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At a general level, this course provides an overview of the research methodologies and
designs typically used in conducting ethical research in the field of language studies, as
applied to the multiple and different settings of this field. Broadly speaking, this course
considers quantitative, qualitative, classroom-based, and mixed-methods research
designs. These designs can be applied to research settings that include foreign- and
second-language settings; child and adult learners; bi- and multi-lingual language users;
classroom language versus “language in the wild”; analyses of code-mixing and
translanguaging, among others.
More specifically, this course introduces students to the basic elements of doing ethical
research, including forming research questions, defining variables, and coding data. In
terms of research questions, the course examines the qualities that make research
questions strong and interesting, versus being weak and uninteresting. The course next
considers ethics and the intersection of ethics with basic research designs, emphasizing
that a researcher’s first obligation is to protect their informants from physical,
psychological, or social harm. This attention to ethics is essential, while also keeping in
mind potential research designs and the common aphorism that “no amount of fancy
statistics [analyses] can save a bad research design.” The course then introduces
students to different typical research designs in the field of language studies, exploring
different research designs that elicit quantitative (e.g., correlational, experimental/ quasi-
experimental, treatment effect, repeated measures, factorial design), qualitative
Intro to Research Methodologies & Design for Language Studies / 2019–20 v 01 Gerriet Janssen, PhD 1
(ethnography, case studies, interviews, narratives), classroom-based (stimulated recall,
action research), and mixed-methods research. The course next considers the basic
elements of analysis for these different research designs, with special considerations for
determining the results’ reliability, validity, and generalizability (quantitative research) or
credibility, transferability, and dependability (qualitative research). The course finishes
with the development of a research proposal for a future project to be conducted in the
field of language studies. This course has as its heart examples of conducting research
with second or additional languages, yet it is important to emphasize that these
methodologies and research tools can also be applied to bi- or multi-lingual people and
settings and can consider areas of interest outside of language studies.
As an important part of becoming a member of a research community (see Lave &
Wenger, 1991), students will be expected to complete assigned readings; participate
actively in / lead class discussions and classwork; and, complete a proposal for a
research project that is based on one—or draws from various—methodologies studied
in this class. This research proposal should be written using the proposal template used
to submit research to the University’s ethics committee.
As this course is an English seminar, a student’s participation in both in-class activities
and discussions in addition to their completion of written tasks is vital in terms of
continuing the students’ linguistic maturation and consolidating their identity as
competent members of communities that use academic English. Accordingly—and to
support student autonomy in their learning processes—each student will be responsible
for understanding and presenting two different research themes over the course of the
semester. Because of this and by using the language on an on-going basis in the
course, students should experience gains in their spoken fluency, but also through the
development of course themes related to the writing and presentation of research.
Specific aspects of writing and speaking are developed conscientiously in this course, in
order to support the students’ process of maturation in the use of an “educated” English
variety. To increase their contact with this language, students are strongly
recommended to prepare for this course in small groups (i.e., prepare the assignments
together on a regular, ongoing basis, using English as they study).
It is worth emphasizing that because of its designation, this course will devote the time
equivalent of about six class days (about 20% of the in-class hours) focusing on the
development of academic writing among other English language skills. Writing genres
developed within the course include literature reviews, research proposals, describing
results, and APA citation practices. Language foci also include presenting main ideas;
backing main ideas with evidence; discussing evidence; developing cohesion
throughout a paragraph. Different elements of the students’ usage of English (e.g.,
lexico-grammatical precision; the use of well-conceived target genre structures) will
impact at least 35% of the final course grade. These different genre and linguistic
elements are described in the week-by-week course program.
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OBJECTIVES
increased ability to identify main ideas, relevant details, and the discourses these
ideas are based in / produce;
increased exposure to and practice in identifying and producing different
intonation patterns in regular speech;
increased expertise in phoneme production, including the vowel phomenes /I, i,
ə/; reduced vowels; differences between voiced and unvoiced phonemes, e.g., /s,
z, t, d, tʃ, ʤ/;
increased confidence and fluency when speaking;
increased expertise in building cohesion across texts when writing academically;
increased clarity of organizational structures in written academic texts;
increased familiarity with and production of the genres of literature reviews,
research proposals, and data analyses;
increased use of online tools (praat; COCA corpus; lingue.es) that support
reflections about frequent language usages.
