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particularly well to graphic representations, qualitative studies frequently
also make use of them.
In reporting your results, be careful not to emphasise those that confirmed
your hypotheses and downplay those that turned out contrary to your
expectations. Remember: results that disconfirm hypotheses can often be
as interesting and informative as those that confirm them and you need to
be seen to be objective.
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Have a look at this example from an article that discusses the implementa-
tion of a university policy of post-enrolment English language assessment:
Results and discussion
A total of 86 students (67 undergraduate and 19 graduate), or 13%,
achieved a score in the lower or ‘support required’ band (3.3 or less
out of 6). All of these students were EAL. Another 192, or 29%,
scored in the middle ‘support recommended’ band (3.4–4). This means
that 42% of assessed students achieved a score in the lower two bands.
The remaining 387 students or 58% received a score in the upper band
(greater than 4) at which level their language skills were diagnosed
as ‘sufficient’.
One hundred and fifty-one ESB undergraduate students and one ESB
graduate student, self identified through a questionnaire at the
commencement of DELA, participated in the assessment. Of the
undergraduate cohort, none achieved a score in the ‘required’ band and
only eight scored in the ‘recommended band’, or 5% of this cohort.
All students who sat DELA were informed via a database-generated email
of their results and recommendations for language enrichment programs.
They were also advised to seek further information from their respective
faculties, although not all did so. Faculties also followed up with students
in the ‘support required’ band – and some in the ‘support recommended’
band. This took the form of face-to-face consultations, group presentations,
and email correspondence.
(From Ransom,
2009
)
In the following example the author has conflated the results and discussion:
In this section, we describe and present the results from the t-test analysis of
the performance of everyone (all students together) and children and adults
(separately) on related and unrelated vocabulary, both on
sht
and
lt
tests.
Figure 1 presents the results of the most important pairs for discussion.
It is clear from the table above that adult beginners performed significantly
better on the unrelated vocabulary test than on the related vocabulary test.
Children (intermediate level) showed no significant difference in test scores
between related and unrelated vocabulary. This suggests tentatively that the
presentation of unrelated vocabulary may assist learning of new L2 words
more than related vocabulary only at beginners’ level (adults). The result
above is compatible with the results of previous research (Tinkham 1997;
Waring 1997; Schneider, Healy, and Bourne 1998; Finkbeiner and
Nicol 2003) illustrating that presenting L2 students (beginners) with their
new vocabulary grouped together in sets of syntactically and semantically
similar words impedes rather than facilitates the learning of those words.
It is crucial to mention that these results reinforce the positions stated by the
researchers mentioned above since they were extracted from natural
language in an
efl
classroom through a teaching procedure. Extensive
Getting down to writing
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research into ‘interference theory’ (Baddeley 1990) suggests that as
similarity increases between targeted information and other information
learnt either before or after the targeted information, the difficulty of
learning and remembering the targeted information also increases (Tinkham
1997). Similarly the ‘distinctiveness hypothesis’ (see Hunt and Mitchell
1982), which relates ease of learning to the distinctiveness (non similarity)
of the information to be learnt, also validates the above argument. It is
important to point out that these results apply to beginner-level
efl
adults and not to intermediate
efl
children where there is no significant
difference between related versus unrelated vocabulary test scores. Based
on the high mean scores for the adults, especially in unrelated vocabulary,
we made the following assumptions:
One probable reason for the adults achieving higher scores was
motivation. It seemed that adults were highly motivated and more
conscientious learners for personal and professional reasons. Motivation
has to do with the emotional dimension of L2 learning. The main reason
they joined the English seminars was to acquire a certificate in English in
order to use it professionally and for personal interest. Children on the other
hand provided quite low scores both in related and unrelated vocabulary,
possibly due to lack of motivation. Another possible reason for the adults’
higher scores was that adults, in general, can master certain aspects of a
foreign language even well into adulthood. Adult L2 learners routinely
achieve high levels of proficiency in these aspects of a foreign language.
Lexical and syntactical competence becomes easier for them in contrast
to phonology, which becomes very difficult to acquire.
(From Papathanasiou,
2009
)
The discussion
Having reported your results, you will then need to discuss them. This
essentially means commenting on and interpreting them. As with the
results section, a good way of organising your discussion is according to
your research questions or hypotheses, taking each question or hypothesis
in turn and reflecting on it in the light of the results generated by your study.
In commenting on and interpreting the results of your study you should
strive to do a number of things:
Relate your results to previous research
– comparing and contrasting,
and where possible, explaining the reasons for any divergence.
Consider the theoretical implications of your results
– if your study uses
a particular theory or model and/or has been designed to test that theory/
model, look at whether or not your results support it. Try to explain why
they turned out as they did and, where appropriate, offer possible
alternative reasons for the results you obtained.
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Consider the practical implications of your results
– for example, your
study may have consequences for the way in which language teachers
are trained or for the way students are taught a second language or a
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