Sex Differences in English Vocabulary Learning Through the Keyword Method: The Case of Iranian EFL Learners

This study was set out to determine whether there are significant differences between male and female EFL learners through the application of the keyword method in the classroom .Totally, 90intermediate-level EFL male and female learners (in 3 groups: 2 experimental and 1 control group), participated in this study. Intermediate-level EFL learners were selected using the Jahad Daneshgahi institute’s placement test. The experimental groups received the keyword strategy training, whereas the control group went through the conventional process of vocabulary learning. In the experimentalgroup, (1) the keywords were provided by the teacher, whereas the learners in the experimental group (2) provided the keywords on their own. For data collection, a pretest and an immediate posttest were conducted. The statistical measures used and applied to the data were descriptive statistics, t test, andUNOVA. A quantitative analysis of vocabulary pretest and vocabulary immediate posttest scores was conducted. The findings from the univariate analysis of variance and the t test revealed that the males and females did not perform differently while applying the keyword method and there was not a statistically significant difference between them. Moreover, there was not a statistically significant difference between male and female language learners in the keyword-given and the keywordgenerated groups.