3A Quantitative Approach
3A Quantitative Approach
Introduction
Welcome to Lesson 3 - A! In the previous lesson, you were able to build connections of
different concepts in the context or area of language research. Your serious engagement and
sincere dedication to our lesson would eventually help you to see clearly and understand deeply
the paradigm of language research which would be your guide in the formulation of a language
research study at the end of this course. Now, it’s time for you to explore further these different
concepts in the paradigm to have enough knowledge on the important details and salient
information of these different components. One component which is the ‘worldview’ was
already discussed in details in Lesson 1. Thus, we are now ready to proceed to the detailed
discussion of ‘approaches’ and ‘designs’ which are equally important components in the
paradigm. As briefly mentioned in Lesson 1, there are three common approaches and designs in
research, and these are: quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. In this lesson, we will
explore quantitative research first, and the two remaining approaches and/or designs will be
discussed in the succeeding lessons (Lesson 3-B and 3- C).
Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, you must have:
a. discussed the history and characteristics of quantitative research
b. identified the different quantitative designs in language research
c. Explained the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative research and of common
quantitative designs used in language research.
Quantitative social research was originally inspired by the spectacular progress of the
natural sciences in the nineteenth century and therefore early social researchers set out to
adopt what was called the scientific method in their investigation. This method had been
evolving in western thinking since about the mid – sixteenth (the period of the Enlightenment)
through the work of philosophers and scholars such as Copernicus, Bacon, Galilei, Kepler,
Newton, Descartes, Hume, Comte, and Pierce.
Broadly speaking, the scientific method postulates three key stages in the research
process: (a) observing a phenomenon or identifying a problem, (b) generating an initial
hypothesis, and (c) testing the hypothesis by collecting and analyzing empirical data using
standardized procedures.
Once the hypothesis has been successfully tested and further validated through
replication, it becomes accepted as a scientific theory or law. Thus, the scientific method
offered a tool to explore questions in an ‘objective’ manner, trying to minimize the influence of
any researcher bias or prejudice, thereby resulting in what scholars believed was an accurate
and reliable description of the world. This scientific method was closely associated with
numerical values and statistics, along the line of Nobel prize winner Lord Rutherford’s famous
maxim that any knowledge that one cannot measure numerically is a poor sort of knowledge.
Statistics became a fully – fledged subdiscipline of mathematics by the end of 19th century due
to its major contribution to the mathematical needs of the newly emerging social sciences.
The first half of the twentieth century saw major development both in the scientific
method (most notably through the work of Karl Popper) and in statistics (for example, by
Spearman, Fisher, Neyman, and Pearson) leading to the increased use of quantitative
methodology across the whole range of social disciplines. As a result of this progress, the social
sciences achieved maturity and earned the reputation of being able to study human beings
‘scientifically’ both at the individual and societal levels. Fuelled by the advances in
psychometrics (a subdiscipline focusing on measurement in psychology), classical test theory,
experimental designs, survey research, questionnaire theory, and multivariate statistics, the
middle of the 20th century became dominated by quantitative methodology in the social
sciences.
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In applied linguistics, according to Lazarton (2005), the period between 1970-1985 saw
significant increase of quantitative articles which went hand in hand with the publication of
several research methods texts in the 1980s, culminating in Hatch and Lazarton’s (1991)
seminal Research Manual; this provided a very detailed summary of quantitative research and
statistics. Lazarton (2005) reports on a survey of 524 empirical studies that appeared in four
major applied linguistics journals between 1991 and 2001. The results show that as many as
86% of the research papers were quantitative (while 13% qualitative and 1% mixed methods),
which led Lazarton to conclude that quantitative studies ‘reign supreme’ in the field of applied
linguistics.
Lazarton (2005) also highlights a major change taking a research orientation in applied
linguistics: while in the 1980s there was an ‘unquestioned reliance’ on quasi – experimental
studies, the past 15 years have brought along broader, multidisciplinary perspective on research
methodology, with an increasing number of alternative, often qualitative, designs employed.
Duff (2002) also highlights the growing sophistication of quantitative in the 1990s, both in
terms of their design and their psychometric refinement, which confirms Lazaraton’s (2000)
conclusion that there has been a ‘coming of age’ of quantitative research in applied linguistics.
However, if we manage to provide all this, numbers do work and the development of
quantitative research over the last century has been frankly astounding.
A Priori Categorization
Because the use of numbers already dominates the data collection phase, the work
required to specify the categories and values needs to be done prior to the actual study. For
example, respondents are asked to encircle figures in a questionnaire item, they have to know
exactly what those figures represent, and in order to make sure that each respondent gives
their numerical answer based on the same understanding, the definitions and value descriptor
need to be unambiguous. Several weeks and often months of meticulous preparation and
piloting are usually needed before the finalized instrument can be administered. Things also
speed up after the administration of the instrument and preliminary results can be achieved
after a week of data collection. Unlike in qualitative research, the researcher can start the first
interview soon after the instigation of the project. However, the rest of the phases of qualitative
is also labor – intensive except in the preparation phase (to be further discussed later).
