Aline Godfroid

This critical dialogue examines how Open Research (OR) principles intersect with qualitative epistemologies in second language acquisition. Drawing on our distinct positionalities—Author 1 as a quantitatively trained psycholinguist and Author 2 as a qualitative critical applied linguist from the Global South—we explore both tensions and points of convergence across paradigms. While the OR movement has been shaped by concerns about replicability, we argue that trustworthiness in qualitative research rests on practices such as reflexivity, member checking, audit trails, and relational ethics. OR tools such as preregistration and public repositories offer qualitative researchers new ways to document and communicate their analytic decisions, but adaptation cannot be treated as their responsibility alone. If OR is to engage qualitative epistemologies meaningfully, the movement itself must also adapt by broadening its assumptions about evidence, accountability, transparency, and the desirability of unrestricted public availability of information. We argue for context-sensitive approaches that make decision-making processes visible without imposing uniform standards across methodological traditions.

We adopted an explanatory sequential design with two experiments to investigate the noticing function of output (Swain, 2005)—the idea that producing output promotes noticing. Combining eye-tracking and stimulated recall, we examined noticing at the levels of attention and awareness. Importantly, we made the first attempt to test the core prediction of the Output Hypothesis (Swain, 2005)—output promotes noticing, which in turn facilitates learning—through a mediation analysis capturing interrelationships among output, attention, and learning simultaneously. Additionally, we elicited learners’ reasons for heightened attention to explore the role of awareness. Based on 79 Chinese participants’ processing, perception, and production of the English past counterfactual conditional, our results suggest that output improved accuracy in grammar production, and the positive effects of output on attention were evident during later-stage (vs. early-stage) input processing. We provide the first quantitative and qualitative evidence identifying the conditions under which attention may mediate the output-learning relationship.

Psycholinguistics seeks to explain how language is represented, processed, and acquired in the mind. In applied linguistics, this endeavor extends to understanding how diverse bilingual populations—including second language learners, heritage speakers, and individuals experiencing language attrition—acquire and use language across contexts. This article traces the historical and conceptual development of applied psycholinguistics, from early debates on Universal Grammar and the role of consciousness to contemporary accounts centered on implicit learning mechanisms such as statistical learning, prediction, and adaptation. Two exemplary studies illustrate how psycholinguistic constructs—construction reuse, structural priming, and prediction error—can be operationalized to explain fluency development and syntactic learning in instructed settings. Building on these examples, I outline key principles of rigorous research, emphasizing transparent reporting, preregistration, replication, and open sharing as powerful mechanisms for aligning scientific incentives with cumulative knowledge building. Finally, I argue that the future of applied psycholinguistics depends on expanding its empirical base beyond university populations and leveraging online experimentation to enhance both inclusivity and ecological validity. Together, these developments position applied psycholinguistics as a field that not only advances theoretical understanding but also embraces methodological rigor, ethical responsibility, and broader societal relevance.

Researchers increasingly use response time tasks, along with untimed, accuracy-based tasks, to measure lexical knowledge. While these tasks are set up differently and are inherently time-sensitive, there is currently no empirical evidence on whether they also tap into qualitatively different dimensions of vocabulary knowledge. In this article, we report a validation study involving five timed and untimed measures for assessing 40, 2K–5K frequency English words. One hundred and forty-five learners took (1) an untimed meaning recognition test, (2) an untimed form recall test, (3) a Yes–No response time (RT) test (affording both accuracy and RT measures), and (4) a masked repetition priming task. Confirmatory factor analysis suggests that these measures can be placed on one or two psychometric dimensions, whereby the one-factor solution (suggesting the tests measure one construct) is preferred for parsimony. However, the two-factor model had a marginally stronger predictive validity for explaining self-reported proficiency. Our results highlight the value of incorporating response time measures in vocabulary research although the jury is still out on the theorization of vocabulary knowledge as a one- or two-dimensional construct.

