Category: Research Methodology (All)
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How to present a conference paper
The conference season is coming up, so this might be a good time to go over some of the basics for academic presentations. In this post, I will share some advice about presenting a conference paper, and next week, I’ll write about dealing with questions and feedback. I have written the tips that follow for people…
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Revisiting Likert scales, levels of measurement: a nuanced understanding
This post revisits the debate about Likert scales: are they ordinal or interval data, and what does this mean for analysis? While individual items only yield ordinal data, some argue composite scales may be treated as interval. The discussion weighs these perspectives, highlights common pitfalls (like calculating means), and points readers to further resources on…
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How to interpret Ordinal Data: Median and Interquartile Range for Likert Scales
Let’s assume that you have prepared a questionnaire, where respondents had to select among responses ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. For convenience, you have probably followed the established practice of replacing these responses with numbers: “1” for “strongly disagree”, “2” for “agree” and so on. How do you go about analysing these data?
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Designing questionnaires in language education research: Layout
Perhaps you already know how to write effective questionnaire questions and how to sequence them intelligently. But what about the more practical aspects of questionnaire design. This post gives you some ideas and tips.
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How to use Likert scales effectively
Many questionnaires use Likert items & scales to elicit information about language teaching and learning. In this post, I discuss how to use these instruments effectively, by looking into the difference between items and scales, and explaining how to analyse the data that they produce.
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Breaching confidentiality in research
Researchers have a duty to protect the anonymity of study participants, even from law enforcement agencies.
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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.