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METHODOLOGY
This course provides students with an introduction to the basic principles of doing
research in the field of language studies and an overview of typical research designs
and methodologies used in the field of second language studies. The course has two
basic modules: an introductory module that presents the foundational aspects of doing
research (weeks 1–7), and a second module that presents the different specific
research designs and analyses that are typical within these frameworks (weeks 8–16).
This course prioritizes student leadership of important class activities. Accordingly,
students will independently learn about different data collection measures, quantitative
designs, and qualitative designs frequently used in language studies, and they will
share these basic design principles with their colleagues. Students should support the
thematic content of these presentations with examples of published research from an
area of their personal research interest that uses this data collection measure and/or
research design. While the professor may present students with reading questions that
reflect upon the essential points of the readings and the discourses behind these points,
students will need to engage these key conceptual themes and themes related to
analyses in class discussions. Students will also have the opportunity to engage these
themes on different laboratory days, and will then be able to practice writing about the
results they found in their lab experiences, in preparation for their future reporting on
their research studies.
Student autonomy is also supported throughout this course as students will
independently assemble a research project proposal (final project), following the actual
template used at Universidad de los Andes. Different parts of this research proposal
should include: a review of the literature, which clearly establishes the territory of the
research concern and the gap in the literature; the specific research questions being
asked; the importance of answering these questions; the methodology used to answer
these questions, including how the method minimizes risks to participants and how
evidence for study validation is engineered into the method; and predicted results. Many
of these elements of the final project will be developed throughout the course in smaller
assignments. Because language use and language learning is communicative, students
are encouraged to work on all course elements (homework, projects, etc.) in groups of
2–3 persons, and the result should be representative of this larger collaboration. It is
also worth noting that this course follows descriptions of a "credit unit" as defined by
Colombian law: two hours of preparation for each hour of undergraduate class. This
means about three hours preparation for each day of class. In this professor's
perspective, this is appropriate preparation for advanced-level seminars in a student's
major. Linguistic advances also require this degree of time investment.
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KEY TEXTS
The following text will provide the required readings for this course. Please strongly
consider supporting the culture of owning books—and the culture of paying authors for
writing these books—with your purchase of this text, in its original form.
Mackey, A., & Gass, S. (2016). Second language research: Methodology and
design (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Supplementary text:
Phakiti, A., De Costa, P., Plonsky, L., & Starfield, S. (Eds.) (2018). The Palgrave
handbook of applied linguistics research methodology. London, UK: Palgrave
McMillan. Biblioteca: e-book.
Additionally, students will be required to explore the literature from their personal area of
interest in some topic related to language studies (exceptions possible with PRIOR instructor
approval). The completion of these additional readings supports the process of conducting a
literature review for the students’ research proposal; these additional readings will also be
used to evidence the different research methodologies the students present to the class. To
this end, some top-rated applied linguistic journals include:
COURSE SCHEDULE
Following is an approximate schedule for this course during the 2019-20 semester.
Any modifications—changes made most frequently based on a consensus developed
with the students in the course—will be uploaded to the class website in a separate,
consecutively numbered version of the program. For transparency, all program versions
will remain public on the website throughout the semester.
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student-led classes explicit language focuses projects and exams
1 08-06-19 Intro to class Course introduction –our shared purpose, course foci and
outcomes, "reading más allá: identifying discourses behind main
08-08-19 ideas
Review of SLA
Douglas Fir Group (2016). A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in
a multilingual world. Modern Language Journal, 100, S1, 19–47.
Biblioteca. (this will require at least 3 hours of intensive
reading to get the discourses!)
3 08-20-19 Writing Initial RQs. Your concept of research and your initially
interesting research questions (3–5 paragraphs). Building
08-22-19 cohesion.
Ethics
M&G (2016). Chapter 2 (pp. 30–51)
o IRB guidelines, ethical concerns
o Complete CITI program ethics training, Los Andes, ciencias
sociales, modules: Introduction to RCR (17009); data
management (16600); research misconduct (16604); research
involving human subjects (13566); research, ethics, society
(15198) (see link here)
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student-led classes explicit language focuses projects and exams
6 09-10-19 Data coding M&G (2016). Chapter 4 (pp. 137–148)
09-26-19
Exam 1 Exam 1: content (~65%); language (~35%)
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student-led classes explicit language focuses projects and exams
11-05-19 Qualitative Student lab: qualitative data (to warm up for the lab, analyze—
13 lab code the different quali methods into categories)
11-07-19
ORGANIZATION. Planning a research proposal (bring an
Writing outline to class)
M&G (2016). Chapters 1 & 11 (pp. 8–26; 344–371)
o Reporting on research;
o research proposal draft discussion
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11-26-19 Writing research proposal draft discussion II
16
11-28-19 Research Research project presentations, in the style of two minute thesis:
project http://www.phdcomics.com/tv/2.minute.thesis.php
presentations
Class questionnaire
17 Final projects will be turned in during week 17; exact date and time to be established;
content (-~65%); language (~35%).
