Methodology
1 Participants
The participants in this study were 214 Japanese university students. One hundred and
eighty-six participants (56 female and 130 male) were low proficiency first- and secondyear
students studying in various departments in a private university. TOEIC scores were
unavailable for these students, but students with similar English proficiency from a different
department had a mean TOEIC score of 280. Fourteen participants were first-year female
university students with a mean TOEIC score of 521 (SD = 108; range 340–615) of
various academic majors attending a different private university. Finally, fourteen (9
female and 5 male) participants were third- and fourth-year students at a public university
majoring in English, with a mean TOEIC score of 826 (SD = 73; range 730–915).