O n f e r e n c e

Achieving a Discipline-wide Mastery Orientation 
The logical conclusion of this line of thought is that the reporting of failures in the 
academic literature is at least as important as the reporting of successes, because it is 
through understanding failures, or at least studies encountering less than full success, 
that we develop the best criteria for selection of long-term CALL applications. 
Researchers, however, are often reluctant to portray their work as anything but highly 
successful, fearing a loss of prestige if they report shortcomings. Peer reviewers may also 
have misgivings about approving publication of manuscripts about studies that 
experienced mixed or poor results.
It occurs to us that the CALL academic community, as a whole, displays a classic 
Performance Orientation, replete with various self-protective mechanisms that benefit the 
personal image of researchers through withholding evidence of failure, but may be 
detrimental to the CALL field as a whole. What the CALL field needs, we believe, is a 
Mastery Orientation in which failure is not a defeat but rather simply an incomplete 
success that results in further work (Elliott & Dweck, 2007).

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2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
Recommendations and Conclusion
To answer our inquiry question, “
What is the role of short-term technology tests in 
developing long-
term sustainable CALL instructional designs?” we offer the following 
recommendations, based on our conceptual framework, our understanding of the 
academic CALL literature, and our own experiences: 
1.
We believe that short-term experimentation, trying something different each 
semester or academic year, is not a strategic answer to meeting the CALL needs of 
students. On the other hand, it is a necessary evil, because it is only through such 
experimentation that we can learn the affordances and pitfalls of various applications 
and categories of CALL implementation. 
2.
Short-term experimentation should be seen as a means to an end, and not an end 
in itself. It is how we must gather information that can lead to best practices in the 
design of instructional technology, and in strategically meeting the outcome needs of 
students. 
3.
All CALL applications, long-term or short-term, should use a Task-Based approach 
to give students positive experiences with meaningful language use, because 
confidence, motivation, and ability are linked (Wu, Yen & Marek, 2011). Positive 
experiences increase confidence, which results in higher motivation, and therefore 
eventually leads to higher ability. 
4.
The CALL field must come to accept that the reporting of incomplete success is as 
valuable as the reporting of triumph in the academic literature. We design based on 
the best available theory and our knowledge of past practice, so the reporting of past 
practice must be complete and candid. 
5.
We believe that it is appropriate for the research timeline of a given scholar to 
begin with short-term experimentation with available populations, such as students, 
but as an academic career progresses, the scholar needs to evolve to a focus on 
conceptual understanding and systemic design for complete academic programs.
In the final analysis, the best interest of our students must come first. That means 
determining what their outcomes need to be and selecting instructional designs, including 
technology designs, which are most likely to achieve those outcomes, given the diverse 
and sometimes confounding variables working on teaching and learning. A reasonable 
balance between literature about experimentation and literature about sustainable 
design, mediated by strong meta-analysis, will best help us achieve those beneficial 
outcomes.