Category: Research Methodology (All)
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Dealing with demographic data in language education research
This post will teach you how to effectively design a demographic section for a quantitative study in language education. The post looks into the purposes that this section serves; goes on to point out common problems; and concludes with practical advice.
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Writing effective questionnaire items in language education research (Part 2)
This post contains practical advice that will help you to formulate and sequence the items in your questionnaire. It is mainly addressed to students working in language education, but much of the content can be applied in most of quantitative research.
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Writing effective questionnaire items in language education research (Part 1)
If you are doing a quantitative research in language education, this post will help you to avoid three of the most common problems involved in the construction of questionnaire items.
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Doing research without a control group
This article discusses control groups in second language teaching research, and whether these might be omitted from a research design.
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How to Interpret Likert Scales: Midpoints, Means, Medians and Statistical Significance
Learn how to interpret Likert scale data: understand true midpoints, why medians are better than means, and how to test significance.
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Likert scales: Four things you may not know
If you use quantitative methods in your research project, you may want to read this first.
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Reporting data inaccurately: why, when and how to confidentialise data?
Research, we surely agree, is about finding the truth and accurately reporting it. In this post, however, I will talk about those cases when we might have to actually distort the truth while reporting on a research project. This is normally done in the interest of protecting research participants, and it is called ‘confidentialising’. In…
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Can You Take the Mean of Likert Scale Data? Ordinal vs Interval Explained
A lot of research, in applied linguistics and language education at least, relies on a recurring statistical mistake: averaging ordinal data, such as that produced by Likert scales. Here’s why you shouldn’t do it, and what you should do instead.
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Understanding the dynamics of a language classroom
This post outlines the physical, institutional, methodological and human aspects of an ELT context.