Comparison of the use of tense shift in subgroup III

The 26 students making up subgroup III were the ones with the lowest scores on the diagnostic test, 13 students from the NP and IB groups respectively.

In subgroup III, the NP students used a high mean ratio of MTSh in the first set of compositions: ~15.3, as can be seen in Table 8.19. Table 8.20 shows that over time, they then reduced their MTSh by ~3 measurement units. The IB students, on the other hand, used a very low mean ratio of MTSh in their first set of compositions, only ~8.2. Over time, however, as Table 8.20 shows, they increased their mean MTSh by as much as ~7.6, ending up on ~15.8, which is similar to the levels of the IB students in subgroups I and II (see Table 8.6). In fact, the IB students showed an increase already in the second set of compositions, an increase that is statistically significant at the five per cent level (p = 0.027). The large increase from the first to the third set of compositions is statistically significant at the one per cent level (p = 0.001).

Table 8.19 Comparison of mean MTSh ratios in subgroup III

NP IB mean diff. p

mean C1 15.35 8.16 7.19** 0.009

mean C2 14.21 14.51 0.30 0.900

mean C3 12.32 15.78 3.46 0.133

n (NP) = 13, n (IB) = 13, C = composition, ** = significant at 0.01 level

Table 8.20 Paired mean differences between the NP and IB mean MTSh ratios in subgroup III paired mean diff. C1-C2 p C1-C2 paired meandiff. C2-C3 p C2-C3 paired meandiff. C1-C3 p C1-C3 NP -1.14 0.659 -1.89 0.453 -3.03 0.381 IB 6.35* 0.027 1.27 0.473 7.62** 0.001

n (NP) = 13, n (IB) = 13, C = composition, * = significant at 0.05 level, ** = significant at 0.01 level

Interestingly, in the first set of compositions the two groups’ mean ratios of MTSh are remarkably dissimilar. As can be seen in Table 8.19, the difference found in the first set of compositions actually amounts to ~7.2, and is statistically significant at the one per cent level (p = 0.009). The reason for this could be that the NP students used a high amount of direct speech in the first composition, which will be discussed at greater length below. In the second set of compositions, the results of the two groups were similar, and in the third set, it was the IB students who used a higher ratio of MTSh, although no statistical significance is reached. These results suggest that the narrative structure of the

compositions differed considerably, not only between the NP and IB students in the first set of compositions, but also over time in each of the two groups. Figure 8.2 illustrates how the MTSh changes over time in subgroup III.

Figure 8.2 Comparison between NP and IB mean MTSh ratios in subgroup III

The initial, significant, difference between the high mean MTSh of the NP students and the low mean MTSh of the IB students calls for an explanation. A comparison of the ratios of motivated tense shift due to the use of direct speech, shown in Table 8.21, suggests that the explanation might be found there. It appears that initially, the NP students used a great deal of direct speech, since their mean proportion of DS MTSh (~5.9) is indeed the highest figure in all the subgroups (compare Tables 8.11 and 8.16). The IB students, on the other hand, used exceptionally little direct speech in their first set of compositions. Their mean DS MTSh is only ~1.2, which is in fact the lowest figure in all the subgroups. Over time, the NP students tended to use less direct speech in their compositions, their use of motivated tense shift being reduced accordingly, while the IB students used more direct speech in sets two and three. In the second and third sets of compositions the IB and NP figures are actually more or less the same. Another interesting fact is that in the NP group over time, the reduction in their use of direct speech went hand in hand with a general reduction in their MTSh.

Table 8.21 Comparison of mean DS MTSh proportions in subgroup III

NP IB

mean C1 5.91 1.23

mean C2 4.08 3.94

mean C3 2.43 2.50

Turning to random tense shift, we can see in Table 8.22 that the two groups’ mean ratios of RTSh range from ~1.6 to ~4. What is interesting here is that while the IB students followed the general trend of making relatively few random tense shifts in the third set (mean RTSh = ~1.6), the NP students in subgroup III were the only ones to break that pattern. Starting out at a rather high level, they actually made more random tense shifts in the third set of compositions (mean RTSh = ~4). However, as can be seen in Table 8.23, none of the changes are statistically significant.

Table 8.22 Comparison of mean RTSh ratios in subgroup III

NP IB mean diff. p

mean C1 3.04 2.23 0.81 0.409

mean C2 3.15 2.18 0.97 0.366

mean C3 3.97 1.63 2.34* 0.022

n (NP) = 13, n (IB) = 13, C = composition, * = significant at 0.05 level

Table 8.23 Paired mean differences between the NP and IB mean RTSh ratios in subgroup III paired mean diff. C1-C2 p C1-C2 paired mean diff. C2-C3 p C2-C3 paired meandiff. C1-C3 p C1-C3 NP 0.11 0.914 0.82 0.328 0.93 0.392 IB -0.05 0.931 -0.55 0.563 -0.60 0.405 n (NP) = 13, n (IB) = 13, C = composition

Finally, let us briefly compare the NP and IB students’ ratios of RTSh in subgroup III. Table 8.22 shows how the fairly small initial difference grows over time, as an effect of the increasing ratio of RTSh in the NP group and the decreasing ratio in the IB group. In the third set of compositions the difference amounts to ~2.3 measurement units and is statistically significant at the five per cent level (p = 0.022). Figure 8.3 depicts how the RTSh changes over time in subgroup III.

Figure 8.3 Comparison between NP and IB mean RTSh ratios in subgroup III

Summing up the findings in subgroup III, in the first set of compositions the NP students used significantly more motivated tense shift than the IB students. Over time, though, the NP students tended to decrease their use of motivated tense shift, while the IB students significantly increased theirs. In fact, the IB students’ figures were similar to those of the IB students in subgroups I and II. In the search for possible explanations for these disparate results, the use of different narrative structures appears to be an important factor, since an examination of the use of direct speech showed that there was a connection between the amount of direct speech and the use of motivated tense shift. However, the use of direct speech only helps explain the initial discrepancy between the two groups. In the subsequent two compositions the NP and IB students tended to use a similar amount of direct speech. Therefore, the tendency towards diverging results in sets two and three, with better results among the IB students, can only be speculated on. A gender-related explanation seems not very likely, partly because subgroup III is the subgroup where the distribution according to sex differs the least, partly because a gender comparison between the MTSh of the NP students in this subgroup showed that there were no significant differences.

Since a similar pattern was found in the study on vocabulary quality, it seems possible that some of the underlying causes are the same. In accordance with the diagnostic test, subgroup III was composed of the students with the lowest initial proficiency levels. Consequently, there was more room for improvement among these students than in the other groups. Such an approach would explain why the IB students in subgroup III progressed and eventually reached a ratio of MTSh that is similar to that of the IB students in the other two subgroups. In the case of the NP students, on the other hand, no such progression could be seen.

Possibly, the results are related to the higher amount of exposure to English in the IB group. However, as speculated in 7.2.3, it might also be linked to certain kinds of motivation that can only be found in the IB students. It could also be that free written production per se was so demanding for the NP students that they had less leeway for paying attention to coherence and vocabulary (see Laufer & Nation, 1995:308). These speculations go hand in hand with the findings on random tense shift, where the NP students tended to make more errors over time while the IB students tended to make fewer. The diverging results actually resulted in a statistically significant difference between the two groups in the third set of compositions.