Research Designs Sebastian M. Rasinger Quantitative Research in Linguistics. 2e 2013 London:...

Research Designs

Sebastian M. RasingerQuantitative Research in Linguistics. 2e

2013London: Bloomsbury

S.M.Rasinger. 2013. Quantitative Research in Linguistics. 2e.

Bloomsbury.

The research process

Research QuestionResearch Area


Bloomsbury.

Quantitative data

• can be put into numbers• can be used for statistic analysis• NOT necessarily ‘much data’• Deductive:

theory hypotheses data confirm/reject H• Examples of quantitative variables

– people’s age– test scores


Bloomsbury.

Qualitative data

• ‘words’, ‘text’, ‘qualities’, ‘patterns’• how is something, rather than how much• interpretative• inductive: theory is derived from the research results


Bloomsbury.


Bloomsbury.

Research Designs

• Longitudinal vs. cross-sectional– Change vs. status quo

• Experimental vs. natural– Deliberate manipulation of variable/s?– (vs. quasi-experimental)


Bloomsbury.

Data – some practicalities

• How much data?– As much as you need to make a coherent

argument…– No need to prove beyond reasonable doubt– Does your data ‘make sense’ given the topic and

previous theory


Bloomsbury.

Data – some practicalities (2)

• Whatever method you use: pilot it!!– What’s going well?– What’s going horribly wrong?– Why have things gone wrong? Is it your

instrument? Is it you? Is it both?– Adjust accordingly and, ideally, pilot again


Bloomsbury.

Causality

• A causes B• Notoriously difficult to prove!!1. Variables A and B must correlate with each

other, that is, their values must co-occur in a particular pattern: for example, the older a speaker, the more dialect features you find in their speech.

2. There must be a temporal relationship between the two variables A and B, that is, B must occur after A.

3. The relationship between A and B must not disappear when controlled for a third variable.


Bloomsbury.

Reliability and Validity

• Reliability: Does you method repeatedly measure what it’s supposed to measure? I.e. if you use the method under exactly the same circumstances, do you get the same result?– Split-half– Test-retest

• Validity– Does you method measure what it’s supposed to

measure?


Bloomsbury.

Samples and Sampling• Part of population (P). Population = all people who

show certain characteristics (e.g. year 2 undergraduate students at British universities)

• Reflection of P, i.e. characteristics equal those of P• Ideally: random sample. Every member of P has

equal chance to be member of sample• Realistically: opportunistic sample. Take what you

can get. But check that it’s not completely off P use personal judgement


Bloomsbury.

Research Designs Sebastian M. Rasinger Quantitative Research in Linguistics. 2e 2013 London:...

Documents

Transcript of Research Designs Sebastian M. Rasinger Quantitative Research in Linguistics. 2e 2013 London:...