Second Language Acquisition Research Methodology Mohammad Reza Ghorbani Assistant Professor of TEFL English Department University of Bojnord Iran.

Second Language Acquisition Research Methodology

Mohammad Reza Ghorbani

Assistant Professor of TEFL

English Department

University of Bojnord

Iran

Introduction

Curiosity is the origin of all human knowledge.

Language, the unique possession of man, has enabled him to transfer the outcome of his curiosity, i. e., knowledge, to his offspring.

Psychology, sociology, neurology, biology, anthropology, and language acquisition are just a few areas which are related to the field of language education.

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Research Definition

Hatch (1982) defines research as "a systematic approach to finding answers

to questions."

Alison (2005) defines it in its most basic and simplest form as "a way of finding

out answers to questions."

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Sources of Information

1 .Sensory ExperienceEasily available but their dependability cannot be taken for

granted .

2 .Expert OpinionMany erroneous explanations of phenomena, many long-reverent educational, medical, and scientific theories have been

proven false or invalid by later researchers.

3 .LogicRegularities in the universe, deductive and inductive learning.

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Scientific Method

The scientific method, derived from a system of philosophy known as Positivism, is a systematic and objective analysis and recording of controlled observations that may lead to the development of generalizations, principles, or theories, resulting in prediction and ultimate control of many events that may be consequences or causes of specific activities (Best, 1975, cited in Farhady 2000). More simply said, it is a systematic approach to answering questions.

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Characteristics of Research

1 .Research is systematic

2 .Research is reductive

3 .Research is replicable

4 .Research is generative

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Goals of Research

1 .Description

2 .Prediction

3 .Improvement

4 .Explanation

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Kinds and Methods of Research

The term kind refers to the nature of research, whereas method refers to the procedures employed in order to answer the research question.

There are two kinds of research called exploratory and confirmatory each of which has two levels (pure and applied).

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Areas of Research in Language Education

1. Questions in Linguistics2. Questions in Teaching Methodology3. Questions in Language and Literature4. Questions in Language and Technology5. Questions in Language and Politics6. Questions in Factors influencing TEFL (Cognitive, Affective, Social)

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Research in second language varies according to:

The circumstances under which the research is done (natural environments vs classroom, second vs foreign language, age, and other characteristics of the learners).

The methodology used in the research.

The tools used to study second language such as observation, testing, interviews, etc.

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Four Parameters for Second Language Research

Seliger and Shohamy (1989) believe that the following four parameters provide a useful framework for the discussion and conduct of second language research.

Parameter 1: Synthetic and Analytic Approaches

The well-known story of the five blind men describing an elephant is an appropriate metaphor for these two approaches to the investigation of second language

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Parameter 2: Heuristic and Deductive Objectives

• Heuristic

• Data-driven No preconceptions

• Can generate hypotheses• Product: description or hypotheses

• Deductive• Hypothesis-driven• Makes predictions• Tests hypotheses• Product: theory

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Parameter 3: Control and Manipulation of the Research Context

• Four factors related to the degree of control of the research context are as follows:

• Restriction of scope/focus: Low to high• Control of variables: Low to high • Attention to form: Low to high• Researcher subjectivity: High to low

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Parameter 4: Data Collection Procedures

In general, data collection procedures in second language research will vary in terms of the

degree of explicitness .

Degrees of explicitness of data collection

procedures are as follows:

Low explicitness……………High explicitness

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Data Collection Procedures

• Sample and Population

• Random samples ( simple, systematic, stratified, or cluster sampling).

• Non-random samples (accidental or availability and purposive sampling)

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Determining what constitutes data

The first step in the process is to arrive at a clear, precise, and exact definition of the variable of the study.

Since most variables are abstract, the researcher needs to operationalize them.

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Procedures for collecting the data

According to Seliger and Shohamy (1989) examples of data collection procedures typical of research types are as follows:

Low explicitness…………………………………High explicitness Diaries Meta-linguistic testsRecord review Structured interviewsJournalsLetters Semi-structured Questionnaire

Grammatical judgmentUnstructured interviews Structured QuestionnaireConversations Structured observationsOpen observations Discrete point tests

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Procedures for collecting the data

Collecting data by procedures of low degree of explicitness is often done by means of open and informal procedures which tend to be used simultaneously.

Typical of such data collection procedures are field notes, record reviews, diaries, observations, unstructured interviews, and conversations.

These types of data collection procedures are to be found mostly in heuristic/synthetic type of research.

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Procedures for collecting the data

Collecting data by procedures of high degree of explicitness involves the use of formal and structured types of data collection procedures.

Examples of such procedures are structured questionnaires, discrete point tests, formal interviews, and meta-linguistic judgment tests.

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Verbal protocols

Verbal protocols are the recorded verbalisations of users as they carry out their tasks. In fact, they are written records of a subject’s data, usually obtained through some form of elicitation. They are useful for gaining information about the psychological or cognitive process for users' actions.

