Correlates of Listening Comprehension in L1 and L2: A Meta-analysis

Abstract

The present meta-analysis aimed to explore the correlates of listening comprehension in first (L1) andsecond language (L2). In this regard, the overall average correlation scores, obtained from severalprimary studies retrieved from several databases, between linguistic (vocabulary size, vocabulary depth,syntactic knowledge), cognitive (working memory, metacognitive skills), and affective factors (anxietyand self-concept) and oral comprehension were measured. The results of the analysis revealed that interms of strengths of association with listening comprehension, linguistic correlates were superior tocognitive correlates in L2 listening comprehension. There existed positive correlations with large effectsizes between vocabulary and grammar knowledge and listening comprehension while working memoryyielded a positive correlation with a small effect size. Metacognitive skills, on the other hand,demonstrated a positive correlation with L2 listening comprehension with a large effect size. A similarpattern was observed in L1 listening comprehension with smaller strengths of association. Vocabularyand grammar knowledge yielded positive correlations with L1 listening comprehension and the effect sizewas medium while working memory weakly correlated with listening comprehension. An importantdistinction between L1 and L2 listening comprehension was observed in the affective domain. Anxietyand self-concept which were not reported to correlate with L1 listening comprehension were found todisplay large correlations with listening comprehension in L2. Overall, it was found that listeningcomprehension in both L1 and L2 is a multi-faceted process with different types of components involved.