Papers by Larisa Nikitina
Country stereotypes, perceptions and language attitudes: A moderated mediation analysis
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Apr 21, 2023
Journal of Language and Education
Background. Epistemic beliefs refer to a person’s viewpoints about the nature of knowledge and th... more Background. Epistemic beliefs refer to a person’s viewpoints about the nature of knowledge and the process of knowing. A number of studies have explored language learners’ subjective views about what knowing and learning a foreign or a second language (L2) means to them personally. For the most part, these studies adopted quantitative research designs and employed self-reported questionnaires with Likert-type scales to collect the data. Purpose. This pilot study aimed to assess feasibility of adopting Q-methodology (Q) for explorations of language-related epistemic beliefs held by Chinese university students. A detailed account is given of the development of the research instrument (Q-sample); the findings from the Q-sample piloting are reported. Methods. The newly-developed Q-sample consisting of 45 statements was tested among six students learning the English language in a university in Mainland China. The students were at a different level of the English language proficiency. T...
Moderna Språk
This study investigated the mental images of Portuguese-speaking countries held by 91 students le... more This study investigated the mental images of Portuguese-speaking countries held by 91 students learning Portuguese in two large public universities in Malaysia. It also explored the factors that motivated them to learn Portuguese. This is the first such study to present findings on the mental images associated with Portuguese-speaking countries apart from Portugal and Brazil. The data analysis revealed that the students held a wide array of images of Portugal. The country was strongly associated in their minds with football, food, and the shared history of Malaysia and Portugal. The images of Portuguese-speaking countries, with the exception of Brazil, were less diverse and were at times erroneous. The students’ main motivation for learning Portuguese was to broaden knowledge about Portuguese-speaking countries. The students were also interested in learning more foreign languages. The findings suggest that the images of the target language countries had some influence on the languag...
Motivation, attitudes and stereotypes in L2 research
Development of syntactic complexity in Chinese university students’ L2 argumentative writing
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2022
This study focuses on stereotypes about Germany, its culture and people, held by learners of Germ... more This study focuses on stereotypes about Germany, its culture and people, held by learners of German in a big public university in Malaysia. It examines not only the stereotypical representations of the target language country but also assesses its favourability and salience, which has not been done previously. The findings revealed that the students’ stereotypes about Germany were varied and diverse. Also, they were overwhelmingly positive. The top three salient categories of images about Germany were related to technology, famous personalities – for the most part football players and scientists – and cars. The findings also indicated that very few references had been made to German culture and to its great cultural figures. The results of the present study suggest that students could benefit from a wider and deeper exposure to German culture in the language classroom.
The Effects of Task Complexity and Peer Groupings on Individual L2 Argumentative Writing: A Study Among Malaysian Esl Learners
Voprosy Kognitivnoy Lingvistiki, 2020
This study has adopted the Cognition Hypothesis to examine the effects of task complexity and tas... more This study has adopted the Cognition Hypothesis to examine the effects of task complexity and task condition on individual L2 argumentative writing. The linguistic measures of the written production assessed in this study were Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF). A repeated-measures ANOVA test analyzed the data collected from 36 Malaysian university students who produced 216 essays. The findings partially supported the Cognition Hypothesis. The authors found out that increasing task complexity led to a higher accuracy in the individual L2 written productions in terms of error-free clauses. However, this was not the case as far as the fluency or the number of words per T-unit was concerned. It was found that increasing task complexity resulted in lengthier individual L2 written texts. In addition, the findings indicated that the number of participants in the peer discussions prior to the individual L2 writing sessions had impacted some dimensions of the learners’ linguistic productions, namely, the syntactic complexity and accuracy.
Does perceived behavioural control moderate domestic travel intention during the COVID-19 pandemic in China?
