Learning with the interactive whiteboard in the classroom: Its impact on vocabulary acquisition, motivation and the role of foreign language anxiety

When used in a sensible way, Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) are supposed to motivate and engage students in learning in the classroom. Thereby, they might also stimulate students who are usually more restrained, such as more anxious students. However, the body of research on the impact of IWB lessons is rather small. The present study investigated whether a 45-minute lesson with the IWB compared to a conceptual identical 45-minute lesson without the IWB would support learning and motivation within the subject English as a foreign language for German students. Moreover, the study examined whether the 45-minute lesson with the IWB compared to the 45-minute lesson without the IWB would be better able to counteract the detrimental effects of foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA). One hundred and two eighth graders from two secondary schools in Germany took part in this study and were either taught with the IWB (condition IWB; n = 53) or without the IWB (condition No-IWB; n = 50). Results showed that students in the IWB condition stated to be higher motivated and performed better in a vocabulary test than their counterparts in the No-IWB condition. FLCA was negatively correlated with performance in the vocabulary test. Other than expected, learning with the IWB did not compensate the detrimental effect of FLCA, meaning that learning with the IWB was more beneficial than learning without the IWB irrespective of a student’s FLCA. Implications of the study will be discussed.