Final exam pointers

RESEARCH METHODS FOR LANGUAGE STUDIES BBI 4401 Final Exam Pointers

By Vahid Nimehchisalem & Ramiza Darmi English Department Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication Universiti Putra Malaysia December, 2016

Materials covered in Final Exam 

Text book: Zoltán Dörnyei (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: OUP. ◦ Chapters 1-6 (pp. 15-162), ◦ Chapters 9-10 (pp. 197-264), and ◦ Chapters 12-13 (pp. 281-282, 295)

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Slides presented

Overview Final Exam covers 30% of the total mark  It contains a combination of different item types: 

◦ Open-ended asking for definitions and discussions ◦ Multiple-choice ◦ Matching

Definitions 

Qualitative data collection methods ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Ethnography Interview and its types Focus group Introspective method Case studies Diary studies Research journals

Definitions 

Qualitative data sampling methods ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Homogeneous Opportunistic Extreme/deviant case Critical case Snowball

Concepts 

Threats to research validity ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Participant mortality/attrition Hawthorn e effect Practice effect History Maturation Social desirability bias

Concepts Difference between QUAL and QUAN research  Difference between validity and reliability  Advantage and one disadvantage of grounded theory  Levels of coding in grounded theory  Names of software for qualitative data analysis  Features of a good literature review  Generalizability 

Concepts 

Basic statistical concepts ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Scales of measurement Descriptive vs. Inferential statistics Parametric vs. Non-parametric statistics Measures of central tendency Measures of dispersion Internal reliability Normality of distribution Hypothesis testing

Final exam details Date: 6 January 2017  Time: 3.30 – 5.30 pm  Venue: BK07 KAA  Be at the venue by 3pm 