Length in listening texts; A single determiner of difficulty for comprehension or not

Abstract

Text length is considered as one of the factors that cause listening task difficulty by many researchers (Chen, 2005; Mohamadi, 2013; Mendelsohn, 1994; Robinson, 2001). However, teachers sometimes consider text length as the single reason for a listening activity’s difficulty. Not many studies have focused on the length as a single determiner or whether there are other factors that are associated with length or not. In order to contribute to the field, the present study has aimed to investigate whether text length is single determiner by using both quantitative and qualitative data. Reflection reports on the difficulties of the task constitute qualitative data whereas scores on comprehension questions comprise quantitative data. Two long listening tasks were implemented with experiment group by dividing the length into manageable phases; meanwhile, with control group, they were done all at once. Scores of the two groups in comprehension questions have been compared by using T-test analysis. The findings have indicated that text length cannot be a determining factor alone. In the experiment, the scores of experimental and control groups do not have a statistically significant difference. According to student reflection reports, students have difficulties in listening long texts due to a lack of listening strategies, speech rate and pronunciation. Thus, text length might be better considered along with these factors.