Second Language Research Methods

Position Paper
Insuasty Cardenas
Andres Guillermo
August 26th, 2016
The importance of data collection measures in research
Collecting data for a research is the process in which a researcher gathers a lot of evidence
in order to carry out a study in a determined field of science, the information gathered is very
useful to answer stated research questions, test hypotheses, and evaluate outcomes. In second
language research, there is a wide variety of measures that a researcher can use in order to carry
out a determined study. According to Gass and Mackey (2005) there are researches that are
focused on sociolinguistics, cognitive studies, pragmatics and interaction research, but first of all
it is necessary to have planned a pilot study. A pilot study will help a researcher to start
diagnosing a possible problem s/he could find in a determined context, in this phase any measure
can be used in order to seek for a situation that needs to be studied and be improved.
Since the onset of internet and computers, several research studies have been carried out
to know and discover some phenomena, there are some software used to measure and follow
participants performance and some websites where they can make different kinds of exercises
reading, grammar, writing, speaking and listening - that assess their comprehension. By means of
these electronic tools, researchers may have a record shown in statistics that can help them to
establish comparisons among participants and how some changes occur through time. Other tools
that could be used when doing research are photographs and video cameras, these devices have

been useful when researchers collect information to analyze several aspects that happened in
class, some of them include stimulated recalls, immediate recalls etc.
The use of questionnaires and surveys can help researchers to collect information about
students thoughts and opinions. This information can help the researcher to know about student
opinions regarding classroom instruction or activities, and one advantage is that questionnaires
and surveys are individual. They reflect personal opinions and suggestions coming from each
student, through these instruments not only do students have the opportunity to answer multiple
choice questions, but they also share their ideas in written form by means of open-ended
questions. In addition, researchers make use of diaries and journals to have a kind of log to track
any changes that happen in class. Moreover, through diaries it can be possible to collect relevant
information about students behavior and feelings towards the class and their classmates.
When students take part in the process of data analysis by making questions and
collecting, displaying, and analyzing data, they acquire a valuable skill that encourages their
curiosity and helps them describe their world and make decisions about it. Also, when they
encounter noticeable differences in the ways data can be collected, displayed, and analyzed, they
can evaluate the accuracy of another person's data analysis. Evaluating another persons data
allow a researcher to be more analytical and be able to propose a well-grounded research. When a
research is well-grounded, it fulfills two principles such as reliability and validity, because all the
instruments which were used to collect the information show conclusive results. Moreover, an
elaborate research can be taken into account for further studies.
Conducting a research in any institution can help to better some aspects related to
teaching and curricular aspects, at IUCESMAG has not been conducted any kind of foreign

language research because of the fact that there is not a linguistics or languages department. The
English courses are only to have good results in the saber PRO exam and the curriculum design
talks about communicative approach, besides the number of hours allocated for english is limited
(3 hours per week) and teachers sometimes have to deal with some behavioral problems such as
lack of motivation and big groups of students. For the reasons mentioned above, I think it will be
a good idea to apply an action research in order to find out what kind of problems there are both
inside and outside the classroom and try to propose a possible solution for them.
References
Mackley , A. & Gass , S. (2005). Second language research: methodology and design. New
Jersey: Routledge.