Informed Consent:

Understanding Second Language Speech

General description of the study

You are being asked to participate in a research study. The information in this document will help you decide if you would like to participate. Your participation is completely voluntary, and you can stop participating at any time.

Investigators

This study is being carried out by [author].

Participants

You are being asked to participate because you are a native speaker of Spanish (Spanish is your native language) and you currently reside in a Spanish-speaking country. You should not participate if you are not at least 18 years old.

Purpose of the study

In this study, we aim to gain a better understanding of the speech of individuals who speak Spanish as a native or second language. We are particularly interested in how native Spanish speakers perceive and process speech produced by individuals who are learning Spanish as a second language.

Procedure

In this part of the study, we are going to ask you listen and evaluate clips produced by native Spanish speakers and learners of Spanish. After you evaluate the files, you will be asked to complete a survey about your experience on the task. All work will take place in Amazon Mechanical Turk. This part of the experiment should take about 20-30 minutes.

Risks

This study is considered to be of minimal risk, which means you will not face any risks you do not enounter in your daily life.

Compensation

You will receive $4.00 (USD) after you complete this part of the experiment.

Privacy and confidentiality

We will do everything possible to keep your responses confidential. However, we cannot guarantee absolute confidentiality. Some individuals may need to see your responses. These individuals include:

  • The research team, including the principal investigator and other research personnel.
  • The University Institutional Review Board, which oversees this and other research studies.

If you participate in an online study, it is possible, though improbable, that unauthorized individuals may gain access to your responses. Your confidentiality will be maintained to the extent to which technology allows it. No guarantee can be made with respect to electronic data submitted online. However, your participation in this online survey is low risk and does not exceed what an average internet user would face.

We reserve the right to publish what we learn form this research. If we proceed with publication, we will not publish your name or any other personally identifying information.

Additional information

Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints, please contact [author]. If you have questions about your rights as a research participant or problems with this experiment, you may contact the University Institutional Review Board.

You may print a copy of this informed consent document for your records.

I understand that by clicking continue, I consent to participate in this research, and I certify that I am at least 18 years old.

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Instructions

In this experiment, we are going to ask you to listen to and evaluate audio clips recorded by both native Spanish speakers and learners of Spanish (individuals who have learned Spanish as a second language). Speakers watched the following short film, and afterwards, they were asked to retell the story using the screen shots copied below:

Your task is to listen to each clip, which contains an excerpt of each participant's response, and evaluate it using three scales: fluency, comprehensibility, and foreign accent.

  • Fluency
    • Fluency is the flow of the language. Does the person have problems finding words, using a lot of filler words and pauses, or do the words come easily? The left end of the scale indicates that the speaker has a hard time expressing him or herself, while the right end indicates someone who is very fluent (the words just flow with no struggle).
  • Comprehensibility
    • Comprehensibility refers to how easy or difficult the clip is to understand. You might be able to understand everything, but it may require a lot of effort on your part, so what we're interested in is the effort you need to put in. On the comprehensibility scale, the left end of the scale indicates that the clip is very difficult to understand (requires a lot of effort), and the right end of the scale that it is very easy to understand (requires little effort).
  • Foreign Accent
    • Everyone has an accent, but we're interested in foreign accent. Foreign accent refers to any pronunciation that would not occur in native speech. Keep in mind that foreign accent is different from comprehensibility. You may be able to understand someone easily even if they have a strong foreign accent. On this scale, the left end of the continuum indicates that the speaker has a very strong foreign accent, while the right end indicates that the person has no foreign accent (that the person could be a native speaker of some dialect of Spanish).
Information about the interface:

To play the clip, click on the "Play" button. Because we're interested in your first impression, you will only be able to listen to the clip once. After the clip has finished playing, you will have 30 seconds to evaluate it. You must evaluate the clips in the order they appear; you won't be able to skip a file, nor will you be able to go back to a previous file to change your ratings.

Before you begin, please take a moment to put your headphones on to make sure that you can hear the clips well.

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Continue

Click continue to begin the experiment.


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Survey


Please evaluate your experience with this task using the following scales.




How well did you understand the concept of comprehensibility?

Not at all Very well

 

How well did you understand the concept of foreign accent?

Not at all Very well

 

How difficult was it for you to complete this task?

Very difficult Very easy







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Submit



Please ensure that you have completed all parts of the task before you submit this form.


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