Читать книгу Research Methods in Language Teaching and Learning - Группа авторов - Страница 50

Qualitative research design provides researchers with the flexibility to make changes in their research procedures: they can change the scope of their research when it is necessary to collect different types of data using different data collection methods. This is based on the assumption that learning is context- and individual-dependent and it is difficult to anticipate issues that could emerge in a research study.

Given that grounded theory centers on research data as a means to develop theoretical hypotheses, it may not be appropriate to write specific research questions without interpreting any data. The mainstay of this assumption resides in the fact that researchers cannot anticipate what is worth investigating in a particular research context. Therefore, they should be flexible in their research scopes and need to acknowledge new issues that emerge from the data. Otherwise it could be difficult to develop hypotheses based on the data. With my supervisors, we took this perspective in writing the research questions.

Before data collection, I had one research question for Stage 1 (the reconnaissance phase): “What problems do Turkish EFL learners experience while speaking English?”; and one question for Stage 3 (developing a new idea): “In what ways is this action research procedure useful for providing students with opportunities to improve their speaking ability?” However, we were unable to anticipate what would happen during research interventions in which we implemented student negotiation and, therefore, we did not define the focus of our research. After collecting and interpreting the data collected in reconnaissance phase and during research interventions, we developed a new understanding of the constructs that seemed to discourage student participation in speaking activities. This knowledge allowed us to determine the focus of our research and write a further research question with five sub-questions: “In what ways does negotiation of activity types impact on students’ (a) perceptions of speaking ability, (b) classroom participation and performance, (c) anxiety level, (d) willingness to speak, and (e) self-esteem?”