Abstract
The aim of this quantitative ex post facto research study was to explore whether
college learners in the United States who had successfully completed college-level
second language course(s) perform better than those who did not complete such a
course(s) on the Alternate Uses test in the domains of fluency, flexibility, originality,
and elaboration. The sample size consisted of 160 participants, of whom 80 were fulltime
college learners who successfully completed second language course(s). The
MANOVA test suggested that a statistically significant difference existed in the
domain of flexibility (F (1,158) = 5.602; p < 0.05; partial η² = 0.034) but not in the
domains of fluency (F (1,158) = 2.515; p > 0.05; partial η² = 0.016), originality (F (1,158)
= 2.444; p > 0.05; partial η² = 0.015), and elaboration (F (1,158) = 2.822; p > 0.05; partial
η² = 0.018).