners. Justify your decisions.
• Develop means of investigating the degree to which learners are autonomous in their vocabulary learning.

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Title: openocc: open vocabulary 3d scene reconstruction via occupancy representation.

Abstract: 3D reconstruction has been widely used in autonomous navigation fields of mobile robotics. However, the former research can only provide the basic geometry structure without the capability of open-world scene understanding, limiting advanced tasks like human interaction and visual navigation. Moreover, traditional 3D scene understanding approaches rely on expensive labeled 3D datasets to train a model for a single task with supervision. Thus, geometric reconstruction with zero-shot scene understanding i.e. Open vocabulary 3D Understanding and Reconstruction, is crucial for the future development of mobile robots. In this paper, we propose OpenOcc, a novel framework unifying the 3D scene reconstruction and open vocabulary understanding with neural radiance fields. We model the geometric structure of the scene with occupancy representation and distill the pre-trained open vocabulary model into a 3D language field via volume rendering for zero-shot inference. Furthermore, a novel semantic-aware confidence propagation (SCP) method has been proposed to relieve the issue of language field representation degeneracy caused by inconsistent measurements in distilled features. Experimental results show that our approach achieves competitive performance in 3D scene understanding tasks, especially for small and long-tail objects.

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Study About Purported Ancient ‘Pyramid’ in Indonesia Is Retracted

The study, based on research featured in a Netflix documentary, fueled debate over a site that is used for Islamic and Hindu rituals.

By Mike Ives

Reporting from Seoul

The American publisher of a study that challenged scientific orthodoxy by claiming that an archaeological site in Indonesia may be the world’s “oldest pyramid” says it has been retracted.

The October 2023 study in the journal Archaeological Prospection made the explosive claim that the deepest layer of the site, Gunung Padang, appears to have been “sculpted” by humans up to 27,000 years ago.

The study’s critics say that it incorrectly dated the human presence at Gunung Padang based on radiocarbon measurements of soil from drilling samples, not artifacts. The journal’s American publisher, Wiley, cited that exact reasoning in the retraction notice it issued on Monday.

Gunung Padang is widely considered a dormant volcano, and archaeologists say that ceramics recovered there so far suggest that humans have been using it for several hundred years or more — not anything close to 27,000 years. The pyramids of Giza in Egypt are only about 4,500 years old.

The retraction, based on a monthslong investigation, said that the study was flawed because its soil samples “were not associated with any artifacts or features that could be reliably interpreted as anthropogenic or ‘man-made.’”

Some archaeologists said in interviews that they welcomed the retraction. But the study’s authors called it “unjust,” saying in a statement on Wednesday that their soil samples had been “unequivocally established as man-made constructions or archaeological features,” in part because the soil layers included artifacts.

“We urge the academic community, scientific organizations, and concerned individuals to stand with us in challenging this decision and upholding the principles of integrity, transparency, and fairness in scientific research and publishing,” the authors wrote.

The study ’s lead author, Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, an earthquake geologist, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did Wiley or the editors of Archaeological Prospection, Eileen Ernenwein and Gregory Tsokas.

One prominent supporter of Mr. Natawidjaja’s research, the journalist Graham Hancock, said in a statement he did not see the retraction as “fair, justified or good science.” He said that instead of issuing a retraction, the journal should have published critiques of the paper, a move he said would have allowed readers to make up their own minds.

“Science should not be about suppression,” said Mr. Hancock, who interviewed Mr. Natawidjaja for an episode about Gunung Padang on “ Ancient Apocalypse, ” his 2022 Netflix documentary series.

The Society for American Archaeology has said that Mr. Hancock’s Netflix show “devalues the archaeological profession on the basis of false claims and disinformation.” He has vigorously rejected that argument, arguing that archaeologists should be more open to theories that challenge academic orthodoxy. Netflix did not respond to a request for comment on the retraction.

People from Indonesia have long traveled to Gunung Padang, a hilltop site dotted with stone terraces, to hold Islamic and Hindu rituals. A domestic narrative portraying it as a very, very old pyramid had support, and financing, from the central government during the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who left office in 2014. His successor, President Joko Widodo, cut off the funding.

Archaeologists said in interviews on Wednesday that they welcomed the retraction.

One of them, Noel Hidalgo Tan, an archaeologist in Bangkok who had relayed his concerns about the study to Wiley, said that he considered the retraction “entirely appropriate” because the study’s evidence did not support its conclusions.

“It was unfortunate that the paper had to get to this stage,” said Dr. Tan, who works at the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Archaeology and Fine Arts. “But it was better to be retracted than to have nothing said about it at all.”

Dwi Ratna Nurhajarini, the head of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Office in West Java Province, the location of the site, said the study’s conclusions should be re-examined in light of the retraction.

“The structures at Gunung Padang are indeed layered and terraced, reminiscent of civilizations from Indonesia’s distant past,” she said by phone on Wednesday. “But their age might not be as old as suggested.”

Rin Hindryati contributed reporting.

Mike Ives is a reporter for The Times based in Seoul, covering breaking news around the world. More about Mike Ives