COMPUTER-BASED FOREIGN LANGUAGE GROUP ACTIVITIES AND GENDER DIFFERENCES

Abstract

This research investigates the issue of gender differences and group effect in computer-based foreign language activities. Sixty subjects were asked to volunteer from intermediate French language classes at the University of Arizona. Subjects participated in pre-training and pre-test sessions. Then they went through a computer-based French cooperative task in dyads for 30 minutes. There were ten female pairs, ten male pairs and ten mixed-gender pairs. The computerbased interaction was followed by a post-test, the results of which were compared to the results of the pre-test in order to gauge the instructional efficiency of the software across genders and group types. Results suggest that females tend to acquiesce to male factual preferences and to lower their interest of the descriptive part of the software in mixed-gender groups. Overall, however, this study indicates that humanity courses using computer-based tasks might be less biased than computer-assisted courses traditionally seen as more male oriented.