Breaking Into Research Selecting a Research Topic

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Breaking Into ResearchSelecting a Research Topic

• KOTESOL Research Committee

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Breaking Into Research

• Selecting a Research Topic
• Jake Kimball
• Designing a Research Project
• Kevin Parent
• Collecting and Analyzing Research Data
• Scott Miles
• Reporting Research Results
• David Shaffer

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About this presentation

• Beginning researchers
• 45 minutes
• Explore potential areas of research
• How to narrow research topics

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• FINDING TOPICS
• Routes to Exploring Ones Own Teaching
• Reading Writing
  Observing

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• READING
• Books on Teaching
• To explore classroom issues
• Books on Research
• To learn about research methods
• Journals
• To learn what topics are being researched now

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• READING
• Books on Teaching
• To explore classroom issues
• Books on Research
• To learn about research methods
• Journals
• To learn what topics are being researched now

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Applied Linguistics Journals

• Language Learning
• Modern Language Journal
• Studies in Second Language Acquisition
• TESOL Quarterly
• Quantitative Research Studies
• Anne Lazaraton
• In Handbook of Research in Second language
  Teaching and Learning, 2005

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FYI Data

• 524 articles examined
• 1991-2001

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Explorer or Copycat
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Responding to implications

• Effects of Comic Strips on L2
  Learners Reading Comprehension
• Jun Liu, TESOL Quarterly, 2004
• Future research should consider
• The effects of other genres
• Other testing measures
• Effect on retention

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TIRF Critical needs in TESOL

• The International Research Foundation for English
  Language Education
• www.tirfonline.org
• Students age and effective instruction in
  schools
• Teachers English proficiency and effective
  instruction
• Optimal uses of technology
• Effective grammar instruction (primary and
  secondary)
• Integration of grammar instruction into EFL
  curricula
• Bilingualism in business and industry
• Language assessment

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• WRITING
• Diary/Reflective Writing (Freeman, 1998)
• To record the daily events of the classroom
• To help locate points of conflict, surprise, and
  interest
• The use of loop writing process can help you
  specify topics for research.

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Loop writing process

• Write continuously for 3-5 minutes on an aspect
  of your recent teaching.
• Reread, underlining key words, phrases, and
  ideas.
• Choose an underlined word use this for the topic
  for the next step of reflective writing. Write
  once again for 3-5 minutes.

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Prompts for Reflective Writing

• What do you wonder about in your teaching and
  your students learning?
• What aspects of the students learning do you
  want to understand better?
• What are some aspects of your teaching situation
  that intrigue you?
• What do you know about your teaching that you are
  interested in verifying?

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Your task!

• Discuss or brainstorm some of these issues
• with a partner.
• What do you wonder about in your teaching and
  your students learning?
• What aspects of the students learning do you
  want to understand better?
• What are some aspects of your teaching situation
  that intrigue you?
• What do you know about your teaching that you are
  interested in verifying?

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• OBSERVATIONS
• Peer Observation
• To see how other teachers teach
• To learn how other teachers see your teaching
• Self Observation (Freeman, 1998)
• To see yourself teaching
• Richards, Jack. The language Teaching Matrix,
  CUP, 1990.

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Other prompts for exploring your teaching (Burns,
1999)

• I dont think I know enough about
• My students dont seem to What can I do about
  this?
• Id like to change the way students/I
• Why do some students in my class and others How
  can I find out what is happening here?

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Part II

• SHAPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS

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SHAPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• Types of Questions (Freeman, 1998)
• Teaching vs. Researchable Questions
• Some Examples of Gaining Focus

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• Teaching Questions (Freeman, 1998, p. 63)
• seek answers to specific problems
• aim to resolve a particular instance through
  some course of action
• concrete, active, and rooted
• based in the specifics of a teaching
  situation
• PRO Solves problems (If I do this, what will
  happen?)
• CONS Do not pass through the queries of why or
  the methodological discipline of how do I know?

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• Researchable Questions (Freeman, 1998, p. 63)
• open-ended
• suggest multiple directions and responses
• aim toward a broader understanding that is not
  context-bound
• PROS Phrased without assumptionsexamines from a
  more neutral standpoint.

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• Teachers initial questions are too broad, and
  need to made more specific in order to be
  effectively researched.
• Ex. What is the best way to motivate my
  students? or How can I get students to read
  more effectively?
• This problem of initial questions being too broad
  or narrow is common for beginning researchers

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• What is the best way to motivate my students?
• How can I get students to read more effectively?
• Narrow the scope
• of these questions
• to make them more researchable.

Your task!
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Perspectives

• First-order perspective
• What people do
• Can be verified
• Second-order perspective
• How people perceive what they do

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• From Initial Question to Research Question Some
  Examples
• From Freeman (1998, p. 64)
• Initial Question
• Why do students take so long to break into small
  groups ?

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• From Initial Question to Research Question
• Some possible research questions
• What happens when students are breaking up into
  small groups?
• What is going on as students pass from one social
  structure the whole class to another small
  groups?

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• From Initial Question to Research Question
• (questions too broad)
• Whats the best way to teach reading?
• How can I motivate my students?

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• From Initial Question to Research Question
• Some possible research questions
• Does training for developing reading speed help
  students reading comprehension?
• Does providing students with choices in
  activities increase their motivation for English
  class?

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• From Initial Question to Research Question
• How do students respond when they are given more
  time to complete activities?
• How does instructing students to use time at the
  beginning of group work to plan what they will do
  affect the outcome of the activity?

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The process of shaping questions

• Dont worry too much about getting the questions
  exactly right before you start.
• Its okay, and normal, for questions to be
  continuously refined as research goes forward.
• In the end, the final question may be shaped to
  match the data that you have.

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Putting it all together

• What? what is the researchable question?
• Why? rationale of the research?
• Where? the research will be done .
• Who? participants?
• How? --relevant data, how to collect analyze
• When? --time line?
• So what? why will it matter? To whom will it
  make a difference? What might you/others
  understand differently?

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• The best way to learn research is to do it.