3. RESULTS

3.1 CFL/KFL differences

Overall results indicate that Korean students studying Chinese (CFL) and Chinese students studying Korean (KSL) used approximately the same overall mean study strategy intensity and variety (overall t = 1.357, p  = .177; standard deviations of .475 and .491 in KSL and CFL groups respectively) as measured by the modified SILL surveys used in this study.  In comparing significant differences between CFL and KSL groups’ use of SILL categories, significant differences were found in cognitive (t = 2.401, N = 162, p = .017) and affective (t = 2.374, N = 163, p = .019) with the Chinese KSL students using these strategies with greater intensity.  Likewise, an ANOVA also found cognitive and affective categories to be significantly different between CFL and KSL groups (Table 1).

Table 1. ANOVA of strategy category use by CFL and KSL students.

Dependent Variable	Strategy Category	SS	Df	F	Sig.
Nationality & CFL/KSL	Memory a. Between groups b. Within groups c. Total	.624 50.484 51.108	1 162 163	2.001	.159
	Cognitive a. Between groups b. Within groups c. Total	1.704 47.595 49.298	1 161 162	5.764	.017*
	Compensation a. Between groups b. Within groups c. Total	.012 69.142 69.154	1 162 163	.028	.866
	Metacognitive a. Between groups b. Within groups c. Total	.950 64.748 65.698	.950 .407	2.334	.129
	Affective a. Between groups b. Within groups c. Total	2.140 61.535 63.675	1 162 163	5.635	.019*
	Social a. Between groups b. Within groups c. Total	.007 72.953 72.960	1 161 162	.016	.899
	Mean of all a. Between groups b. Within groups c. Total	.414 33.729 34.144	1 150 151	1.842	.177

* p<0.05

Though there was no significant correlation between CFL and KSL group means in terms of overall strategy group use, there were significant correlations between CFL and KSL in two SILL categories: cognitive strategies (r = .186, p<.017), and affective strategies (r =  .183, p<.019).

Chinese students in this study appear to prefer cognitive and compensatory individual strategies whereas Korean students made greater use of cognitive and metacognitive individual strategies.

Table 2. Rank ordered mean use of specific study strategies and strategy categories by Chinese KSL students (N = 106).

Rank	Strategy Category	Specific Strategy	Mean	SD
1	Cognitive	#15  I watch Korean language TV shows spoken in Korean or go to movies spoken in Korean.	3.87	1.066
2	Metacognitive	#32 I pay attention when someone is speaking Korean.	3.79	0.866
3	Compensatory	#25 When I can’t think of a word during a conversation in Korean, I use gestures.	3.73	1.037
4	Social	#45 If I do not understand something in Korean, I ask the other person to slow down or say it again.	3.68	0.908
5	Compensatory	#29 I try to guess what the other person will say next in Korean.	3.65	1.001
6	Compensatory	#24 To understand unfamiliar Korean words, I make guesses	3.64	0.882
7	Cognitive	#10 I say or write new Korean words several times.	3.57	1.041
8	Social	#50 I try to learn about the culture of Korean speakers	3.56	0.943
9	Cognitive	#11 I try to talk like native Korean speakers	3.55	0.974
10	Cognitive	#14 I read for pleasure in Korean	3.51	0.967

Table 3. Rank ordered mean use of specific study strategies and strategy categories by Korean CFL students (N = 153).

Rank	Strategy Category	Specific Strategy	Mean	SD
1	Social	#45 If I do not understand something in Chinese I ask the person to slow down or say it again.	3.96	0.976
2	Compensation	#25 When I can’t think of a word during a conversation in Chinese I use gestures.	3.94	0.966
3	Cognitive	#12 I practice the sounds of Chinese.	3.87	0.938
4	Cognitive	#10 I say or write new Chinese words several times.	3.84	0.974
5	Metacognitive	#38 I think about my progress in learning Chinese.	3.83	0.992
6	Social	#50 I try to learn about the culture of Chinese speakers.	3.77	1.02
7	Cognitive	#11 I try to talk like native Chinese speakers.	3.75	0.988
8	Compensation	#24 To understand unfamiliar Chinese words, I make guesses.	3.69	0.909
9	Metacognitive	#37 I have clear goals for improving my Chinese language skills.	3.66	1.08
10	Metacognitive	#33 I try to find out how to be a better learner of Chinese.	3.63	0.920

Strategies 45 (a social strategy) and 25 (compensatory strategy) were the most used by both KSL and CFL groups, followed by strategies 10, 24, 50 and 11.