EVALUATION
The scores I assign reflect the following grading schema, and they are the decimal
equivalents of numbers such as: 1½; 3¾; 4⅓. For written assignments, lexico-
grammatical precision will be about 33% of the grade; structured use of the target genre
will be about 33% of the grade, with the use of detailed, relevant content being about
33% of the grade. Following University guidelines, a score of zero will assigned one
week after the assignment is due. Students should always ask BEFORE missing an
assignment rather than seek to compensate afterwards.
4,67–5,00 superior: supera los estándares de la tarea en casi todos de los sentidos;
hace una contribución original al campo; publicable
3,83–4,50 bien: supera los estándares de la tarea en muchas o varias formas
3,50–3,75 típico: cumple con los estándares de la tarea; un trabajo promedio
3,00–3,43 adecuado: cumple con los estándares de la tarea en una forma mínima
2,50–2,83 algo inadecuado: no cumple con los estándares de la tarea de una o
varias maneras
1,50–2,43 bastante inadecuado: no cumple con los estándares de la tarea en
varias o muchas maneras
0 tarea no recibida
The minimum score to pass this course is three comma zero (3,0). Approximations are
exceedingly unlikely to be made.
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Exams 15% (one midterm exam, week 7–8, “concept checking”)
Final project 15% (week 17)
Participation and engagement (0%). Because this course has as its objectives both
the development of an understanding of research methodologies in addition to English
language speaking skills, in-class participation (engagement) should be evaluated, but
there is not enough percentage points to do so. Nevertheless, students should push
themselves to practice “being a good student”: engaging and expanding upon the
concepts being considered in the course; taking risks to enter the community of
language researchers; also exercising their spoken English fluency.
Two discussion leadings (10%). Students will lead two class discussions during the
semester. During these discussions, students should be able to demonstrate both their
technical understand of (a) “their” data collection method, and later (b) EITHER one
quantitative research design OR one qualitative research design. These discussion
leadings should also present studies from the area of literature of interest to the student
that use these research designs.
Exams (15%). We will have one exam during the semester during week 8. This exam is
positioned as being a “concept checking exam,” to provide you with feedback about the
degree to which you understand the basic course components related to conducting
research BEFORE we begin to study the different research methodologies in depth.
Exam questions will include different levels of cognitive difficulty, predominantly the first
four levels (knowledge/ comprehension questions; application / analysis questions; for
more information, visit this following link on Bloom’s rose taxonomy). Some past
students have complained that this was “memorizing” and “bad pedagogy”; I am open to
other ways that students can demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of these themes,
before applying them in the second part of the course.
Course papers (60%). Throughout this course, students will have the opportunity to
write six different papers of various lengths, each concerning a different aspect of doing
research. These papers are categorized above into two groups: reflection papers (less
serious, with less feedback) and advances towards the final project (more serious, with
more feedback), a research project proposal of approximately 8–10 pages, using the
University’s proposal format. Students will have multiple exposures to—and instructor
feedback about—the core writing genres being developed in this course: literature
reviews; reporting results; and project proposals. The score for these papers will be
based approximately 65% on language skills (appropriate structure for the target genre;
building cohesion across the text, lexico-grammatical precision) and 35% on content.
APA (6th ed.) paper formatting and reference style should be used. Stated negatively,
papers that do not adequately engage with the APA community’s citation practices will
lose between 1 and 5 points of the paper’s overall score, depending on the severity of
this issue (e.g., 3,75/ 5,00 – 2 = 1,75/ 5,00). Google OWL PURDUE APA SAMPLE
PAPER for an example of what APA 6th actually looks like (or click here).
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Final project (15%). The final project for this course is a research project proposal an
area of the students’ interest related to language studies. This proposal should be
written using the Universidad de los Andes template. The proposal—of about 8–10
pages in length—should develop:
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ASISTENCIA
1
http://secretariageneral.uniandes.edu.co/images/documents/ReglamentoGralEstudiantesPregrado.pdf
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