THE EFFECTS OF MONOLINGUALISM AND BILINGUALISM IN TEENAGERS ON MULTITASKING

The purpose of this study was to compare monolingual teenagers and bilingual teenagers (teenagers who are fluent in two languages from their youth) with respect to multitasking. It was hypothesized that if bilingual teenagers were given a multitasking test, then their accuracy and speed of completion would be respectively greater and faster than the monolingual teenagers. 30 teenagers (15 monolinguals and 15 bilinguals) were given 2 tests, the Stroop Task and the Trail Test, which are tests that measure one’s ability to multitask, an executive function. The accuracy and speed of completion for both these tests were recorded for both the monolinguals and bilinguals. Statistical analysis showed a statistically significant difference between the mean Stroop Task accuracy for the monolinguals and bilinguals (p=0.019), between the mean Stroop Task speed of completion for the monolinguals and bilinguals (p=0.001), between the mean Trail Test accuracy for the monolinguals and bilinguals (p=0.002), and between the mean Trail Test speed of completion for the monolinguals and bilinguals (p=0.002). The bilingual participants had the greatest accuracy and the fastest speed of completion for both the Stroop Task and Trail Test when compared to the monolingual participants. This rejected the null hypothesis, accepting the alternate hypothesis, and confirmed other researchers’ findings that bilinguals tend to be better at multitasking than monolinguals.