Key terms in research
Key terms in research
24 null terms
- Action research
- A form of self-reflective inquiry carried out by practitio-
ners, aimed at solving problems, improving practice, or enhancing under-
standing. It is often collaborative.
- Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)
- A more sophisticated version of
ANOVA (see below) which enables the researcher to statistically control
for the effect on the dependent variable of variables other than the inde-
jDendent variable.
- Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
- Statistical procedure for testing the difference between two or more means. It is used for estimating the probabil-
ity that the means have been drawn from the same or different populations.
- Applied linguistics
- A broad field of inquiry concerned with the study of language use, language acquisition/learning, and language disability utilising models and concepts from a range of disciplines including theoretical linguistics, anthropology, education, sociology, and psychology, it has many applications, including language p>edagogy, sp>eech pathology, deafness education, translation, lexicography, computational linguistics, and stylistics.
- Case study
- The investigation of the way a single instance or phenomenon functions in context. In applied linguistics, it usually involves the investigation of the language behaviour of a single individual or limited number of individuals over a period of time.
- Central tendency
- The tendency of a set of scores to cluster around a particular value. The usual measures of central tendency are the mean, median, and the mode.
- Chi-square (X2)
- A statistical procedure for comparing the frequencies of two or more samples.
- Construct
- A psychological attribute such as intelligence, aptitude, or motivation which is created to account for observable behaviour.
- Correlation
- A set of statistical procedures for testing the strength of association between sets of scores.
- Deductivism
- The testing of a theory through the collection of data. Deductivism contrasts with inductivism, where theory is derived from data.
- Diary
- In language education, a first person account of the experience of language learning or reaching.
- Dispersion
- The tendency for a set of scores to spread out or depart from the average or tn the set of scores. Dispersion IS usually measured through the range, the mean deviation, the variance, and the standard deviation of the scores.
- Distribution
- The representation of a set of scores according to their frequency of occurrence
- Elicitation
- A range of procedures for obtaining speech samples and other data from subjects. Such procedures may range from the administration of
standardised rests through to questionnaires and interviews.
- Ethnographic techniques
- Techniques such as participant observation, non-participant observation, interviews, diaries, and journals for documenting sociocultural aspects of behaviour in the natural settings in which those behaviours occur.
- Experiment
- A procedure for testing an hypothesis by setting up a situation in which the strength of the relationship between variables can be tested. A true experiment consists of control and experiment groups to which subjects have been randomly assigned, and in which all subjects are tested before and after the intervention or treatment under investigation has been administered to the exjjeriment group. A pre-experiment may have preand posttreatment tests, but lacks a control group. A quasi-experiment has both pre- and posttests, and experiment and control groups, but no random assignment of subjects.
- Factor analysis
- A number of techniques for studying the correlations between a number of variables simultaneously in order to identify patterns of relationships among the variables.
- Frequency table
- A table showing the number of times different scores occur.
- Grounded theory
- The practice of deriving theory from data rather than collecting data with the aim of supporting or refuting a theory. The term refers to the fact that theory is grounded in descriptive data from real life situations.
- Hypothesis
- A formal statement about an expected relationship between two or more variables which can be tested through an experiment. For
example: 'Field-independent learners will learn grammar more effectively through a deductive approach than through an inductive approach'.
- Inductivism
- The development of theories and principles from data collected through observation.
- Inferential statistics
- Statistics designed to enable the researcher to make generalisations about a population from data derived from a sample.
- Interaction analysis
- A family of procedures for analysing and interpreting recorded speech data.
- Interpretive research
- Research based on discursive rather than statistical analysis.