The effects of multimedia gloss on incidental vocabulary learning: A meta-analysis

Technological advancements have heightened interest in multimedia glosses, including pictorial and audio glosses. However, debates persist regarding their impact on incidental vocabulary learning. While many studies highlight the positive effects of multimedia glosses, others offer opposing views. To address these conflicting findings, a comprehensive approach like meta-analysis is necessary, as it can synthesize varying results from multiple studies to provide a more definitive conclusion. The present study employs meta-analysis to assess the overall impact of multimedia glosses on incidental vocabulary learning and identify factors that might moderate these effects. Analyzing 22 studies with 84 effect sizes, the results reveal an overall effect size of 0.727 from a random effects analysis. When combining immediate and delayed tests, this effect size increases to 0.941. The heterogeneity test indicates that studies using L2 glosses, receptive tests, distractors, and nonwords tend to yield larger effect sizes. Furthermore, meta-regression results show that only the nonword condition and glosses language significantly influences the model. The study discusses implications and limitations, providing insights for future research.