Sentence-pattern accuracy improved more under X-Word Grammar than traditional grammar, but the difference was not statistically significant¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2018 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The X-Word Grammar group improved 14.38 percentage points in sentence-pattern error rate versus 7.5 points for the traditional group, but the comparison was not statistically significant (p=0.244). → Livingston et al. 2018

Evidence¶

Livingston et al. 2018¶

Livingston, S., Toce, A., Casey, C., Montoya, F., Hart, B. R., & O'Flaherty, C. (2018). Effect of X-Word Grammar and Traditional Grammar Instruction on Grammatical Accuracy. English Language Teaching, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n3p119

q2 · i? · causal · r2

Same quasi-experimental comparison of the two grammar approaches over three months, analyzing the first 300 words of essays for sentence-pattern errors. The X-Word group's error rate fell from 59.88% to 45.50% versus 51.60% to 44.10% for the traditional group, but the article reports the p-value as "0.244 which is not statistically significant" and attributes this partly to limited sentence-pattern data.

"The p-value for the sentence patterns comparison is 0.244 which is not statistically significant. This may be due in part to the limited amount of sentence pattern data available."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Syntax — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• L2 pre-college students taught X-Word Grammar showed larger improvement in verb construct accuracy than students taught traditional grammar, borderline significant — related
• X-Word Grammar students improved significantly more on subject-verb agreement, borderline on tense, and not significantly on aspect/verb forms — related