Verbal reporting is a procedure used for collecting data about the processes a person employs in carrying out a task. It involves the subject giving an oral description of the processes they are using while they are completing a task. It attempts to gather information about the cognitive and linguistic aspects involved in different kinds of tasks (Richards, 2002).

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Three main techniques for eliciting verbal reports:

Thinking aloud involves externalizing the content of the mind while engaged in a particular task without inferring mental processes. The subjects are told to say aloud everything they think and everything that occurs to them while performing the task, no matter how trivial it may seem.

Introspection involves the subject reflecting on the kinds of decisions they make and the kinds of strategies they use while carrying out a task, and reporting them as they occur.

Retrospection involves reflecting on how a task or activity was carried out after it occurred. This requires the subject to infer his or her own mental processes or strategies from their memory of a particular mental event under observation.

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Testing techniques used for collecting language data

Testing techniques used for collecting language data which begin with high explicitness and move along the continuum toward those of low explicitness are judgment test, multiple choice, true/false, elicited imitation, cloze, completions, translation, recall, oral interview, and role play.

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Qualitative Data Analysis in SLA Research

While data analysis in qualitative research can include statistical procedures, many times analysis becomes an ongoing iterative process where data is continuously collected and analyzed almost simultaneously.

The four parts to qualitative data management include note keeping, organizing files, coding the field notes, and identifying gaps in the data.

Five types of files are suggested for qualitative researchers to use for organizing data: descriptive, methodological, biographical, bibliographical, and analytical.

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Trustworthiness The final section found in the methodology section is the strategies used by qualitative researchers to address the issue of trustworthiness.

Strategies for the enhancement of rigor in a qualitative research include:

Prolonged engagement through which the researcher’s reactivity and bias are lessened.

Triangulation which involves the use of multiple methods of data gathering to establish validity. The goal of triangulation is “not to corroborate (provide evidence or information that supports a statement, theory, etc.)

study findings, but to analyze them in different ways” (Padgett, 1998, p. 97).

Peer debriefing (to ask sb questions officially, in order to get information about the task

that they have just completed) guards against bias, provides feedback, and assists with the emotional needs of the researcher (Padgett, 1998).

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The basic issue in relation to trustworthiness The basic issue in relation to trustworthiness is: How can an inquirer persuade his or her audiences (including self) that the findings of an inquiry are worth paying attention to, worth taking account of? 

Construct Quantitative Qualitative •"Truth Value“ Internal Validity Credibility Applicability External Validity Transferability Consistency Reliability Dependability Neutrality Objectivity Confirmability

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Quantitative Data AnalysisTypes of quantitative researches are as follows.

Descriptive research involves collecting data in order to test hypotheses or answer questions concerning the current status of the subjects of the study. It determines and reports the way things are.

Correlational research attempts to determine whether and to what degree a relationship exists between two or more quantifiable variables.

Causal-comparative research establishes the cause-effect relationship, compares the relationship, but the cause is not manipulated, such as "gender.“

Experimental research establishes the cause-effect relationship and does the comparison, but the cause is manipulated. The cause, independent variable makes the difference. The effect, dependent variable is dependent on the independent variable.

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Two specific types of quantitative data analysis

• 1) Descriptive data analysis which summarizes the information in the data.

• 2) Inferential data analysis which estimates the characteristics of a population from data gathered on a sample). It also tests for significant DIFFERENCES between groups and/or significant RELATIONSHIPS between variables.

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Summary statistics provide an efficient way to

describe an entire set of quantitative data. Measures of central tendency describe the central point of distribution.

•MODE   – number that occurs most frequently  – Appropriate for nominal data to describe which category occurs

MOST

•MEDIAN  – divides the distribution exactly in half (at the 50th percentile) – literally, the middle case– Appropriate for ordinal data – Not swayed by Extreme Scores (OUTLIERS)

•MEAN – The arithmetic average.  – Average score in a distribution. – Appropriate for interval/ratio data. – The most sensitive and most useful measure of central tendency.

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Summary statistics provide an efficient way to describe an entire set of quantitative data.

Measures of dispersion describe how scores differ; how scores are spread. Range (or span) is the number that reports the distance between the highest

and lowest scores in a distribution. It describes how widely data are spread out across a distribution. It is sensitive to extreme scores.

Variance is the number that represents the mathematical index of the average distance of the scores on an interval or ratio scale from the mean in squared units. 

Standard deviation is the number that represents a summary statistic of how much scores vary from the mean.  Simple calculation involves taking the square root of the variance.

Describing data in standard scores The number which represents how many standard deviation units a particular

score is above or below the mean. The most popular standard score used by researchers is the z score. Standard scores allow comparisons between different people's scores on different types of measurements.

