Validation of adult age-of-acquisition ratings of Russian words by vocabulary testing: replication and elaboration

Age of acquisition (AoA) is an important psycholinguistic variable that affects the speed and accuracy of lexical processing tasks. In earlier [2023] study quite strong associations between AoA ratings for Russian words provided by adults and vocabulary tasks performance by school students were shown. In line with the trends in modern sociology of science the research aimed at checking reproducibility of earlier obtained results was undertaken. 700 tasks for testing previously or results obtained earlier (with five response options each) were allocated between eight subtests that were given to pupils of the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th grades (two subtests each). In total, 546 test protocols were obtained, 482 from which were included in the analysis (from 108 to 139 protocols for each grade) after excluding protocols with signs of insufficient efforts. The results of replication study confirmed the sign and level of relations between AoA word rating and the percentage of correct answers to the corresponding test item in the vocabulary test. The following effect sizes averaged across four grades were obtained: observed correlation in 2024 was equal to -.48 but it increased to -.84 after artifact correction (measurement error for test scores and range restriction for ratings of words used within the grade). The corresponding estimates calculated for 2023 data were -.43 and -.80. Differences between estimates of the first and second studies appeared not significant. The results of current study confirms that subjective ratings are valid indicators of Russian words acquisition in the age range studied and are suitable for norming this characteristic.