|
LESSON 20
STAGES OF CLASSROOM INVESTIGATION (TEACHER PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND
FORMULATING A REALISTIC RESEARCH QUESTION, ACTION PLANNING (CHOOSING
APPROPRIATE DATA COLLECTION METHOD), DATA COLLECTION, DATA ANALYSIS.
PART 1
Handout 1
Read handout 1 and present in groups their opinions on it.
DATA COLLECTION
Other
steps
in classroom research are to decide what we want to investigate, in which way and how to
approach it. On the other hands, the sort of data we can use to analyse classroom language can be obtained
from two different sources:
- Using reports of earlier classroom research
- Watching language learners
With the first approach we can read different types of research and replicate those studies that seem
more interesting for our purposes. In this case,
it is acceptable to use research plans, questionnaires or
observation instruments from published documents to conduct our own research, provided we give credit to
the original authors. From the point of view of research, the replication of existing studies is an important way
to go a step further as it is part of the refinement process.
In any case it is important to bear in mind, if we want to adopt this view, that some studies are not
probably as well designed as we might believe. Accordingly it is usually more appropriate to talk of follow-
up studies rather than of exact replications. This way of approaching and analysing language data can be
advisable if we are not yet working with a group of learners.
Watching language learners in a classroom context can definitely be a good source of ideas for
investigations or be based on previous research and/or theory. Regarding this latter point, All right and Bailey
(1991) have underlined what there is a dynamic tension between these two opposing points of view on how to
determine the topic of an investigation. The first position, which is associated with experimental science, holds
that a researcher should decide in advance what to investigate, on the basis of predictions generated by theory.
In the second view, that more commonly associated, the research questions and hypotheses arise from the data
that are collected.
Some theorists would argue that any hypothesis or research question ought to come directly from a
theory which makes predictions that can be empirically tested by some sort of classroom investigation.
However, as it has been suggested, there are two problems with this way of approaching research. On
the one hand, the theories of language learning do not always lend themselves to making directly testable
predictions. In addition, some researchers (van Lier, 1988) consider that classroom lessons are such complex
affairs that it is virtually impossible ever to control the number of different variables that could bias the results
of any attempt to test a particular theory-driven prediction.
On the other hand, the second problem with putting theory first is that it misses the point that theories
themselves have to come from somewhere.
But, as Allwright and Bailey have put it, classroom research does not always have to concern itself so
directly with theories at all, whether to test them or to illuminate them. Instead, classroom research can be
directed at trying to understand and deal with the immediate practical problerns facing teachers and learners.
The term for this sort of work, aimed as it is at investigating and dealing with immediate practical problems,
is "action research".
In any case, whether we begin from the data-first or the theory first position, it is important to have a
specific issue in mind, a particular problem to think about, because there is a strong risk of wasting a lot of our
own and everyone else's time if we begin a research project with no clear idea of what we are going to do.
Given these opposing viewpoints on the research sequence (data-first versus theory-first), it would
probably be best to start off with at least a general issue we want to investigate, and to use your thought about
that issue to help you to decide what sorts of data you will need.
Another aspect of the decision about what to investigate is the understandable temptation to look at the most
visible things only, the things that are easiest to observe, to record, and to count.
Two problems arise in this area of deciding what to investigate. First,
the overall picture we have of
classroom language learning from research so far is already distorted by this bias towards the visible.
Second, the bias towards the easy things to investigate is a luxury that action researchers at least cannot usually
afford.
47
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
