A Systematic Review of Emergent Learning Outcomes Produced by Foreign language Tact Training

John R Wooderson; Lewis A Bizo; Kirsty Young

doi:10.1007/s40616-022-00170-z

A Systematic Review of Emergent Learning Outcomes Produced by Foreign language Tact Training

Anal Verbal Behav. 2022 Jul 6;38(2):157-178. doi: 10.1007/s40616-022-00170-z. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Authors

John R Wooderson^{1

2

3}, Lewis A Bizo¹, Kirsty Young¹

Affiliations

¹ University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
² Lojic Institute, Loganholme, Australia.
³ Present Address: The Kameleon Group, Sydney, Australia.

Abstract

This systematic review evaluated the effects of foreign tact training on emergent learning outcomes in ten published studies. We also conducted a meta-analysis of aggregate data from seven studies comparing outcomes of foreign tact training with other verbal operant procedures. The preliminary findings indicated foreign tact training produced criterion-level responses in 84 of 106 (79.2%) post-test probes across 37 learners and 55 evaluations of foreign tact training. The meta-analysis results revealed significantly higher within-subjects mean levels of emergent responding following foreign tact training than foreign-to-native intraverbal, native-to-foreign intraverbal, and foreign listener training. Emergent outcomes for adults were not significantly greater than for children. Finally, foreign tact training was slightly more efficient than the other verbal operant procedures, although most of the differences were not statistically significant.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40616-022-00170-z.

Keywords: emergent learning; foreign language learning; second language learning; tact training.

Publication types

Review