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Comparison of Qualitative & Quantitative Research Methods

• Qualitative• "All research ultimately has a qualitative grounding"• The aim of qualitative analysis is a complete, detailed description.• Recommended during earlier phases of research projects.• Researcher may only know roughly in advance what he/she is

looking for. • The design emerges as the study unfolds. • Researcher is the data gathering instrument• Data is in the form of words, pictures or objects.• Qualitative data is more 'rich', time consuming, and less able to be

generalized. • Researcher tends to become subjectively immersed in the subject

matter.•  (Adapted from Miles & Huberman (1994, p. 40). Qualitative Data Analysis)

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Comparison of Qualitative & Quantitative Research Methods

• Quantitative• "There's no such thing as qualitative data. Everything is either 1 or

0"• In quantitative research we classify features, count them, and

construct statistical models in an attempt to explain what is observed.

• Recommended during latter phases of research projects.• Researcher knows clearly in advance what he/she is looking for. • All aspects of the study are carefully designed before data is

collected. • Researcher uses tools, such as questionnaires or equipment to

collect numerical data.• Data is in the form of numbers and statistics. • Quantitative data is more efficient, able to test hypotheses, but may

miss contextual detail.• Researcher tends to remain objectively separated from the subject

matter. •  (Adapted from Miles & Huberman (1994, p. 40). Qualitative Data Analysis)

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SLA Research and ESL Teachers• SLA research can potentially play an important role in promoting

change in teachers' methodological beliefs and practices.

• Looking at the learner and the language acquisition processes provides information on what learners normally do or do not do and what can and cannot be taught.

• • Based on normal patterns of acquisition, teachers should be able

to evaluate where their students are in the acquisition process.

• The study of SLA will also enable teachers to examine a syllabus to determine if the content is geared towards the learner's level of ability.

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Action Research

• It is a process in which teachers investigate teaching and learning so as to improve their own and their students' learning. More precisely, it is a multi-stage type of research, in which a problem is researched, changes are made, the problem is researched again, more changes are made, and so on until the problem is solved.

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Reliability• Reliability is the consistency of your measurement, or the degree to

which an instrument measures the same way each time it is used under the same condition with the same subjects.

• Inter-Rater or Inter-Observer ReliabilityUsed to assess the degree to which different raters/observers give consistent estimates of the same phenomenon.

• Test-Retest ReliabilityUsed to assess the consistency of a measure from one time to another.

• Parallel-Forms ReliabilityUsed to assess the consistency of the results of two tests constructed in the same way from the same content domain.

• Internal Consistency ReliabilityUsed to assess the consistency of results across items within a test

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Validity• Validity refers to the degree to which a study

accurately reflects or assesses the specific concept that the researcher is attempting to measure.

• External validity refers to the extent to which the results of a study are generalizable or transferable.

• Internal validity refers to (1) the rigor with which the study was conducted and (2) the extent to which the designers of a study have taken into account alternative explanations for any causal relationships they explore.

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Four types of validity commonly examined in social research

1. Face validity is concerned with how a measure or procedure appears.

2. Criterion related validity, also referred to as instrumental validity, is used to demonstrate the accuracy of a measure or procedure by comparing it with another measure or procedure which has been demonstrated to be valid.

3. Construct validity seeks agreement between a theoretical concept and a specific measuring device or procedure. A) Convergent validity is the actual general agreement among ratings, gathered independently of one another, where measures should be theoretically related. B) Discriminate validity is the lack of a relationship among measures which theoretically should not be related.

4. Content Validity is based on the extent to which a measurement reflects the specific intended domain of content.

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L1 and L2 Research Connections • The most significant implications from L1 research findings

applicable to L2 Learner seem to be that:

• the L1 is developed through a creative act rather than as the building up of complex habits;

• the learner develops a complex system of underlying rules (competence), deduced from the speech of others (performance);

• the learner comes equipped with an innate capacity for acquiring language (the LAD);

• the LAD accounts for different learners following similar developmental sequences (varying slightly by age and maturation);

• while we create our language constructively from within, the input is provided externally in the environment;

• our system tends toward internal cohesion at each stage of development and errors (or deviations from the adult model) reveal where we are at in the process;

• there may be a critical or optimal age for developing native-like ability;

• there are both similarities and differences between L1 and L2 development.

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SLA Research Methodology Issues and Trends

• Two issues are of primary concern in SLA research: the problem of defining language proficiency and measurement of learner performance (Freeman, 1991).

• The versatility and potentially powerful applications of computer-based tasks remains largely unexplored (Dalila, 2000).

• Research methodologies in second language acquisition are moving away from an earlier focus on product only, and beginning to incorporate techniques that will lead to better understanding of the process of SLA (Gass, 2000).

• Different methodologies possess different strengths and weaknesses. Tarone (1994) suggests very practically that researchers use the approach which best suits the questions being explored. No one approach to research fits the different questions researchers seek to answer.