In one case, a researcher might be interested in evaluating whether playing violent video games is
associated with higher rates of playground aggression in kids, which is a correlational hypothesis
that could be evaluated in a survey design. In another case, a researcher might be interested in
evaluating whether violent video game playing causes aggressive behavior, which is a causal
hypothesis that is best evaluated by a true experiment. In each case, these quantitative
approaches focus on carefully measuring (or experimentally manipulating) a parsimonious set of
variables to answer theory, guided research questions and hypotheses.
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B. Experimental Research
An experimental design systematically manipulates one or more variables in order to
evaluate how this manipulation impacts an outcome (or outcomes) of interest. Importantly, an
experiment isolates the effects of this manipulation by holding all other variables constant. This
design could be further divided into two types, and these are true experimental and quasi –
experimental.
Experimental and quasi-experimental research designs examine whether there is a
causal relationship between independent and dependent variables. Simply defined, the
independent variable is the variable of influence and the dependent variable is the variable
that is being influenced (Loewen & Plonsky, 2016). In other words, the independent variable is
expected to bring about some variation or change in the dependent variable.
For example:
In a study examining the impact of oral corrective feedback on grammatical development, corrective feedback will serve as
the independent variable and grammatical development as the dependent variable. Moderating variables are another type of
variable that are often of interest in experimental and quasi-experimental research. Moderating variables are defined as
variables that modify the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable. If the previous study of
corrective feedback also investigates how working memory may influence the extent to which learners benefit from feedback
(e.g., Révész, 2012a), working memory will function as a moderating variable in the design.
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Fraenkel et. al (2012) listed several types of this design, and these are The Matching –
Only Design, Counterbalanced design, Time Series Design, and Factorial Design. As mentioned,
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quasi-experimental studies do not require a true control group, but may include a
comparison group. A comparison group is an additional experimental group that receives a
different experimental treatment. Non-experiments may also take the form of pre-
experimental designs.
Pre-experimental designs use neither a control nor a comparison group (Nunan, 1992). Types of this
design includes One-Shot Case Study Research Design, One-Group Pre-Test Post-Test Design, and Static
Group Comparison Design. This means this design only used one group (single group) to test the
effectiveness of the independent variable (i.e, corrective feedback). Fraenkel et.al (2013 label this as
‘poor experiment’ because any researcher who uses this design has difficulty assessing the
effectiveness of the independent variable.
In relation with language research, researchers within the field of applied linguistics
have long used experiments to investigate cause–effect relationships regarding the use and
learning of second languages (L2s). As mentioned earlier, in experimental research, one or
more variables are altered and the effects of this change on another variable are examined.
This change or experimental manipulation is usually referred to as the treatment. Researchers
typically draw upon either experimental or quasi-experimental research designs to determine
whether there is a causal relationship between the treatment and the outcome. Thus, in this
lesson we will explore the key features and examples (common and relevant examples only) of
experimental and quasi-experimental research designs. It also makes recommendations for how
experimental designs might best be applied and utilized within applied linguistics research.
Specifically, we will learn five common research designs used within experimental
and quasi-experimental research, highlighting their advantages and limitations with
a view to helping you select designs that are best suited to address your research
questions, while also taking into account constraints related to practicality and
feasibility.
Pretest–posttest design
The pretest–posttest control group design is probably the most common experimental
research design (Cook & Wong, 2008). In this design, the experimental group takes part in
some type of treatment or intervention, which can consist of single or multiple training sessions.
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The design also includes a pretest and a posttest, in which both the experimental and control
groups participate. The purpose of the pretest is to ensure the comparability of the two groups
prior to the treatment, whereas the posttest allows the researchers to determine the immediate
effects of the treatment on the outcome variable(s). In addition to the pretest and immediate
posttest, a delayed posttest or posttests are often included to examine the effects of the
treatment over the longer term. The inclusion of the control group enables researchers to
determine whether any observed changes from the pretest to the posttest in the experimental
group are the result of the experimental treatment or can be attributed to other influences such
as testing effects or maturation. As both experimental and the control group take the tests at
the same time, time-related confounds are minimized (Gravetter & Forzano, 2018).
Example:
Experiment: Peters and Webb (2018, Experiment 1) utilized an experimental pretest– posttest design to examine the
effect of TV viewing on the incidental learning of L2 vocabulary.
Design: the participants, Dutch learners of L2 English, were randomly assigned to either a
true control group (n = 27) or an experimental group (n = 36).
The experiment consisted of three sessions: a pretesting session (one week prior to treatment), the treatment session,
and a posttesting session (administered one week following treatment). The control group took part in the testing sessions
only. The experimental group, in addition to completing the pretest and posttest, participated in a treatment that included
viewing a TV program.
observations pre- and posttreatment (Kirk, 2009). The treatment may entail a single or multiple
treatment sessions. Whether involving a single or multiple trainings, the treatment can vary in
length, from including brief to extended sessions.
