Syllabus
Block I - Key Concepts of Research (4 seminars)Seminar 1: Philosophy and researchKey components: inductive and deductive reasoning, philosophical frameworks for research in AL (epistemology, ontology, realism, positivism, social constructivism, pragmatism, phenomenology, modernism, postmodernism)Seminar 2: Types of researchKey aspects: quantitative and qualitative research, basic and applied research, dealing with validity, reliability and practicality; hypotheses, research questions and „so what questions“Seminar 3: Qualitative research methodsKey aspects: narrative inquiry, ethnographic research, case study research, phenomenological research, grounded research; evaluating research (coding, credibility, dependability, transferability)Seminar 4: Critical reading: 3 sample studies related to the topic of this block (presented by the students)
Block II Quantitative Research - descriptive statistics and corpus methodology (4 seminars)Key components: characteristics of data, ways of measuring, sampling, describing data, measures of central tendency, measures of frequency, measures of distribution, standard scores, visualising data (common and fancy graphs), common tools (Excel, web apps)Seminar 1: The Dataset - finding and acquiring the data, processing texts and creating corpora or other datasets. Sampling the data.Seminar 2: The Analysis - methods and techniques of measurement in linguistic dataSeminar 3: The Output - visualisation and visual exploration, tools and techniquesSeminar 4: Critical reading: 3 sample studies related to the topic of this block (presented by the students)
Block III Quantitative Research - inferential statistics (4 seminars)Key components: experimental research, causal-comparative research, correlational research, inferential statistics, variables,significance, effect size, correlation, regression, t-tests, ANOVA,Seminar 1: Experimental research - numerical, categorical and ordinal variables, basic statistical principles of experimental design, basic assumptions for parametric analysisSeminar 2: Running statistical tests - The logic of p-values and how to read them, understanding if variables are related using correlations and regression, understanding the difference between causation and correlationSeminar 3: Comparing means - repeated measure t-test, independent samples t-test, ANOVA, ANCOVASeminar 4: Critical reading: 3 sample studies related to the topic of this block (presented by the students)
Annotation
The aim of the course is to present approaches to research in applied linguistics on a gnoseological basis and on its basis to gradually introduce the basics of quantitatively and qualitatively oriented research in applied linguistics, as well as relevant descriptive and inferential statistical methods.
Course participants will learn to choose appropriate research methods in applied linguistics and how these methods are implemented. They will also understand the gnoseological basis of linguistic research and get acquainted with the basics of descriptive and inferential statistical methods in applied-linguistic research.