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)
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