Table 4 . Ten least used individual SILL strategies by CFL students.

Memory, cognitive, and affective individual strategies were least used by this sample of Korean CFL students. 

Table 5 . Ten least used individual SILL strategies by KSL students.

Individual memory strategies were clearly least favored by the Chinese students studying Korean as a second language in South Korea.

The single least used strategy in the combined CFL and KSL groups involved the use of flashcards, which might seem impractical to university students who must memorize huge numbers of words for tests.  The next least used strategy in the combined groups would be #43, an affective strategy which involves writing down feelings in a language learning diary.  The third least used strategy in the combined group was #5, “I use rhymes to remember new Korean/Chinese words.”  Given the popularity of music and the newly emerging rap industry in Asia, this is a little surprising.  The fourth least favored strategy in the combined CFL/KFL group was #16 which involves reading for pleasure in the target language.  Given that downloading videos has become one of the most common forms of entertainment amongst students, the degradation of reading to fourth from the bottom in a list of 50 study strategies is not surprising.  The fifth least favored strategy in the combined groups was #23, which entails making summaries of what the student hears or reads in the target language.  That two of the bottom five strategies used by the combined groups were memory strategies is some measure of support for research by Oh (1992) with Korean students and Yang (2007) with junior college students in Taiwan that found memory strategies to be used with the lowest mean intensity compared to the other five categories on the SILL test.

3.2 Gender

Significant differences in study strategy use by gender were not found.  The SILL category with the highest mean intensity strategy used by male and female Chinese students (KSL) students was metacognitive, whereas male and female Korean students (CFL) students used social strategies with the greatest mean intensity (Table 4).

Table 6. Relative use of strategy categories by Chinese and Korean male and female students

Metacognitive and compensation strategies were clearly preferred in all four groups.  These findings are similar to Lee and Oxford’s 2008 study which found compensation (mean = 3.10, SD = .83) and metacognitive (Mean 2.38, SD = .81) to be the most commonly used strategy groups in their study with over 1,000 South Korean students.

Figure 1. Mean strategy use by nationality and gender.

   KSL                    KSL                     CFL                     CFL

         Female            Male                    Female                Male

                                  Chinese             Chinese                 Korean                Korean

                                  Students             Students               Students              Students

Figure 1 illustrates that the greatest overall mean strategy use was by KSL male Chinese students (M = 3.24), followed by CFL female Korean students (M = 3.19).  These differences were not significant.

Appendix 1 shows means and t score results for the top ten individual strategies used by KSL and CFL groups along with gender differences in the use of those strategies.  In general the results indicate that individual affective strategies in the top 10 study strategy mean intensity group were used exclusively by Chinese students (KSL group) and memory strategies were used almost exclusively by Korean students (CFL group).

3.3 Parents’ educational level

KSL group and Father’s education

In the KSL group Chinese students SILL scores indicated overall significant differences in study strategy use (t = 2.492, p = .016) between students who had fathers with high school diplomas and students whose fathers had university degrees.  There were also significant differences in three SILL categories between these groups: memory (borderline significance t = 1.99, p = .051), cognitive (t = 2.719, p = .009) and affective (t = 2.156, p = .036).

KSL group and mother’s education

In the KSL group Chinese students’ SILL scores indicated overall significant differences in study strategy (t = 2.680, p = .010) between those who had mothers with high school diplomas and those with mothers who had university degrees.  Significant differences were found in several SILL categories, including memory (t = 2.735, p = .009), cognitive (t = 2.312, p = .025), compensatory (t = 3.129, p = .003) and social (t =  2.680, p = .010).  Taken together, father’s and mother’s education level appears to have a significant effect on the KSL students overall and several specific strategies use.

CFL group and Father’s education

In the CFL overall group significant differences were not found between students with fathers who had university degrees and students with fathers who had only high school diplomas.  However, a highly significant difference was found in one category of the SILL, compensatory strategies (t = 3.047, p = .003).

CFL group and Mother’s education

Overall significant differences were not found in the CFL group between students with mothers who had university degrees and students whose mothers only had high school diplomas. Though not quite as strong an effect as with father’s education, significant differences were found between student’s strategy use between different levels of mother’s education in the category of compensatory strategies (t = 2.524, p = .013).