disciplines, including ESL/EFL teachers, in sustaining and enhancing their expertise. Her recent publications focus on language and literacy teachers’ online learning presence (Pawan et al., 2021), and the engagement and motivation of online learners (Pawan, 2021).
Hilal Peker (PhD, University of Central Florida, 2016) is the Federal Projects Coordinator at the Bureau of Federal Educational Programs of Florida Department of Education. She is also a professor of TESOL and teaches a wide variety of courses at Florida State University, Framingham State University, and Saint Leo University. Her research interests include inclusive dual-language immersion programs, reconceptualized L2 motivational self-system (R-L2MSS), bullying-victimization, L2 identity, simulation technology, and teacher training.
Ari Sherris is an Associate Professor of Bilingual Education. He has published peer-reviewed edited volumes with John Benjamins, Routledge, and Multilingual Matters that include his own empirical scholarship and theory on teaching children to write in Indigenous languages; social semiotics and complexity theory; and conceptual metaphors, among other topics. He has planned and facilitated workshops for language educators in Ghana, Israel, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, and the USA.
Olcay Sert is Professor of English Language Education at Mälardalen University, Sweden. His work focuses on classroom discourse, L2 interaction, and language teacher education. He is the editor of Classroom Discourse, an international peer-reviewed journal published by Routledge. His book Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) was shortlisted for the BAAL Book Prize in 2016 and became a finalist for the AAAL first book award in 2017.
Kara L. Sutton-Jones serves as a Research Specialist III on Project Virtually-Infused Collaborations for Teaching and Learning Opportunities for Rural Youth: Implementation and Evaluation of Online and Face-to-Face Delivery in High-Needs Schools (VICTORY) in the Center for Research & Development in Dual Language & Literacy Acquisition at Texas A&M University. Her research interests include dual language/bilingual education, teacher professional development, and educational policy, especially as it impacts English learners.
Fuhui Tong is Professor of Bilingual and ESL education and the Head of the Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University. She serves as Co-Director of the Center for Research & Development in Dual Language & Literacy Acquisition. Her research interests include research design and quantitative methodology in bilingual/ESL education, second language and literacy development and assessment, and program evaluation in educational research with bilingual populations.
Mehmet Sercan Uztosun is an associate professor of TESOL and teacher educator at English language–teaching department at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey. His research interests include psychological issues related to teaching and learning English as a foreign language, particularly the development of speaking skills. He is also interested in teacher competence, teacher self-efficacy, self-regulation, and extramural English.
Chaoran Wang is a Multilingual Writing Specialist & Assistant Professor of Writing at Colby College. She holds a PhD in Literacy, Culture, & Language Education from Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests include second language writing, technology-enhanced language learning, and teacher identity and professional development.
Mark Wyatt is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Khalifa University in the UAE. His research has focused on language teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, mentoring, reflective practice, teacher cognition, teacher motivation, in-service English language teacher education and practitioner research. He has published various academic articles and book chapters in these areas.
Introduction to Research Methods in Language Teaching and Learning
Kenan Dikilitaş and Kate Mastruserio Reynolds
We offer you this edited volume that covers a range of research methods commonly employed in applied linguistics to better understand second language teaching and learning. The purpose of this guided how-to handbook is to explain and demonstrate the research methodologies in authentic contexts, so readers can glimpse the processes and choices made when conducting various types of research. Not only descriptive, but also narrative in nature, it includes researchers’ lived experiences in addition to explanations of research methodologies. These perspectives are rarely mentioned in research methods texts; the lack of which often causes novice researchers to question themselves during the research process. These researchers’ narratives also situate the research they have conducted in real contexts, which represents a valuable contribution to the readers’ awareness and knowledge of how to do research using a particular methodology. Because of these perspectives, this text is unique and the research approachable. We hope that through the presentation of situated-research narratives that explain the researchers’ process of doing and finalizing research and the rationale behind their intentions and decisions will make undertaking and conducting research more motivating and less daunting.
The chapters are composed with meta-narrative writing styles. Chapters include qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods paradigms as well as two systematic reviews. In their chapters, the authors refer to and reflect on a published study by synthesizing, framing, and explaining the methodology and methods they adopted. Therefore, the chapters reflect the real-world application of a particular methodology. The authors also elaborate on the challenges they experienced while conducting research and publishing it, which exemplifies what challenges could be faced if a methodologically similar study is carried out, as well as solutions to challenges. Methodological weaknesses or strengths of research are also critically expressed with evaluative language.
Research Methods in Language Teaching and Learning
Research is one of the fundamental means of generating empirical, evidence-based knowledge to inform pedagogies and practices. Research methods employ multiple data collection tools, and methods of analysis to arrive at conclusions that may either be generalized to other contexts, or confined to narrower contexts with unique interpretations, but with implications for other contexts. In the past, research was believed to be solely quantitative, relying on statistical analysis of data; in recent decades, educational research has increasingly embraced qualitative analysis, primarily based on what participants expressed or narrated, rather than what they graded, scaled, ranked, or rated. While the former offers quantified results for levels, degrees, scores, correlation, and relation represented in numerical values, the latter reveals processes, factors, qualities, relationships, and roles represented by verbal quotations. Quantitative research explores previously identified theories and hypotheses; qualitative research allows researchers to explore how individuals or groups interact in various contexts in order to generate theories. Furthermore, educational researchers have resorted to other uniquely applicable research methodologies, such as conversation analysis, corpus analysis, and systematic review, to pinpoint answers to specific questions and conundrums in applied linguistics.
The concept of research has evolved over time and become more robust as a result of innovative methods of data collection and analysis. These methods illuminate statistically significant relationships among variables through quantitative designs or insightful understandings of issues, relationships, or phenomena through qualitative studies. In all disciplines, potential development is achieved through research. Without experiments, how can we have medicines? All medicines are tested, and their effects are measured over time before being recommended for public use. All educational designs we implement are introduced as a result of research in classrooms with stakeholders. Humans constantly need to engage in research to generate new knowledge to inform all areas of life including health, behavior, communication, learning, art, and industry. Without new knowledge and without continuously implementing new ways of doing things, progress is barely possible. Research is therefore key to human development, regardless of the discipline. No discipline can thrive without the appropriate research practices.
Much like working closely with a dedicated research mentor or sitting with a professional