An Investigation of The Effects of Structured Input Activities Versus Structured Output Activities on The Acquisition of The English Passive Causative Construction: Measuring Reading Times, Reaction Times and Accuracy in Sentence Processing

Abstract Book of the 10th World Conference on Future of Education

Year: 2026

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An Investigation of The Effects of Structured Input Activities Versus Structured Output Activities on The Acquisition of The English Passive Causative Construction: Measuring Reading Times, Reaction Times and Accuracy in Sentence Processing

Najat Alabdullah, Dr. Alessandro Benati

ABSTRACT:

The effects of two instructional treatments (structured input activities (SI) versus structured output activities (SO)) on the acquisition of English passive causative construction were investigated in this experimental study. The framework for this research was based on VanPatten’s (1996, 2015) theoretical input processing model. This study builds on previous empirical research measuring the effects of SI and makes the following contributions: Measuring the effects of SI on (L1 Arabic learners learning English), and a self-paced reading test was used to measure accuracy, reaction times and reading times. The elements of this study combined have not been investigated before; therefore, this study is original. The participants were aged 13-14. A pretest, and an immediate post-test procedure was adopted. Three instructional groups were created through randomisation: (i) SI group (n = 13); (ii) SO group (n = 13); (iii) the control group (n = 11). The results were analysed using descriptive statistics and an ANOVA. The main findings revealed that SI was statistically better than SO in the three measures: (i) accuracy; (ii) reading times; (iii) reaction times. The SO and control groups did not show any significant improvements. The main findings of this study have theoretical, empirical and pedagogical implications for language acquisition and for language instruction. Further empirical research should continue to use online tests to measure the effects of instruction on the rate of acquisition and should investigate the long-term effects of SI utilising interpretation and production measurements.

Keywords: First Noun Principle; Formal Language Instruction; Input Processing Theory; Online Measurements; Self-Paced Reading Tests