چکیده:
This paper presented two complex span tasks in Persian as measures of working memory capacity (WMC). Firstly, the construct of working memory (WM) and possible WM measures that could assess this construct efficiently were critically reviewed. Accordingly, as measures of domain-general components of WM, a reading span task and an operation span task which were documented to assess this construct efficiently were chosen and developed. Following this, the
developed tasks were conducted on 151 teenage learners in a foreign language institute in West Azerbaijan Province. Then, the administration and scoring of the measures were described step by
step. The tasks were validated against each other as well as against a digit span task which assessed the domain-specific aspect of WMC as well. The result showed a strong correlation between the reading span task and the operation span task, and a moderate correlation of either of the functions with the digit span task. Consequently, both of the developed span tasks can be valid indicators of WM capacity for Iranian individuals and can be used in a wide array of research
domains in second language acquisition studies.
خلاصه ماشینی:
"The Development of Reading and Operation Span Tasks in Persian as Measures of Working Memory Capacity for Iranian EFL Learners Rahim Najjari PhD Candidate Urmia University mirana32@yahoo.
Besides the successful administration of Rspan and Ospan tasks regarding preventing the participants from strategy use, all of these would seem to suggest that the selection, arrangement, and presentation of Persian isolated letters had worked efficiently for the recalling components of the developed Rspan and Ospan tasks.
However, if it was noticed that participants had used any strategy or there had been no negative correlation between test time and the other two components of complex span tasks, the 80 percent of correct processing components of the developed Rspan and Ospan tasks had to be considered as a criterion for reporting participants’ WMC.
The processing score of complex span tasks is not usually taken into account in reporting individuals' WMC (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) as its main function is to prevent participants for using any strategy and to make recalling of the to-be-remembered stimuli challenging.
Two other areas for further research which we are currently working are 1) the validation of a Persian listening span task through changing the new Rspan task into an oral format in which participants listen to the recorded sentences and then determine the accuracy of sentences and finally list the letters in orders heard; and 2) computerized versions of the Ospan task, Rspan task, and listening span task in which different ways of scoring can be reported as well."