How Has the Defference Affected the Retention? Two Empirical Studies on Electronic Dictionaries

1. Background With the development of digital technology, types of learners’ dictionaries have been diversified during the last two decades. Digitized dictionaries such as those on CD-ROM and the Web have become widespread (e.g., Aust, Kelley, & Roby, 1993). Particularly, with the advent of hand-held electronic dictionaries (henceforth ED), the number of ED users has been rapidly expanding in Japan (Yagi, 2004). Recently, some empirical studies have been conducted to compare learners’ look-up behavior in using ED with that of printed dictionaries (henceforth PD) (e.g., Koyama & Takeuchi, 2003, 2004, in press; Osaki, Ochiai, Iso, & Aizawa, 2003; Shizuka, 2003). These studies focused mainly on the time for word retrieval, the number of looked-up words retained, and the learners’ impressions of the dictionaries. Nevertheless, due to the differences in the research design and the subjects’ proficiency levels among these studies, there was only a partial agreement among them, when we attempted to determine which types of dictionaries were effective for EFL learning.