Experiment: Ishida (2004) utilized a time-series design to investigate the impact of recasting on development in the use of
the Japanese te-i-(ru) construction. Independent variable: presence versus absence of recasting Dependent variable:
accuracy in the use of the Japanese te-i-(ru) construction, as reflected in accuracy rates during oral performance
Design: the participants were four learners of L2 Japanese, who took part in eight 30-minute one-on-one conversation
sessions. The first two sessions served as the pretest, the middle four as the treatment, and the last two as the posttest.
Two participants also participated in a delayed posttest seven weeks after the last posttest. The treatment involved
providing recasts in response to errors in the use of the Japanese te i-(ru) construction.
Example:
Lambert, Kormos, and Minn (2017) used a Latin-square design to investigate the effects of task repetition on L2 oral
Source
fluency.Lambert et. al
Participants (2017)
carried out four different tasks, three monologue tasks, and an opinion dialogue task. To make
sure that the order of the tasks did not influence the results, the participants were randomly assigned to four groups.
Each group completed the four tasks in a different order following a Latin-square design as shown in the table below:
Latin-squares are also commonly employed when multiple versions of tests are included
in a study. For example, to avoid practice effects, studies with pretest–posttest- delayed
posttest designs often use three versions of all testing instruments, and these are typically
administered in a Latin-square design across participants in the testing sessions. Of course,
besides counterbalancing instruments, Latin-square designs can be applied in studies with the
primary goal of examining task- or test-order effects.
Example:
Rogers and Cheung (2018) investigated the impact of spacing on L2 vocabulary learning in an authentic classroom
setting.
Design: the participants were Cantonese primary school students of L2 English in four different intact classes. They
were taught half of the target vocabulary items under spaced-short conditions (one day between treatment sessions)
and half of the items under spaced-long conditions (eight days between treatment sessions). The items were
counterbalanced across the two treatment conditions. All participants took part in the pretest and posttest as well as
the treatment.
In this study, rather than assigning each of the four participating classes to a different
experimental condition (a feature of between – subject design), the researchers manipulated
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the independent variable within participants; that is, each class studied half of the target items
under one experimental condition and the other half under another experimental condition.
In Between – Subject Design, you divide the participants in groups and compare the results of the treatment; while in Within
– Subject Design, there is only one group of participants in which all of them are exposed to every treatment or condition.
Factorial design
Factorial designs include more than one independent variable; that is, factorial designs
are employed to investigate the effects of two or more independent variables on the dependent
variable. The independent variables in a factorial design are also referred to as factors. Factorial
designs allow researchers to examine not only the impact of each independent variable
separately but also the combined effects of the independent variables on the dependent
variable. The separate effects of the independent variables are described as main effects and
their combined effects are referred to as interaction effects. In factorial designs, a notation
system is used to denote the number of levels associated with each independent variable. For
instance, in a 2 × 3 design, there are two independent variables or factors: the first factor has
two levels and the second factor has three. Factorial designs can include between-participants
or within-participants factors only or can combine between- and within-participants factors.
Factorial designs that include both between-participants and within-participants factors are
usually described as mixed factorial designs.
Example:
Zalbidea (2017) provides a recent example of a study utilizing a factorial design. The researcher employed a
mixed 2 × 2 factorial design to examine the impact of task complexity and modality on L2 performance. The
two independent variables were task complexity, a within-participants factor, and modality (a between-
participants variable). As shown below, each of the two independent factors had two levels (task complexity:
simple versus complex; modality: written versus spoken). Task complexity was counterbalanced across
participants to avoid order effects. Through adopting a factorial design, Zalbidea was not only able to
examine the impact of modality and task complexity independently but also tease out how these independent
factors interacted in influencing task performance.
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Reporting
Finally, it is also worth considering what details to include when writing up an
experimental study. A general rule of thumb is that the description of the methodology should
be sufficiently detailed to enable replication. To achieve this, it is essential to include details
about the sampling procedures, the sample, the number and timing of the treatment and
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testing sessions (both duration and amount of time between sessions), the instruments used in
the treatment and testing sessions, and the steps and procedures followed. It is also important
to highlight how potential extraneous variables were controlled for. Although the importance of
detailed reporting is widely acknowledged in the field of applied linguistics, crucial
methodological details are often left unaccounted for in published research. For example,
published research studies often do not include information about the number and length of
treatment sessions and the amount of time separating them. Given that the frequency and
duration of treatment sessions and the interval between them has been shown to influence
learning and retention (Rogers, 2017), it is recommended that researchers include such details
when writing up reports on experimental research.
References:
Cresswell, J. & Cresswell J.D. (2018). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed
methods approaches (5th ed.). London, United Kingdonm: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Dornyei, Z. (2011). Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford
University Press.
Fraenkel, J.; Wallen, N. & Hyun, H. (2012). How to design and evaluate research in education
(8th ed.). New York, NY: The Mcgraw – Hill Companies.
Mckinley J. & Rose, H. (2020). The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Applied
Linguistics. New York, NY: Routledge.