The rising popularity of audiobooks in language learning has highlighted the need to understand their potential benefits in enhancing comprehension and the mechanisms driving these effects. In this registered report, we explored the hypothesis that reading‐while‐listening can enhance lower‐level decoding skills, in turn freeing up cognitive resources to support comprehension. In a within‐participant design, eighty‐six intermediate‐to‐advanced Chinese learners of English read, read and listened, and listened to different excerpts of a novel. Contrary to our preregistered hypotheses, participants comprehended the text less well when reading‐while‐listening than when reading it silently. Both reading conditions yielded better comprehension than listening‐only. Individual differences in segmentation skills and orthographic decoding supported comprehension but did not interact with the input condition in the way that theory would predict. These results confirm the importance of orthographic decoding and speech segmentation for comprehension, but they also point to gaps in theoretical understanding of reading‐while‐listening's presumed pedagogical advantages for comprehension.

Skill acquisition theory conceptualizes second language (L2) learning in three stages (declarative, procedural, and automatic), yet competing theoretical models with fewer stages also exist, and the number of stages has never actually been tested. We tested the validity of the three-stage model by investigating the number and nature of learning stages in L2 skill acquisition. Seventy-three participants deliberately learned grammar and vocabulary of a miniature language through explicit-deductive instruction. They systematically practiced comprehending the language until their accuracy and speed of performance did not improve anymore. Participants received a battery of tests assessing individual differences in their declarative and procedural learning abilities. We first applied hidden Markov modeling to participants’ reaction time data (obtained from the language practice) to compare rival hypotheses on the number of stages in L2 skill acquisition. We then examined which cognitive variables predicted participants’ performances (accuracy and speed) in each stage. Our results indicated that participants indeed acquired L2 skills in three stages and that their performance correlated initially with declarative learning ability, but there was a tendency for procedural learning ability to take over in the later stages. Our findings provide the first formal evidence for the influential three-stage model of L2 skill acquisition.

Skill acquisition theory conceptualizes second language (L2) learning in three stages (declarative, procedural, and automatic), yet competing theoretical models with fewer stages also exist, and the number of stages has never actually been tested. We tested the validity of the three-stage model by investigating the number and nature of learning stages in L2 skill acquisition. Seventy-three participants deliberately learned grammar and vocabulary of a miniature language through explicit- deductive instruction. They systematically practiced comprehending the language until their accuracy and speed of performance did not improve anymore. Participants received a battery of tests assessing individual differences in their declarative and procedural learning ability. We first applied hidden Markov modeling to participants’ reaction time data (obtained from the language practice) to compare rival hypotheses on the number of stages in L2 skill acquisition. We then examined which cognitive variables predicted participants’ performances (accuracy and speed) in each stage. Our results indicated that participants indeed acquired L2 skills in three stages and that their performance correlated initially with declarative learning ability, but there was a tendency for procedural learning ability to take over in the later stages. Our findings provide the first formal evidence for the influential three-stage model of L2 skill acquisition.

Eye tracking has taken hold in second language acquisition (SLA) and bilingualism as a valuable technique for researching cognitive processes, yet a comprehensive picture of reporting practices is still lacking. Our systematic review addressed this gap. We synthesized 145 empirical eye‐tracking studies, coding for 58 reporting features and applying a gap analysis to the codings. Although certain aspects of reporting, such as descriptions of auxiliary assumptions, equipment, and setup, were consistently implemented, we found significant variation and sometimes complete omission of crucial details surrounding aspects of data quality and of data preprocessing and cleaning. This lack of information hinders the evaluation of methodological rigor and overall study quality of eye‐tracking research. We propose a set of field‐specific reporting guidelines in the form of a checklist to improve the quality of data collected and contribute to the larger goal of advancing the replication and reproducibility of eye‐tracking research in SLA and bilingualism.

The social sciences have grappled with sampling biases, perhaps most notably the prevalent reliance on convenience samples drawn from university student populations. Researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) have likewise taken steps to assess and address the scope of these biases and their effects on theory construction. This special issue presents a collection of replications and registered replication reports comprising one such initiative, titled SLA for All? The replications aimed to evaluate the generalizability of findings from foundational SLA studies, which were obtained with university‐educated participants, to nonuniversity participant groups. In this introduction to the special issue, we review and discuss the general failure to replicate the initial results, the complex notion of replication, and questions of research ethics. We offer an in‐depth reflection on how our perspectives, practices, and future plans have evolved and conclude with a vision for a more inclusive, diverse, and informative approach to SLA research going forward.