#ResearchArticle: A Survey of Indonesian Learners’ Use of Dictionaries

Research Article

Summary: A Survey of Indonesian Learners’ Use of Dictionaries

Fallianda

1. Introduction 

• From all the specializations in dictionary research, the so-called user-perspectives allow researchers to assess whether users are aware of the value and limitations of the dictionaries they use.
• However, the majority of the research has been conducted mostly in English-speaking countries. Against this background, researchers need to conduct studies in Indonesian lexicographic context. 
• Unfortunately, there has been little empirical data on dictionary user research by Indonesian speakers that creates methodological issues in which to collect information about dictionary culture dictionary use must occur. 
• With this in mind, this paper consider to conduct a survey to collect information about Indonesian dictionary users. This paper will also consider to include all lexicographic information to raise dictionary awareness. 

2. Methodology

A questionnaire was distributed to 88 students at Airlangga University, Indonesia. The participants were in their first year studying English language and literature. The university students are chosen because dictionaries are seen to be one of the important reference materials to support their learning process. The students' English proficiency levels were equivalent to the A2 and B1 levels of the CEFR (Common Framework of Reference for Languages). The two levels are commonly referred to as pre-intermediate and intermediate levels.

2.1 The user questionnaire

• The students were instructed to complete the user questionnaire that was distributed in a paper format. For reasons of different lexicographic traditions, two researchers might have different research questions and this might have been reflected in question items and their formats. The students had been told that their participation in the study would not affect their grades and they are expected to answer all the questions truthfully.
• There were three sections which consisted of several details. Section A  identifies how often the students use specific type of dictionary categories (Indonesian-English, English-Indonesian, English-English). Section B asks the students to rank the first, second, and third dictionaries they often use, then to give ratings (excellent, good, OK, poor, and awful). And, section C asks the students to report how often they look for particular information in a dictionary. The students were given frequency options of always, often, sometimes, and never. The typical presentation and symbol for each lexicographic information type are given in case the students cannot relate to different kinds of information in dictionary entries. 

3. Results and Discussion

3.1 Learner’s Levels and Frequency Use of Dictionary Categories

It was expected that the students with a higher level would use monolingual dictionary than those with lower level. However, the results showed that the groups have similar habits in which  monolingual are rarely used and English–Indonesian are consulted as often as Indonesian–English dictionaries.

3.2 Dictionary Preference (Choices, types, and levels)

The analysis on dictionary choices on dictionary types showed that bilingual types are consulted more often and were preferred by all students as their first choice. However, from the interaction of the variables, no interaction was found. We could conclude that both dictionary types were consulted in similar frequency by all students. There also appeared to be a tendency for the students to use one specific dictionary, that is Oxford. 

3.3 Dictionary Evaluation (Ratings, types, and levels)

There was no significant interaction between learner levels by dictionary ratings and types. This means that the two group of learners show a similar dictionary evaluation in which bilingual dictionaries are valued as much as monolingual dictionaries. 

3.4 Reference needs

The comparison in the consultation frequency of dictionary information between the two groups of learners is presented in the table below. 

Table 1: Ranking of the seven reference needs by mean consultation frequency.

The test results also showed that there was an increasing need for synonyms among the intermediate learners, but not for the remaining types of information.

4. Conclusion

• User studies, which are based on the user questionnaire survey, can answer a number of questions that are relevant to greater part of practical lexicography. 
• However, for a survey to be maximally useful, researchers need to be really careful about the exact form of the question, so that they can represent useful information to readers.
• The results confirmed the following details in which (1) the two groups of learners used bilingual dictionaries more often than monolingual dictionaries, (2) the two groups show indifference when asked to identify dictionary choices and ratings, and (3) the attempt to bring the lexicographic information to the students proved useful to some extent that the students could identify language difficulties. 
• A multi-method or mixed approach was recommended to support the survey findings. 

Bagaimana untuk merujuk artikel ini: 

Fallianda. (2020). A Survey of Indonesian Students’ Use of Dictionaries. Lexikos, 30 (1), 609-628.