An Investigation of Vocabulary Knowledge of Word Association Patterns of Palestinian EFL University Students

The Word Association (WA) method is used in vocabulary studies to examine the arrangement of words in the mental lexicon and to provide information about learners’ linguistic behaviours in their first and/ or second languages. Determining vocabulary knowledge is the first stage when dealing with the improvement of learners’ proficiency levels. The study investigates the WA response patterns of Palestinian non-native English undergraduates studying at English-medium universities. Palestinian students typically face difficulties in the mastery of English vocabulary. Moreover, their academic vocabulary knowledge has not been examined in the WA field. Two instruments were used. The first was the Eurocentres Vocabulary Size Test (EVST) to examine the receptive vocabulary knowledge of the participants, so as to identify their English vocabulary levels. The second was the Word Association Test (WAT), which explored the students' productive vocabulary knowledge. Finding out how Palestinian university EFL students respond to WAT is the primary goal of this study. Its primary objective is to determine the nature of the responses of non-native English speakers. The second research objective is to show how the responses of Palestinian learners on English academic WAs are distributed across different linguistic categories; the mean number of responses in each of the four major categories (meaning-based, position-based, form-based, and erratic) and 17 subcategories was calculated. It goes on to look at how these response patterns change at various skill levels. It delves further into the subject by investigating what causes these word association patterns to vary. The third research objective is to detect the relationship between the vocabulary competency levels of Palestinian university students and their knowledge of academic words. The mean number of unknown academic words for all 185 participants was computed. Then, the influence of the participants’ vocabulary levels and academic fields on the mean number of blank responses in the WAT was discussed. In order to investigate these, the usage-based approach was adopted in the present study. The results revealed that vocabulary level negatively correlated with blank responses. Academic fields also influenced the number of blank responses. Finally, to detect the differences in response type tendency between non-native English speakers of varying vocabulary levels, the associations of both groups were compared. The model used to frame the methodology was the Composite Model proposed by Thwaites (2019). The participants were sampled using the cluster sampling method. The data were analysed descriptively and inferentially using a quantitative research approach. The results showed that vocabulary levels were correlated with students’ response type tendency in two main categories. The results can support future L2 WA research to yield consistent results about vocabulary knowledge and the mental lexicon aspects.