Common research methods

Course subject: Research Methods

1
In this lesson, you will learn some common research methods and
advantages/disadvantages of each method.
1 Diaries
2 Observation
3 Tests/Production tasks
4 Questionnaires
5 Interviews
DIARIES
Talk to the person next to you. Discuss these questions:
• What is a diary?
• Do you keep a diary for yourself? Why?
Diaries are
• personal accounts that the researcher asks participants to write.
• one source of data.
Three types: interval, signal-, event-contingent (Bolger et al., 2003).
• Interval-: Diaries are written regularly in a given time (for example
every night at 7pm).
• Signal-: participants write diary entries when there is a signal, an
alarm, a phone call, etc.
• Event-: diaries are written when an event occurs.
DIARIES
Advantages
• Unobtrusive
• Rich data
• On-going
• Pencil and paper or electronic

Disadvantages:
• time-consuming
• ask a lot of the participants; they need to be committed to writing
while they might be too busy, or tired or bored to write diary entries.
• “honest foregetfulness” (Dornei, 2007, p. 157).
TESTS/PRODUCTION TASKS

Tests
• elicit test data, to answer the target research questions (e.g., to
compare students’ oral task performance in two different test
modes (face to face and computer-based) or in different teaching
conditions).
TESTS/PRODUCTION TASKS

Production tasks (writing/ speaking)

- elicit written/spoken data to analyze certain linguistic features or
different aspects of the written or oral performance.
• How do Vietnamese English-majored high school students use
collocations in their writing?
• How do Vietnamese English-majored high school students use the
third-person singular in their oral task performance?
Test/task data:
- evidence of students’ actual use of the language
-suitable for documenting language learning/acquisition
Limitations
-Pressure
-Testing conditions
-Task conditions
QUESTIONNAIRES
• ask participants to provide data without any intervention (unlike
experimental research where the researcher manipulates
conditions to explore the effects of certain variables on the
construct they want to measure).
• explore people’s attitudes, preferences, opinions, etc.
• provide numerical (with numbers) or categorical data (with
categories such as yes/no)
QUESTIONNAIRE
• Questions should be simple and clear; ask one thing at a time.
• Wording is very important; should not be biased or revealing of the
hidden construct.
QUESTIONNAIRE
Types of question: open vs closed; other types (Coursebook, p. 17)
Pairwork. Study the sample questionnaire and answer these questions:
1. What types of question does it have? Provide examples of open-
ended/ closed- ended questions.
2. What are some advantages/disadvantages of each type of question?
QUESTIONNAIRE
Advantages
• Quick, large-scale, less intrusive
• objective, replicable
Disadvantages
• Participants respond to a set of predetermined items, thus providing
limited knowledge on these items only.
• Lengthy questionnaires might cause tiredness and lead to inaccuracy
of responses.
• It is time-consuming to analyze open questions.
INTERVIEWS
- conversations with the participants and involve social interaction.
• smaller sample size
• interview as a research tool
Advantages
• Rich data in naturalistic settings
• Insights about how the actors feel and live in their social world.
Interview format(Coursebook, pp.17-18)
1 Unstructured interview
• guided by the responses of the interviewee
• direction of the interview is unpredictable
2 Structured interview
Guided by a list of predetermined questions in a set order
3 Semi-structured interview
• popular because of its flexibility.
Choice of interview format is determined by the nature of the
research.
Interview process (Also see Coursebook, p. 18)
• Preparing the interview questions (types of question, what type of
answer do you want?) and sequence of questions
• Selecting participants
• Conducting the interview
- where to interview
- how to record the interview (audio/ video record, take notes, etc.)
- language of the interview
- individual or focus group
- length of the interview
- how to establish trust with interviewees
- how to assure anonymity
INTERVIEWS
Advantages
•Rich data, insider’s perspectives, insights that are not possible in questionnaires
Limitations
•time-consuming
•small in scope with a limited number of participants
•Subjective since the researcher plays an active role in interpreting the data
•difficult/ not possible to generalize the findings beyond the context under study.

*Many studies use a combination of both questionnaires and interviews.

SAMPLING (Coursebook, p.16)
-It is not possible to survey the entire population.
-So, how to select a sample that is representative of the population?
Groupwork. Read the different strategies for sampling participants on
page 16. Discuss which strategy you think you will use in your proposed
research.
PILOTING
• Piloting research tools is very necessary to test
whether the tools could measure/get what they are
intended to measure/get.
• Your research tools (interview questions,
questionnaire, tasks/tests) should be piloted before
official data collection.
• Piloting needs to be on a sample of the target
population.
References
Bolger, N., Davis, A., & Rafaeli, D. (2003). Diary methods: capturing life
as it is lived. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 579-616.
Nunan, D. (1992). Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.