Bilingualism Plays an Important Role in Decision-Making - Research Paper Example

Bilingualism March 15, Introduction Bilingualism plays an important role in decision making. The research delves on theeffect of bilingualism on test results. The research focuses on the test effects of monolingual respondents and bilingual respondents. Bilingual test takers generate higher test results compared to monolingual test takers. Summary of First Research Article One article focuses on the effect of bilingualism on test scores (Tournho et al., 2012). The research hypothesis dictates that the bilingualism advantageously contributes to better executive function. Specifically, the research delves on the effect of bilingualism on poor immigrants’ executive functions. The respondent children were selected from poor or severely disadvantaged neighborhoods. The curriculum was at par with classroom instructions from other countries. Likewise, the teachers were very highly qualified to teach the classroom topics. Further, the respondents were composed of 12 1 children belonging to the poor sectors of society. There were 67 children respondents from Luxembourg. There were 54 children respondents from Portugal. There were equally 50 percent male and 50 percent female children respondents. One group is composed of purely Portuguese language. The bilinguals were exposed to both Portuguese and Luxembourg languages. The Portuguese children took the Portuguese language version of the research tests. On the other hand, the bilingual children could use the Portuguese language, German language, French language, or Luxembourgish language to answer the research tests. The maximum test score was 51 points (Tournho et al., 2012). Furthermore, there were different research test types. One test is the Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices test, a nonverbal test. The maximum score was 36 points. Another test was the memory-based odd one out test. The test requires the children to pick out the shape that differs from among three alternative shapes. A third test was another memory based test, Dot Matrix test. The test requires the children to memorize the sequence of locations and tapping the correct blank matrix within the time limit. Another test is the Sky search test (Tournho et al., 2012). Moreover, the results of the tests were significant (Tournho et al., 2012). First, the bilingual identified more words in the Portuguese language than the purely Luxembourgish children. In terms of the Portuguese language vocabulary, the monolingual children had higher test results than the monolingual children. Next, the bilinguals performed faster on the Raven’s test than the monolinguals. Likewise, the bilinguals performed faster than the monolinguals in the Sky Search attention test. The research findings prove that bilingualism contributes significantly to general domain cognitive ability. Next, the research shows bilingualism effective enhances the children’s ability to deal with conflicts. Indeed, bilingualism improves the poor children’s ability to successfully hurdle conflicts compared to the monolingual poor children. Other Research Articles Another research proves the beneficial effects of bilingualism (Drumhiller & Schwanenflugel, 2013). The research focused on determining whether learning both the English language and Spanish language will increase test scores. The research delves on the respondents learning the new language, Spanish, to enhance their Spanish language mastery of medical terminologies. Before the Spanish classes, the monolingual English speaking student respondents took Spanish-based vocabulary tests. The monolingual English Speaking respondents were trained by an expert health care –trained Spanish teacher. After the Spanish class, the same students were instructed to take the same Spanish language tests. The test scores were compared. The Spanish classes were used to enhance the healthcare professionals’ delivery of services to the monolingual Spanish –speaking patients. Further, the research findings show the importance of learning the Spanish language in order to improve the delivery of healthcare services to the Spanish Speaking patients. The research indicated that Spanish classes helped the previously monolingual English –only speaking healthcare professionals master the Spanish language versions of the English medical vocabularies. The research proved that the healthcare professionals’ native language served as a firm background to faster learning of the second language, Spanish (Drumhiller & Schwanenflugel, 2013). Furthermore, the research shows the many advantages of learning a second language. With the second language, the healthcare professionals can improve the delivery of healthcare services to another group of patients, the Spanish group of patients. The second language will enhance the learning of Spanish medical terminologies. Some medical books are written in the Spanish language. Consequently, the monolingual English speaking health care professional’s learning of the Spanish language will enhance their healthcare knowledge (Drumhiller & Schwanenflugel, 2013). A third research affirms bilingual language enhances the person’s mental operations (Bialystok, 2012). The research initially shows that Canada’s population is 20 percent are bilinguals. In Toronto’s busy environment, half of the population is characterised as bilingual. In Europe alone, more than half of the population is classified as a bilingual person. In Luxembourg, the population is 99 percent bilingual. The research delves on the effect of bilingualism on the person’s mental capacity to make decisions. The research emphasizes that a prior test on French speaking monolinguals and bilinguals who use both English and French show that the bilinguals produced superior test scores compared to monolinguals, French speaking Canadians. The research focused on secondary resources. The research referred to the prior Bialystok and Majumder research that showed bilingual children solved the same tests differently from the monolingual children (Bialystok, 2012). The prior research showed the bilingual children produced higher test scores compared to monolingual children on the conflict tests. In terms of identifying font colors in the Stroop task, task switching and attention task, bilingual children scored favorably better than the