The effects of data-driven learning (DDL) on Thai learners' ability to use academic English collocations

Knowledge of collocations is considered one of the most significant aspects of vocabulary knowledge as it serves as an integral aspect of nativelike language proficiency. However, learners with different proficiency levels often find collocations challenging to use in their second language (L2) production. This study aimed to investigate the effects of Data-Driven Learning (DDL) framed within the Involvement Load Hypothesis (ILH) on Thai learners’ ability to use academic collocations. Conceptualized as a motivational-cognitive construct, this research also examined how Thai learners used the three dimensions (need, search, and evaluation) of Involvement Load (IL) to master academic collocations through DDL. The study then explored Thai learners’ attitudes toward the implementation of the ILH-based DDL to enhance their ability to use academic collocations. It was hypothesized that the ILH-based DDL could improve Thai learners’ ability to use academic collocations. The ILH postulates that the more learners actively engage in the IL components within a task, the more significant their progress will be in acquiring new academic collocations. In this study, 31 Thai undergraduates were asked to participate on a voluntary basis. Six patterns of adjective-noun, verb-noun, adverb-past participle, adverb-adjective, noun-noun, and noun-verb collocations were targeted in this study. A multiple-choice test and a collocate judgement test were designed as a pretest and a posttest to measure Thai participants’ ability to use academic collocations before and after the study treatment. Based on their pretest scores, six participants, divided into a high proficiency group and a low proficiency group, were recruited to verbalize their thoughts while completing DDL tasks. The results demonstrate that the ILH-based DDL is an effective method of learning academic collocations at the level of significance (p = 0.00) as the participants produced academic collocations in the posttest more accurately than those in the pretest. The findings also reveal that the Thai learners used all of the IL components (i.e., need, search, and evaluation) in mastering academic collocations through DDL. The learners employed the search component most frequently (100%), followed by the evaluation component (78.89%), and the need component (72.22%). Regarding DDL strategy use, the learners employed observing and identifying strategies most frequently, and differentiating and grouping strategies least frequently. The questionnaire results indicate that the Thai participants had positive attitudes toward using the ILH-based DDL to improve their ability to use academic collocations. They strongly agreed that DDL activities allowed them to encounter and analyze academic collocations using authentic language data. The interview results further support the positive attitudes of the Thai learners toward the efficiency of the ILH-based DDL. These findings provide researchers or teachers with useful insights into DDL-based learning conditions that could potentially enhance academic L2 collocation learning.