Page 122 - Getting of the fence
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                                Chapter 5
 literature teachers are mainly concerned with “literature, culture, and significance” (p. 316), is also reflected in the views of our student sample. This argument is further supported by the position of the Personal Development factor. Our results show that students value this factor as somewhat important (M = 2.85) and we found a small but significant relation between the value for this factor and levels of student engagement. In addition, we found relations between the personal development and literature factor and between the personal development and language factor. What these findings seem to suggest is that students value either a literature-personal development approach or a language-personal development approach.
Although we were able to establish several significant correlations in our study, we must repeat that the majority of the correlations were considered small. Nonetheless, according to Plonsky and Oswald (2014), additional factors ought to be taken into account when interpreting effect sizes in L2 research. With regard to our current study, an important factor is what Plonsky and Oswald (2014) call “domain maturity and changes in effect over time” (p. 894). Since quantitative research into the sub-domain of foreign language literature education is only recently emerging (Paran, 2008; Paesani, 2011), these effect sizes should be considered acceptable. These relatively small effect sizes might increase “when the psychometric properties of instruments, the standards for which are generally lower in an emerging research area, are refined over time” (Plonsky & Oswald, 2014, p. 894).
By measuring the students’ level of engagement and disaffection during the EFL literature lessons we not only found that the students were moderately engaged but also that they were moderately disaffected. The significant difference between the students’ behavioural (M = 2.43) and emotional (M = 1.72) disaffection is especially interesting considering the context of our research. EFL literature lessons are mandatory for Dutch secondary school students, which means that neither EFL teachers nor students can opt out. Knowing that secondary school students show significantly more behavioural disaffection than they appear to experience emotionally is valuable information for EFL teachers.
5.6 Conclusion
Even though the language-literature divide in foreign language teaching and learning still exists (Paran, 2008), Carter (2015) argues that in the 21st century “it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain such divisions” (p. 316). Based on our
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