Anatolia
Will tourist arrivals in Malaysia recover in a post-COVID-19 world? A research note
Anatolia, 2022
Integrative Motivation in a Foreign Language Classroom: A Study on the Nature of Motivation of the Russian Language Learners in Universiti
Larisa Nikitina Fumitaka Furuoka In research on motivation it is customary to view the construct ... more Larisa Nikitina Fumitaka Furuoka In research on motivation it is customary to view the construct as a dyadic unity of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Research on motivation in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) adopts a similar approach and employs the integrative-instrumental scale which includes learners' attitudes towards the culture and native speakers of the language they learn. This study aims to look at the status of integrative motivation in a foreign language classroom. For this purpose contents analysis of open-ended questionnaires distributed among the Russian language learners in VMS was carried out. As the results reveal. though initially only traces of integrative motivation had been detected. there occurred changes in the learners' motivational pattern in the course of their studies. This fact indicates that learners' motivation is a dynamic rather than static phenomenon. A pedagogical implication of this finding is that learning situation and classroo...
Integration of Education, 2022
Introduction. This study adopts a Global Englishes perspective to examine dimensions within belie... more Introduction. This study adopts a Global Englishes perspective to examine dimensions within beliefs about English language held by Mainland Chinese university students. It also assesses whether and how these beliefs impact the students’ motivation to learn English (L2 motivation). Materials and Methods. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 460 students learning English as a Foreign Language at a large public university in Mainland China. The questionnaire contained 28 items to assess the students’ language beliefs and their L2 motivation. One section of the questionnaire gathered demographic information about the respondents. The research instrument was approved by the University’s Research Ethics Committee. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were performed to analyze the data. Results. The Exploratory factor analysis identified four distinct dimensions within the language learners’ beliefs, namely, Beliefs about Standard English, Beliefs about Global...
Croatian Journal of Education-Hrvatski Casopis za Odgoj i obrazovanje, 2014
In educational research literature there are two influential metaphors about learning. They descr... more In educational research literature there are two influential metaphors about learning. They describe this process as either "acquisition" or "participation" (Sfard, 1998). These metaphors have been widely used by scholars, researchers and educators. However, the students' perspectives on learning have been underexplored. This article addresses this gap in research literature and examines metaphors about learning created by a group of foreign language learners in a big public university in East Malaysia. The findings indicate universality of people's perceptions about learning and reveal the presence of both the "acquisition" and "participation" metaphors in the students' images. The study considers the implications of the findings for language pedagogy.
Abstract. This study explored stereotypes about China held by young Malaysians. It focused on the... more Abstract. This study explored stereotypes about China held by young Malaysians. It focused on the learners of the Mandarin language in a big public university. The study not only examined the content but also assessed the favourability and salience of the language learners ’ stereotypes, which had not been done in the previous studies. The stereotypes about China provided by the participants were diverse; they referred to culture, politics, language, history, climate, landscape, economics, religion and the Chinese people. Overall, the stereotypes were favourable. Especially the stereotypes referring to Chinese traditional and popular culture and cultural symbols were among the most frequent and most salient images of China. An interesting finding was that transnational popular culture played an important role in the formation of the stereotypical images about China. The study concludes by highlighting some pedagogical implications based on these findings.
International Journal of Instruction, 2018
This study aimed to examine dimensionality in language learners' epistemic beliefs. To achieve th... more This study aimed to examine dimensionality in language learners' epistemic beliefs. To achieve this, a survey was conducted using a newly-developed research instrument-"Language Learners' Epistemic Beliefs" (LLEB) questionnaire. Based on a review of literature, it was proposed that language learners' epistemic beliefs would cluster in three dimensions: (1) the nature of knowledge, (2) the authority to knowledge, and (3) the process of gaining linguistic knowledge. The data for this study were collected from 23 students majoring in languages and linguistics in a large Malaysian public university. Exploratory factor analysis of the data uncovered five latent dimensions in the students' personal epistemologies. They were named "Authority to knowledge", "Nature of knowledge", "Concentration", "Hard work", and "Effort". These findings did not refute the proposed conceptualization of language learners' personal epistemologies as measured by the LLEB questionnaire. However, they revealed that discipline-specific epistemologies may have more complex structures. For example, an important finding was that the beliefs pertaining to the process of learning, which are considered as 'peripheral' to the function of personal epistemologies by some researchers, occupied a distinct and prominent position in the language learners' personal epistemologies.
