Second Language Acquisition Research Methods
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SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION RESEARCH METHODS
INTRODUCTION
The field of second language acquisition (SLA) has grown significantly in recent years. Of the 20 plus journals (in English) concerned with topics of second and foreign language (L2) learning, for example, nearly a third were established in the past 15 years. The vast majority of these journals are devoted to empirical research, providing a forum for SLA researchers to present their findings on the linguistic, cognitive, social, contextual, psychological, and neurobiological characteristics of L2 learning and processing. Concomitantly, SLA research methods have been developed, expanded, and refined in an ongoing process as researchers investigate increasingly complex questions. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S
Since SLA first emerged as a serious field of inquiry in the 1960s, a wide variety of approaches have been used to investigate the process of learning a nonnative language. Early studies focused on differences, namely, areas of divergence between the first language (L1) and the L2 to predict areas of difficulty for L2 learners (e.g., contrastive analyses, and the work of Lado, 1964). Later, researchers focused more on purported universals of SLA, or those processes or capacities that were believed to underlie all L2 learning, regardless of the particular L2 being learned or the L1 background of the learner. Investigations in this area focused, for example, on the role of an innate language capacity (e.g., universal grammar and the work of Schachter, 1989) and on the fixed orders in which particular morphemes were acquired, irrespective of the L1 of the learner (e.g., the morpheme order studies, and the work of Dulay and Burt, 1974). Subsequently, the focus on language universals expanded to include cognitive mechanisms such as attention and awareness, working memory, and input processing strategies. At the same time, increased attention has been devoted to areas of individual differences—including personality, motivation, age, preferred language learning strategies, anxiety, gender, and even back to the role of the L1 in L2 learning. The vast majority of these studies have employed quantitative designs (as discussed by Lazaraton, 2005; Mackey and Gass, K. A. King and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 10: Research Methods in Language and Education, 99–111. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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REBEKHA ABBUHL AND ALISON MACKEY
2005), and it is to this form of empirical research that we turn in the next section. However, in recent years, alternative research designs, qualitative approaches, and even mixed method approaches have gained increased currency. These forms of research will also be addressed after our discussion of quantitative research. MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Quantitative Research Quantitative research, traditionally defined, refers to research that stresses the importance of large groups of randomly selected participants, manipulating variables within the participants’ immediate environment,
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