Confidence Hypothesis about Efficiency of Specific Strategies (CHESS): A Novel Parameter and its Possible Significance in Application

Abstract

In this paper a novel term is introduced to cover for a parameter already investigated in a number of experiments conducted in the Democritus University, without, yet, being identified with a specific name. The aim of all those studies was to investigate the learning strategies frequency of use  in correlation with the confidence of the subjects as to whether and to what extent such strategies enhance their language learning. In the specific experiment forty eight students from the first three grades in a State Secondary school, in Thrace, Greece, were recruited through convenience sampling, twenty four Greek native speakers and  twenty four Turkish native speakers with Greek as their second language. There were sixteen learners out of each grade, eight of low and eight of high level in English, four male, four female, forty eight learners altogether, twenty four male and twenty four female students. The students had to indicate not only the level of frequency of strategy use but also their confidence in those strategies’ effectiveness; this is the introduced term Confidence Hypothesis about Efficiency of Specific Strategies (CHESS). Furthermore, the students used the Vougiouklis & Vougiouklis bar (2008) instead of the widely used Likert scale for the filling in of the questionnaires minimizing  time and effort. The questionnaire used was the translated in Greek and validated SILL questionnaire with 50 items. Each of the 50 questions was followed by two bars: on the first bar the students had to specify the frequency of use of each strategy and on the second their confidence about each strategy’s effectiveness.