Slavisticna Revija, 2013
Podobe države in stereotiPi, ki jih o rusiji gojijo učenci ruskega jezika Uvod koncepta »podoba d... more Podobe države in stereotiPi, ki jih o rusiji gojijo učenci ruskega jezika Uvod koncepta »podoba države« in »stereotip« sta bila obsežno preučevana znotraj akademskih disciplin psihologije, politične znanosti, turizma in marketinga (baltar 1997, echtner, ritchie 1993, katz, braly 1933, spencer-rodgers 2001). na področju uporabnega jezikoslovja je pomembnost učenčevega pozitivnega dojemanja države, kulture in naravnih govorcev ciljnega jezika postala prepoznavnejša od zgodnjih sedemdesetih let dvajsetega stoletja. to zavedanje sta spodbudila kanadska psihologa robert c. gardner in Wallace e. Lambert (1972), ki sta predlagala misel, da igrajo predstave, ki jih učenci jezika povezujejo z naravnimi govorci in s kulturo ciljnega jezika, pomembno vlogo pri oblikovanju motivacije za učenje določenega jezika. glede učenčevega odnosa do države ciljnega jezika, kulture in jezikovne skupnosti je bilo narejenih veliko študij, vendar imajo pomanjkljivosti. Prvič, nobena izmed študij se ne osredotoča na učence ruščine. drugič, predhodne raziskave so se osredotočale predvsem na odnos do naravnih govorcev ciljnega jezika, namesto da bi na holističen način preučevale podobo države ciljnega jezika. tretjič, dostopni literaturi na temo stereotipov, ki jih gojijo učenci jezika (npr. allen 2004, Webber 1990), manjka sistematična analiza teme. in končno, čeprav se raziskovalci zavedajo pomembnosti pozitivnega odnosa do kulture, države in jezikovne skupnosti ciljnega jezika, obstaja pomanjkanje raziskav, ki bi kvantitativno ocenile ta odnos; šele pred kratkim je bilo v tej smeri narejen manjši napredek (npr. članki nikitina, Furuoka). Pričujoča študija zlasti na pomanjkljivosti v strokovni literaturi. vključuje učence ruskega jezika na veliki državni univerzi v Maleziji. njeni cilji so, (1) preučiti notranjo strukturo predstav, ki jih o državi ciljnega jezika gojijo učenci; (2) identificirati učenčeve stereotipe o rusiji; (3) oceniti, kako pozitivni ali negativni so ti stereotipi. za dosego teh ciljev je uporabljen interdisciplinarni pristop. za preučevanje podob države uporablja vzorec, ki ga predlaga znanstvena disciplina trženja. za preučevanje učenčevih stereotipov in za merjenje, kako pozitivni ali negativni so, pa so uporabljane metode s področja socialne psihologije. Ozadje študije Malezija je večetnična in večjezikovna država na jugovzhodu azije s približno 28 milijoni prebivalcev. ruščino ponujajo štiri izmed dvajsetih večjih državnih univerz. univerza, na kateri je bila izpeljana pričujoča študija, leži na vzhodu Malezije. Program ruskega jezika je trajal tri semestre in je vključeval tri kontaktne ure na teden. Slavistična revija (https://srl.si) je ponujena pod licenco Creative Commons, priznanje avtorstva 4.0 international. URL https://srl.si/sql_pdf/SRL_2013_2_08.pdf | DOST. 24/02/22 4.58 433 Larisa nikitina, Fumitaka Furuoka, Podobe države in stereotipi, ki jih o rusiji gojijo učenci ruskega jezika
Research studies in the fields of general education and language pedagogy recognize the importanc... more Research studies in the fields of general education and language pedagogy recognize the importance of metaphor as a research tool. Metaphors can help teachers articulate and construct their professional experiences (Kramsch, 2003) and ameliorate the classroom practice (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999). The majority of the previous studies that employed metaphors focused on the teacher-produced images and adopted a qualitative approach to metaphor analysis. The present study departs from this format. It focuses on the studentgenerated metaphors about language teachers and employs a quantitative analysis to examine the dimensions around which these metaphors align. A questionnaire containing metaphors about language teachers was distributed to 98 students at Universiti Malaysia Sabah. Factor analysis was employed as a research technique to identify the dimensions along which the students’ perceptions aligned. The findings of the present paper lend support to the previous attempts at metaphor tax...
