Willingness to Communicate in English as a Second Language: A Research Protocol for Meta-Analysis

Abstract

This study explores three independent variables affecting Willingness to Communicate (WTC). Specifically, the purpose is to examine the degree of relationship between familiarity, self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) and motivation as explanatory (independent variables) to WTC (dependent variable) using three identified studies on WTC in English among L2 speakers from Japan, Turkey and Pakistan – all non-English speaking countries. Given the various limitations and some inconsistencies presented herein, a combined analysis on effect size seems difficult to be realized. However, even with all the difficulties, correlational meta-analysis can still manage to depict a sizeable description of effect size when raw data of answered questionnaire responses on each variable is made available to determine coefficient correlation, thus, effect size. Next, the use of WTC Model consistent in all data extraction and analysis coupled with the relatively consistent mentioning of three identified variables indicate some strong sense of homogeneity. Therefore, this paper can answer the most general questions when full-scale meta-analysis will be conducted in the future: what is the degree of correlation of familiarity, SPCC and motivation to WTC as L2 language individuals? What has the highest degree of correlation among all variables to the level of WTC?