Changing Associations: The Effect of Direct Vocabulary Instruction on the Word Associations of Japanese College Students

Word association tests (WATs) are generally used in second language (L2)vocabulary acquisition research studies to investigate the connections L2 learners hold in their developing mental lexicons.

The problem with of the studies to date is that the associations produced are often “extremely boring and predicable”(Meara, 1983, p. 29), because learners are usually only tested once with high frequency prompt words (PWs). This study examines the evolving mental connections of twenty Japanese college students through the multiple administration of a thirty‐item WAT over a three‐month period.