An assessment of language attitudes as a mediator in the stereotypes–L2 motivation linkage
Linguistics Vanguard, 2020
Applied linguists and language educators have long acknowledged the prominent role that language ... more Applied linguists and language educators have long acknowledged the prominent role that language attitudes play in the process of selecting and learning an additional language. The current study examines a mediating role of language attitudes in the Stereotypes–L2 motivation linkage in the context of learning a foreign language, an area which remains comparatively underexplored. It provides a detailed description of – and rationale for – applying a statistical procedure based on the Baron–Kenny method, which is rarely used in applied linguistics research. The findings indicate that stereotypes and language attitudes had a positive impact on L2 motivation when the former two variables were examined separately in two different analyses. However, when all the three variables were analysed together, language attitudes were found to remain a motivational factor while the stereotypes ceased to be such. This suggests that stereotypes had an indirect effect on L2 motivation through language...
Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 2018
In the context of higher education foreign language courses are viewed as skills-oriented subject... more In the context of higher education foreign language courses are viewed as skills-oriented subjects that aim to enable students to communicate in a foreign language. The main four language skills to be developed are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Until recently, decisions about which of the linguistic skills should be emphasized in a foreign language program have been taken without seeking the opinions of language learners. To address this issue, the present research examined needs for learning the Russian language among students in a Malaysian public university. To achieve this research aim, a survey questionnaire was distributed among prospective learners of Russian. Four different statistical methods were performed to analyse the data, namely, the descriptive statistics, the independent t-test, the exploratory factor analysis and the reliability test. The findings from the descriptive statistics revealed that the respondents considered developing face-to-face interactiv...
Trade Openness and the Phillips Curve: Evidence from Asean Countries
The Singapore Economic Review, 2020
A flattening of the Phillips curve in recent decades has attracted a considerable interest of res... more A flattening of the Phillips curve in recent decades has attracted a considerable interest of researchers and central bankers. As trade openness might be among the main causes of this phenomenon, this study puts forward a testable ‘openness–Phillips curve’ hypothesis. Two methods — a static and a dynamic approaches — were employed to test the hypothesis by estimating slope coefficients of the new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) and hybrid NKPC in ten ASEAN countries. A notable empirical finding is that in the periods of a higher trade openness, the Phillips curve tended to be flatter in the close economies and steeper in the open economies. These findings have some economic and political implications. The main one is that central banks in the ASEAN countries where the flattening of the Phillips curve takes place would not be able to employ the Phillips curve as an effective policy tool. Besides, countries with high inflation and unemployment rates could face some political uncertainty.
Journal of Language and Education, 2020
This study examined relationships between language attitudes and L2 motivation of learners of Kor... more This study examined relationships between language attitudes and L2 motivation of learners of Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) in a large public university in Malaysia. It employed the socio-educational model of L2 motivation and focused on the relationship between the language learners’ attitudes toward speakers of the target language and their motivation to learn Korean. A systematic statistical analysis was performed to analyse the data collected from 19 (N=19) students. A robust statistical procedure adopted in this study allowed some worthwhile insights into the language attitudes–L2 motivation nexus. The findings indicated that there existed a statistically significant relationship between the language learners’ instrumental orientation and their attitudes toward the speakers of Korean language.
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Papers by Larisa Nikitina