The IRIS Replication Award

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£300 will be awarded every two years to a published (or accepted) self-labelled replication* using materials held on IRIS.

The fourth round of IRIS Replication Award has now closed for submissions.

2024 Winner:

Huensch, A. (2024). “Clarifying the role of inhibitory control in L2 phonological processing: A preregistered, close replication of Darcy et al. (2016)”

Thanks to the open research practices of the authors of previous studies, the researcher was able to use materials from Darcy, I., Mora, J. C. & Daidone, D. (2016) already housed on IRIS: https://www.iris-database.org/details/xSmdt-ui4Xg

The study examined the relationship between language abilities and general cognition, or specifically, how inhibitory control might relate to L2 speech perception and production. It was a close replication of Darcy et al. (2016) which examined the relationship between inhibitory control and L2 speech perception and production and unexpectedly reported differential relationships between inhibitory control and perception and production. This close replication followed the procedures of Darcy et al. but incorporated two additional tests of inhibition. Bringing together the findings from DM&D and the current replication, no strong, clear, or consistent relationship emerges between inhibitory control and L2 perception/production skills. These findings lead us to consider that despite inhibition being demonstrated to relate to language processing in bilinguals in lexical access studies, its relationship to phonological processing may be null or weak at best.

This study was published in Studies in Second Language Acquisition. It is a preregistered direct replication and includes open data.

Data and materials from Huensch, A. (2024) are available on IRIS:https://www.iris-database.org/search/?s_publicationAPAInlineReference=Huensch%20(2024) and OSF: https://osf.io/fxzvj/

2022 Winner:

Huensch, A., & Nagle, C. (2021). The effect of speaker proficiency on intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness in L2 Spanish: A conceptual replication and extension of Munro and Derwing (1995a). Language Learning, 71 (3), 626-668.

This study investigated the relationship among intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness in the speech of second language learners of Spanish of varying proficiency in instructed contexts. It conceptually replicated studies by Munro and Derwing (1995a) and Derwing and Munro (1997), who found partial independence among the three speech dimensions but also evidence that proficiency may mediate the relationship between linguistic features of stimuli (e.g., phonemic and grammatical error rates) and speech dimensions. Speech data from 42 second language learners of Spanish recruited from two different universities were elicited via a semispontaneous speaking task: the picture-based narration from the initial study. Amazon Mechanical Turk was used to recruit 80 native Spanish listeners to transcribe and rate extracted utterances. The utterances were coded for grammatical and phonemic errors, goodness of prosody, and speaking rate. Analyses included mixed-effects models that allowed estimation of individual variation across facets of the data, particularly those of listeners.

The materials from Huensch, A., & Nagle, C. (2021) are on IRIS: https://www.iris-database.org/details/Z1wIr-hMCVg

Thanks to the open research practices of the authors of previous studies, the hunter story task from Munro and Derwing (1995a) is on IRIS: https://www.iris-database.org/details/hWgPi-JCEru

And an elicited imitation test (EIT) is on IRIS: https://www.iris-database.org/details/yhzL0-J2jzK

2020 Winner:

Hiver, P. & AI-Hoorie, A. H. (2020). Reexamining the Role of Vision in Second Language Motivation: A Preregistered Conceptual Replication of You, Dörnyei, and Csizér (2016). Language Learning, 70 (1), 48-102.

This study replicated You, Dörnyei, and Csizér (2016). Motivation, vision, and gender: A survey of learners of English in China. Language Learning, 66, 94–123. The objective of this conceptual replication was to test whether language learners’ vision of themselves in the future (their mental imagery) can energize action and help them develop positive learning behaviors in the present. The reviewers found this study to have a strong justification for doing the replication, sound and transparent methods and analysis, thorough explanations and discussion, and careful integration of the findings from the initial study into the discussion of the findings from the replication itself.

The materials from Hiver & AI-Hoorie (2020) are on IRIS: https://www.iris-database.org/iris/app/home/detail?id=york%3a936427&ref=search

Thanks to the open research practices of the authors of the original study, the materials from that study are on IRIS: https://www.iris-database.org/iris/app/home/detail?id=york%3a847528&ref=search

2018 Winner:

Suzuki, Y. (2017). The optimal distribution of practice for the acquisition of L2 morphology: A conceptual replication and extension. Language Learning, 67, 512–545.

This study replicated Suzuki & DeKeyser (2017*). Effects of distributed practice on the proceduralization of morphology. Language Teaching Research, 21, 166-188. The main objective of the study was to investigate further the role of linguistic complexity for different levels of L2 grammar practice distribution. The reviewers found this replication study to have a very thorough and clear methodology, clearly explaining all deviations from the original study with strong rationales for the changes made. The materials from Suzuki (2017) are on IRIS.

* The original study by Suzuki & DeKeyser (2017) was first published online in 2015.