Читать книгу Introduction to Experimental Linguistics - Sandrine Zufferey - Страница 16

The last essential characteristic of experimental research concerns the way in which data is analyzed. Experimental research aims to collect quantitative data that can be statistically analyzed. As we will see in Chapter 7, quantitative data can be described using different indicators, such as the mean, for example. Based on these descriptive indicators, it is possible to obtain an overview of the data collected, to summarize and illustrate them, in order to communicate the results with simplicity.

At the second stage, data is used to draw conclusions about the research hypotheses. In experimental linguistics, the aim is to study and understand a linguistic phenomenon for a specific population. Since it is impossible to test an entire population, researchers collect data from a representative sample. Through the use of inferential statistics, it is possible to determine whether the results of a particular sample are applicable to the whole population. This process is called generalization.