What do the research questions below have in common?

1. What opportunities can listening based

games provide to EFL learners of Canceles

School, who have a poor English language

input and that is located in an

underprivileged context?

How does the use of listening based

games influence or impact the

development of listening skills in second

graders students of Canceles School?

What does the application of

an adapted version of

Reciprocal Teaching

experienced with sheltered

Instruction inform us about

the English reading

comprehension and oral

production of Seventh grade

EFL learners?

What are the learner‟s

perceptions regarding listening

activities using bottom-up

listening strategies in an eighth

grade English class?

What is the impact in terms of

English language learning with

the application of applying

bottom- up listening strategies to

EFL eighth grade learners?

What errors does syntactic

negative transfer provoke in Pre-

intermediate English Learners‟

writing in an English as a foreign

language teaching program?

What leads English

Pre‐Intermediate students to

make errors in writing in

determined syntactic categories?

Formulating the research

question(s)

Research is theprocess whereby

questions are raised and

answers are sought

The figures in thefollowing slideencompass theentire reseach

process.

The RESEARCH QUESTION is thebeginning of theresearch processand the focus of both the reader

and theresearcher.

Practical problems

• Ferris (1995) realized that teachers spend a lot of time providing feedback to Ss‟ compositions: Does feedback actually helps Ss improve their writing?

Secondary sources

•Such as textbook ortheoretical papers presentedat conferences.

•They summarize otherpeople‟s research.

Primary research

• The collection of original primary data

What are the types of researchquestions?

Descriptive Relational Causal

• To describe what isgoing on or whatexists.

• Describes data and characteristics about the population or phenomenon being studied.

• Descriptive research cannot be used to create a causal relationship, where one variable affects another.

Descriptive

• A study is designed tolook at therelationshpis betweentwo or more variables.

• Examines whether some X variable is systematically related to some Y variable

Relational• A study designed to

determine whetherone or more variables causes or affects oneor more outcomevariables.

Causal

Wong (2009):

1. How do the untrained native English

speaking tutors teach their tutees?

2. What problems do the untrained native

English speaking tutors face in their

teaching?

3. How do the untrained native English

speaking tutors view their own teaching?

Jiang (2011):

What are the contributions of L1 literacy and L2 proficiency to L2 reading comprehension?

What is the relationship, if any, between participants‟ attitudes and vocabulary acquisition?

Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt (2010):

What is the relationship, if any, between participants‟ attitudes and vocabulary acquisition?

Alessi and Dwyer (2000):

Will vocabulary assistance (either before or

during reading) affect reading time?

What

itis •What is a variable:

•„not consistent or having a fixed pattern; liable to change‟Vari

able

and c

onst

ruct •The variables of a

study are clearly identified and defined.

• In fact the term construct is usually replaced by the term variable.

• If something does not vary, it is not a variable.

Exam

ple

s •For example, language ability is a construct that varies (i.e., people vary in language ability).

•Gender is a variable in that it has two possibilities: male and female.

•Examples of other possible variables are nationality, language proficiency, method of instruction, and so on.

• An independent variable (IV) is regarded as the variable of influence—that is, it affects the variation (or change) in another variable.

Independentvariable

• The variable being influenced (or changed) is labeled the dependent variable (DV), in that its variation depends on changes in the independent variable.

Dependentvariable

• The way you can identify the two variables is to note which one is thought to affect (i.e., impact, change, cause, influence, etc.) the other. The one doing the affecting is the independent variable, and the one being affected is the dependent variable.

The way youcan identify

them

• The Zahar et al. (2001) study entitled “Acquiring Vocabulary Through Reading: Effects of Frequency and Contextual Richness” indicates two IVs, frequency and contextual richness, and one DV, vocabulary acquisition.

Example

1. Which type of gloss, paper or electronic, will result in

higher scores on vocabulary learning test?

2. Which types of looked up information in the electronic

dictionary (L1 translation, L2 definition, example of

usage, or combinations of these) are associated with

better vocabulary learning scores?

1. What is learners‟ perceived value of the

two tasks conditions (FonF and FonFs) and

word occurrences with regard to word

retention?

2. How many of the four major derivative

classes (i.e., noun, verb, adjective, adverb)

of a particular word do learners know to a

productive degree of mastery?

3. What is the relationship between

productive derivational word knowledge

and more global knowledge of a word?

What do youwant to know

about it?

What do youalready know

about it?

Read about it: find a book, an

article, etc.

Look at the textfeatures to seewhat you wantto learn more

about.

Then ask a question about

it.

„SKINNY‟ QUESTIONS have simple answers

which can be answered in one

word or sentence. They begin with: when, how many,

who, where.

„FATTY‟ QUESTIONS cannot be answered

in one sentence. They make youthink of other

questions. They begin with: why,

which, how.

Avoid questions thatcan‟t be answered

and/or opinionquestions.

Avoid using inactive verbs such as “do” at the beginning of your question.

Questions beginning with “do”, like questions that begin with “should”, can be answered by

“yes,” “no”, “maybe,” or “I don‟t know”,” and are stoppers. They elicit an opinion rather than

some activity directed toward research.

Avoid using verbs suchas „to improve‟ or „to

develop‟, suchquestions are imposible to be answered in your

theses projects.

Set the populationfrom whom you can

collect the informationnecessary for

answering yourquestion(s) and the

context to which thepopulation belongs.

Determine yourconstructs, which can

be your dependentand/or independent

variables.

A construct is a concept that a given discipline

(e.g. applied linguistics) has constructed to identify

some quality that is thought to exist. One of the

popular constructs that applied linguistics has is

communicative competence.

They are defined in two ways: either by using other constructs or by

operational definitions.

By using other constructs: Canale and Swain (1980) defined communicativecompetency by using 4

other constructs.

In observable terms (operational definition): MacInttyre et al. (2002) defined willingness tocommunicate WTC as „an underlying continuum representing the predisposition toward or awayfrom communicating, given the choice‟ (p. 538)

1. What is the impact of the instructional use

of video material in the listening skills of

Basic English students in a Teaching English

as a Foreign Language Program?

2. What does the application of illustrated

stories tell us about vocabulary range of

third graders?

3. What does the application of Reciprocal

Teaching inform us about the English oral

production of seventh grade EFL learners?

Do teachers from HHH school teach communicatively?

How do first-semester pre-services English teachers in Colombian universities respond to English CBLI?

What functions of code-switching are evident in the oral speech of students?

How does instruction affect students‟ writing performance?

What is the response towards the instructionally use of culturally relevant and highly visual material of fifth grade English Foreign Language students in a Colombian public school?