English 623
Paper 2: Data Collection in Second Language Technology Studies
For this paper you can work with the same set of studies that you used to complete the
first paper, or you can choose a different set of studies. You can limit your analysis to
four or five studies in which you examine the way that two or three objects of
investigation were measured. Use the six categories from Chapter three in Mackey &
Gass’ book as you describe what was measured. I will evaluate this paper on the basis of
the quality of each part (for a total of the points indicated for each part). In addition, I
will consider the degree to which the reading from class has been integrated and the
writing quality (20 points).
Introduction (30 points)
Explain why it is important to understand and carefully consider what is measured in a
second language study. You can draw upon the readings from weeks 3, 4 and 5.
Introduce the constructs that you are going to talk about in the studies you looked at.
Data collection as measurement (30 points)
1. Explain why the objects of measurement that you are going to write about were
considered important in the studies that you are looking at. Why did the authors attempt
to assess these constructs? How did they relate to the research questions that were posed
in the studies?
2. Describe the measures used to gather data for each of the constructs. How would you
classify measures on the “control” continuum discussed by Ellis and Barkhuizen? What
type of data were elicited from the measures?
3. How did the researchers discuss the validity of the inferences that they drew on the
basis of their data collection. If the authors wrote little or nothing about the validity of
inferences, how would you fill in the missing pieces in their argument about the validity?
4. What did the authors say about the reliability, or dependability, of the inferences that
they drew on the basis of the data? Again, here, if they did not discuss this, wht would
you add.
Conclusion (20 points)
Based on your analysis, would you conclude that the constructs you discussed have been
appropriately assessed in the examples that you examined? How can you use what you
have learned from this research to investigate these constructs or refine them? In this part
you can mention other studies as well as the ones that you examined, but this is not
required.