A comparison of Lab- and Web-based elicited imitation: Insights from explicit-implicit L2 grammar knowledge and L2 proficiency

Elicited imitation (EI) tasks are a practical tool for measuring second language (L2) knowledge and skills. In this study, we implemented a web-based EI task that measures English morphosyntactic knowledge and compared its measurement properties to a traditional laboratory-based EI. A cohort of 149 L2 English learners engaged in the web-based EI task, and 151 participants completed a traditional lab-based EI counterpart. Correlation analyses revealed a significant, comparable relationship between English proficiency and the two EI versions, with the ungrammatical items showing less consistency that neither improved nor harmed the overall EI effectiveness. Factor analyses corroborated the validity of web-programmed EI, with both EI versions relating similarly to time-pressured, implicit knowledge and untimed, explicit knowledge measures. Our results suggest the potential for utilizing web-based EI to substitute lab-based tasks, enabling larger-scale, more diverse sampling. We end with implications for future web-based EI task users and include a coding guideline for customized web-based EI use.