Situational questions when doing research

💡 These questions are for those who are doing research and are intended as starting points only. Consider additional questions for each listed below that are narrower in scope based on your researchable topic and own hypothesis and/or research objectives.

Participants

• Am I currently working as an English language instructor?

• Have I taught somewhere that might be willing to accept my research proposal?

• Have I taken classes somewhere that might be willing to accept my research proposal

• Do I know anyone who is working somewhere that might be willing to accept my research proposal?

• Does my research objective relate to improving the BA in English language teaching at the UAA?

• Does my research objective relate to improving extension courses at the UAA?

• Does my research objective relate to improving foreign language courses at the UAA?

• Does my research objective related to children, adults, or both?

Data Analysis

• What’s my unit of analysis?

• What are my points of comparison?

• Am I doing a case study?

• Is my research design qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method?

• What kind of data am I likely to collect?

  Interviews, observations, document (content) analysis, focus groups, surveys, questionnaires, stimulated recall, etc.

Linguistic Focus

💡 The mistake many researchers make is to focus too broadly on a linguistic aspect. Be specific in your linguistic focus.

• Am I going to focus on speaking?

• Am I going to focus on writing?

• Am I going to focus on grammar teaching?

• Am I going to focus on pronunciation?

• Am I going to focus on vocabulary?

• Am I going to focus on material design?

• This could include adapting, reusing, repurposing, material, etc.

• Am I going to focus on information communication technologies (ICTs)?

• Am I going to focus on perceptions (opinions, beliefs, etc.) around a particular linguistic focus?

• Am I going to focus on teacher talk time versus student talk time?

• Am I going to focus on interactional patterns (social learning)?

• Am I going to focus on peer assessment?

• Am I going to focus on self assessment?

• Am I going to focus on expert assessment?

• Expert assessment falls under a variety of areas: teacher feedback, expert feedback, formative/summative assessment, recasts, etc.

• Am I going to focus on learning strategies?

  Communicative strategies, writing strategies, critical thinking, etc.?

• Am I going to focus on motivation?

  Motivation itself is too broad of a topic, but you may begin here to narrow down a topic on the idea of motivation.

• Am I going to focus on cognitive development?