Tècniques experimentals i d'observació
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31372 - Tècniques experimentals i d'observació Curs: 2014-15
1. Course Presentation This course is an introduction to experimental research methods in applied (psycho) linguistics. It introduces the main experimental research methods and data collection techniques used in present-day linguistics research. It focuses on the treatment of extemporaneous language production and the design and analysis of on-line and off-line tasks in linguistic data collection. The main objective of the course is to provide students with the necessary knowledge to be able to select the appropriate empirical research methods and to implement them for research in linguistics. It will also provide students with basic practical knowledge of statistics applied to the analysis of linguistic data, especially in the domain of speech perception and production.
2. Objectives Students in this course will: ● Gain basic knowledge of the main experimental research methods and data collection techniques used in the investigation of first and second language processing in children and adults. ● Gain understanding of the design of speech processing tasks in experimental research. ● Learn to critically assess research methods in experimental research. ● Learn to formulate research questions and create an experimental research designs. ● Learn to interpret statistics in empirical research articles. ● Learn to use basic statistical techniques and tests to explore relationships between variables and to establish causal relationships between variables in empirical research. ● Learn how to report statistics in scientific academic writing.
3. Syllabus This course is organized into 10 3-hour sessions with the following contents: 1. Introduction to experimental research methods. Types of research. Reliability and validity in research. Basic steps in research design. Formulating research questions. Different types of research designs: type of data, variables, populations and data collection techniques. 2a. From experiments to data analysis. Introduction to statistics and SPSS. Preliminary methodological issues. Measures and types of data for analysis. Data coding and data management. Variable types: Nominal / Ordinal / Scale (Interval / Ratio). Basic concepts in statistics: mean, median, standard deviation, distribution. Types of statistical analysis: Parametric / Non-Parametric. Data pre-processing. Data processing in SPSS. Getting to know how SPSS works: basic usage, typing in data, importing data, creating and calculating new variables. 2b. Data analysis using SPSS. Descriptive statistics: how to obtain descriptives. Use of tables and graphs. Assessing normality of distribution. Types of data analysis. 3a. Exploring relationships between variables: correlational analyses. 3b. T-tests. 4. Analisis of variance (ANOVAs): one-way, factorial, repeated measures. 5. Analisis of variance (ANOVAs): mixed between-within designs. 6. Experimental methods in speech perception. Behavioral Methods in Speech Perception: Categorical Perception, Monitoring, Gating & Lexical Decision tasks. Eye tracking methods. 7. Experimental methods in infant research. General considerations about infants research methods. High Amplitude Sucking. Visual orientation methods: Orientation latencies, preferential looking, Switch design, Listening while looking. Infant lab visit (http://cbclab.upf.edu/?q=en/node/48) 8. Experimental methods in language production. 9. Cognitive neuroscience methods. 10. Oral presentation session (attendance is obligatory for non-presenters)
4. Assessment The final grade for this course will be obtained by adding up the marks obtained for each one of the following tasks: 1. Class assignments (20%) - Analysis of research methods in published experimental studies. - Written methods section of a research design proposal. - Basic data management exercises in SPSS. - Statistical results in experimental research: interpreting main effects and interactions.
2. Data analysis tasks (30%) - Answer research questions based on a given data set by performing basic inferential statistical tests in SPSS and reporting the results.
3. Critical assessment of a study employing experimental research methods* (50%) (1) Oral presentation of a summary of a research article reporting on a study using experimental methods. 10 minutes (5-7 min presentation + 3-5 min questions) (2) Written report of the research article in (1) with a special focus on the methods: 10 pages max. (Times New Roman size 12, double-spaced) *A list of selected studies will be made available to students in due time.
5. Methods and activities This course combines teacher-led classes on practical methodological issues concerning experimental research with extensive hands-on practice in the analysis of methodological approaches to experimental research and in the statistical analysis of linguistic data. By the end of the course students will have learned to critically evaluate an experimental research design and will be able to carry out basic statistical analyses on real language data. The activities include the reading and discussion of research articles illustrating various experimental methods in language research, regular guided homework on statistics based on a real linguistic data sets, and an oral presentation of a summary of a published research article.
6. References Field, A. (2013) Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (4th ed). London: Sage. Gass, S. M. and Mackey, A. (2007) Data elicitation for second and foreign language research. New York: Routledge. Gazzaniga, M., Heatherton, T. & Halpern, D. (eds.) (2011) (4th ed) Psychological Science. New York: WW Norton. Kormos, J. (2006). Speech Production and Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Larson-Hall, J. (2010) A Guide to Doing Statistics in Second Language Research Using SPSS. New York: Taylor & Francis. Larson-Hall, J., & Herrington, R. (2010). Improving data analysis in second language acquisition by utilizing modern developments in applied statistics. Applied Linguistics 31(3), 368-390. McDonough, K., & Trofimovich, P. (2008). Using priming methods in second language research. New York: Routledge. Pallant, J. (2010) The SPSS Survival Guide (5th ed). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Segalowitz, N. (2010). Cognitive Basis of Second Language Fluency. New York: Routledge. Trofimovich, P., & McDonough, K. (Eds.). (2011). Insights from psycholinguistics: Applying priming research to L2 learning and teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ward, J. (2006). The student's guide to cognitive neuroscience. New York: Psychology Press. |