Design and Development of a Conjunctive Word-Learning Support System for Conjunctive Expressions with Different-Meaning Commutativity and its Experimental Use

Abstract

Conjunctive words connect two sentences logically. This property is divided into same-meaning and different-meaning commutativity. The former emphasizes a meaning that is explicitly represented in the sentences that already exist, but the latter adds a meaning beyond what is explicitly represented in them. Doing exercises to learn how to use both the former and the latter is important because conjunctive words play an important role in reading and writing effective sentences. Exercises to learn the former are easy, as there is only one correct answer to a fill-in-the-blank problem. On the other hand, to demonstrate mastery of the latter, the exercises must be difficult because various correct answers with different meanings exist. In this study, we designed and developed a conjunctive word learning support system for performing conjunctive word exercises to master different-meaning commutativity. In this system, the learner is provided with an exercise that entails assembling a sentence structure composed of two sentences and a conjunctive word and a conjunctive logical structure composed of two explicit situations and an implic it situation. The system also automatically diagnoses the learner’s performance on the exercises and gives feedback based on the diagnosis results. Furthermore, we carried out an experiment to verify the validity of this system, and the results suggest that the system is effective for helping students to master this aspect of language.