monolingual children. Further, the researchers opined that the bilinguals’ capacity to use two different languages enhanced their mental capacities (Bialystok, 2012). Specifically, the bilinguals had better frontal posterior attention control mechanisms than the monolinguals. The brain’s inhibitory contributed to the bilinguals’ better mental capacities. In fact, the researchers went further as to espouse bilingualism deters the onset or degree of debilitation of age-based dementia. Furthermore (Bialystok, 2012), the researchers compared the medical records of both monolingual and bilingual patients. The research showed that bilinguals’ dementia onset had been delayed by as much as four years. The monolinguals succumbed to Dementia at the average age of 75 years. On the other hand, the bilinguals’ succumbed to dementia at the average age of 79 year. The findings of the research affirmed that the bilinguals’ use of two languages to solve the same conflict enhanced the bilinguals’ mental flexibility, concept formation, and higher mental abilities than the monolinguals. Criticism of the three research papers The above discussion clearly shows the persons who are classified as bilinguals can better solve tests, conflicts, and other situations better than the monolinguals. This is understandable. When taking a combined Spanish and English test, a person who knows both the Spanish language and the English language has a higher probability of getting higher test scores than the monolinguals. The monolingual English only students will find the Spanish portion of the test unfamiliar, generating low Spanish test scores. In the same manner, the monolingual Spanish only students will find the English part of the test unfamiliar, precipitating to low test English test scores. Further, the three research articles correctly show the researchers perfectly (correctly) use effective design and methods procedures. The three articles correctly generated correct results and conclusions by using the valid and relevant research data. The Tournho et al. article shows the researchers correctly use the student respondents to prove the hypothesis that the bilingual students generate higher test scores compared to the monolinguals. The correct preparation and implementation of the design and methods phase of the research assures the readers that the research findings and conclusions are valid and relevant. Further, the Drumhiller & Schwanenflugel article shows the researchers correctly used secondary researches to back up its primary research. The article’s design and methodology correctly shows that learning a second language, Spanish, enhances the delivery of healthcare delivery services to the Spanish speaking healthcare patients. Likewise, the correct preparation and setting into motion of the design and methods phase of the research reassures the readers that the research findings and conclusions are completely valid and relevant. Similarly, the results of the article are correctly grounded on the information gathered by the researchers. The Bialystok article shows the researchers correctly implemented the responsive methodology and research design. The researchers correctly focused on the monolingual French only speaking Canadian respondents to generate the right research results. The researchers correctly used its design to determine whether the bilingual, English speaking and French Speaking, Canadian residents perform mentally better than the monolingual Canadian residents. In the same manner the accurate preparation and execution of the design and methods phase of the research convinces the readers that the research findings and conclusions are accurate and valid. There are ways to improve the three studies for future research. For the Tournho et al. research paper, the researcher can apply the same research design methodology to college students. With the adult respondents, the findings, results, and conclusions may vary from the results of the young children respondents. On the other hand, the adult respondents’ findings and conclusions may be similar to the young poor children’s findings and conclusions. For the Bialystok research, further research can be done. The further research will implement the same research design methodology to college students to the American scene. With the research conducted in a United States setting, the findings, results, and conclusions may vary from the results of the Canadian respondents’ research. On the other hand, the American respondents’ findings and conclusions may have the same findings and conclusions as the Canadian respondents’ research findings and conclusions. For the Drumhiller & Schwanenflugel research, the researcher can apply the same research design methodology to the effect of studying both the French language and English Language on improving the test scores. With the monolingual English speaking medical professionals, mastering the French Language may help increase the medical professionals’ delivery of healthcare services to the French patients. On the other hand, the medical professionals’ study of the French language may not be able upgrade the current high quality healthcare services delivered to the French patients. There are no negative consequences of the researchers. They scientifically performed their research. Respondents were used to prove their hypothesis. The findings and conclusions are based on actual data. Conclusion Bilingualism is deemed to contribute to the enhancement of the decision making activities. The three researches show the effect of bilingualism on the exam outputs. The researchers prove that bilingual test examinees have enhanced mental capacities compared to the monolingual test examinees. Evidently, the bilingual test takers have the mental aptitude to produce higher test results within shorter time periods. References: Bialystok, F. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for Mind and Brain. Trends Cognitive Science Journal , 16 (4), 240-250. Drumhiller, M., Schwanenflugel, P. (2013). Influence of Native Language Vocabulary and Topic of Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning in Heath Care Providers. Sage Open Journal , 1 (10), 1-14. Tournho et al., (2012). Bilingualism Enriches the Poor: Enghanced Cognitive Control in Low- Income Minority Children. Psychological Science , 23 (11), 1364-1371. Read More