APLN 508-01  12973  Research Design in Applied Linguistics

Dr. Susana M. Sotillo

Time: Thursday 5:00 pm -- 6:15 pm  DI 280 (Computer Lab)
Thursday 6:25 pm -- 7:30 pm DI 270

Office Hours:  Mondays 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. in Cyberspace
 and by appointment -- Office:  Dickson Hall 119
Instructions for Participating in Online Discussions

Required Textbooks:
  
The Research Manual by Evelyn Hatch & Anne Lazaraton.  Heinle & Heinle Publishers.
Research Design (Qualitative & Quantitative Approaches) by John W. Creswell (1994).  Sage Publications.

Recommended Journals: CALICO, Discourse & Society, Language Learning & Technology, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, TESL-EJ, The Modern Language Journal,  The Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, and TESOL Quarterly.

Lab Work:  The mini-lab (DI 182) has been reserved for your convenience every Tuesday from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.  Please be sure to use the lab for corpus linguistics research (TACT) and statistical analyses of your data (SPSS).  Your lab assistant is Julie Wang Gempp.
 
Course Description:  This is a course to train students in research design, methodology and data collection procedures.  Students learn skills which prepare them for administrative and research positions in fields such as language planning, ESL curriculum evaluation, discourse analysis, and language learning measurement.

Course Schedule

This schedule is subject to change. All Web documents are always under construction. Changes to the course schedule or in assignments will be announced in class. If you need to reach me, send messages at home or school.
Day/Date Topic Assignments
Thursday, September 7 A Framework for the Study and
Reading Scholarly Articles.		 Creswell, Chapters 1 and 11.
September 14 Planning a Research Project: Defining the Research Question and Designing a Study. Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 1.  Do all practice exercises.  Assignment #1: due September 28.
September 21 The Use of the Literature and Introduction to the Study. Creswell, Chapters 2 and 3.  Do writing exercise 1 (p. 16) and develop a visual map of the literature related to your topic (p. 38).  
September 28 Using TACT in research.
The Purpose Statement. Questions, Objectives and Hypotheses in both qualitative and quantitative research.		 Basic instructions for TACT. Creswell, Chapters 4, 5, and 6.  Complete writing exercises one and two, page 78; and exercises one and two, page 101.
October 5 Describing Variables Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 2.  Complete all practice exercises and activities two and six.  Ethics in fieldwork.
October 12 Introduction to SPSS.  Constructing Research Designs. Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 3.  Do all practice exercises.
October 19 Writing the Research Proposal and Report. Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 4.  Complete activities five and nine.
October 26

MIDTERM EXAM
Definitions, Delimitations, and Significance.  The Quantitative Method.

 Part I - Midterm: Read Creswell, Chapters 7 (complete exercises one and two, page 113), and 8 (exercise one, page 139).  Part II - Midterm Exam.
November 2

Describing Data  

 Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 5.  Complete all practice exercises and activities one and two.
November 9 Qualitative Procedures. Combined qualitative and quantitative designs. In-class discussion.  Analyzing abstracts and procedures sections in online and printed articles.  Introduction to text analysis computing tools (TACT).
November 16 Part II Midterm Due.
Corpus Linguistics Research		 Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 6.  Do all practice exercises.  Complete activities three and five, pp. 183-184.  Read the TACT manual online.  Download and install TACT.    Assignment #2:  Analyze cyberchat discourse data or ESL students' interlanguage using TACT or MonoConcord.  Due December 7.
November 23-26 Thanksgiving Holiday.  No classes.

November 30 Describing Interval and Ordinal Values. Creswell, Chapters 9 and 10.  Complete exercises one and two, page 170.   
December 7 Locating Scores and Finding Scales in a Distribution. Creswell, Chapter 11.  Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 7.  Complete all practice exercises and activity five.  TACT assignment due.
December 14 Probability and Hypothesis Testing Procedures. Hatch & Lazaraton, Chapter 8.  Complete all practice exercises.
December 16-22 Final Examinations Week. Final Research Project Proposal due: December 22, 2000.

Requirements:

  1. You must participate in ongoing research with one of the following persons:  Mrs. Lenore Rosenbluth, Dr. Eileen Fitzpatrick, Dr. Susana Sotillo, Dr. Longxing Wei.

  2. Work is to be neatly word processed and handed in on time.  If you need help with your writing skills, please go to the Research Paper page or make an appointment with a tutor in room DI 285, the Writing Lab.

  3. All students are required to participate in online synchronous discussions scheduled to be held on Mondays  from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. beginning the week of September 25, 2000.

  4. Your grade will be calculated as follows:  Completion of course assignments and classroom participation, 30%; midterm exam, 25%; research projects, 45%.