Tolerance of Ambiguity and SLA Success

Now that AT has been defined, and ambiguity has been attributed to the SLA process, it is time to consider how a learner’s degree of AT is related to their success in SLA.  It is important to note that AT is not the only learner variable which effects SLA success, but it is one that has a significant impact.  As mentioned, AT is usually measured on a Likert scale, with scores falling into three categories:  high, moderate, and low.  Therefore, it is necessary to consider findings for learners with high AT, moderate AT, and low AT in regards to their success in learning a second language.

            Many variables have been researched and found to have an impact on SLA success.  Among these are intelligence, language aptitude, teaching methods, and social factors (Chapelle & Roberts, 1986).  Cultural learning style is another significant variable to SLA success according to McVeigh (1995).  His study of Japanese learning styles found that the unified methods used to teach Japanese students, contours their preferred learning style.  He notes that cultural background effects SLA success and may also effect tolerance for ambiguity.  In Wen & Johnson’s (1997) study of Chinese English majors, they studied 16 variables which are thought to effect SLA success, only six of which they found to have significant impact on SLA.  These six included:  gender, language proficiency (in both the first and second language), vocabulary learning, mother tongue avoidance, and tolerance of ambiguity (Wen & Johnson, 1997)  While AT was one of the significant variables, they also point out that it is impossible to isolate any single variable due to the fact that learners are each comprised of all kinds of variables at once.

            Even with all the learner variables that can be considered to impact SLA success, AT has been proven through many studies as one that has a considerable impact.  In Naiman’s (1978) study of high school French students, he found AT to be significantly correlated with scores on second language listening comprehension and imitation tasks.   In Chapelle & Robert’s (1986) study of adult ESL students in the United States they sited tolerance of ambiguity as a significant predictor of ESL proficiency for international students studying in the United States.  AT has also been found to be a predictor of students’ learning strategies (Oxford & Ehrman, 1993). 

            Only one study found that having a low tolerance of ambiguity was a common characteristic among high achieving second language learners.  Wen and Johnson (1997) found that among Chinese students majoring in English, those with a low AT were commonly the higher achievers.  However, their measurement device was not a standard one, but one which they developed themselves and it only contained three items relating to tolerance of ambiguity.  All three of these items were questions that asked about  guessing in academic settings.  The authors of this study admit that guessing in an academic setting is not a culturally acceptable learning strategy in China.  Thus, it is not likely that they received an accurate indication of the students’ true tolerance for ambiguity, in that students responses were influenced more by cultural acceptance than personal tolerance for ambiguity.  Not only is the instrument in this study questionable, their findings regarding AT and SLA success are contradicted by multiple other studies with opposite results.  One thing all studies agree on is that AT is a variable with a significant impact on SLA success.

            People with a high tolerance of ambiguity may be more comfortable when dealing with uncertainty, however, they may also be at a disadvantage.  High AT learners run the risk of never learning to reject impossibilities in a language or they may memorize the rules without merging them into a dynamic system (Brown, 2000).  Over acceptance of ambiguity is also an extreme that can lead to difficulties in the pursuit of second language proficiency.  El-Koumy (2000) found in his study that it was not the students with high AT who scored the highest in reading comprehension, but rather the students with a moderate AT who significantly outscored all other learners.  Learners with low AT scored the lowest in this study, but not significantly lower than students with high AT.  Students with a low AT are at a disadvantage because a low AT limits creativity, and leads to rejection of behaviors that are inconsistent with one’s own behavior (Piper, 1993).  Students with a high AT are at a disadvantage in that high AT limits curiosity and the pursuit of critical questions.  With the exception Wen and Johnson’s study mentioned above, all studies and articles reviewed indicate that students are likely to be more successful in SLA and likely to go further in their study of the second language if they have a moderate level of tolerance for ambiguity.  In light of that fact, students should consider how they can best achieve SLA success and teachers should consider how they can modify for students of varying degrees of AT.