Customer Reviews

The Research Manual: Design and Statistics for Applied Linguistics

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If you want to understand more about why second language researchers use certain statistical procedures rather than others, and how they go about it, then this book is a must for you. Divided into four parts, the main areas of focus are; i) planning a research project, ii) describing data, iii) comparing groups and iv) describing relationships. Part 1 deals with defining the research question, stating hypotheses and constructing research designs, as well as giving good advice on how to write the research proposal or report. Part 2 is a basic introduction to statistical concepts such as mean, standard deviation and z scores, and is written in a clear and logical style. Part 3 is a little heavy going at times, but the authors have a knack of being able to anticipate the reader's frustrations and go to good lengths to be made understood. T-tests and ANOVA in their various forms, and their non-parametric equivalents such as the signed rank test and Friedman are all covered in detail, with worked examples, as in the other parts of the book. Part 4 deals with correlation, such as chi-squared and Pearson, regression, and principal component analysis and factor analyis. In addition, the appendices contain lists of all the formulas and statistical tables you will ever need should you wish to compute by hand. This is a very thorough and useful book for anyone with an interest in linguistics, or for those who are contemplating doing their own second language research.

A complete guide to doing research in Applied Linguistics. Clear, consistent emphases on research as process and research as learning. As a real comprehension research manual, it presents research design and statistics models with real citations from original studies in the Applied Linguistics domain

This guide will be invaluable to anyone who is planning to do any quantitative research. All the examples are taken from the fields of applied linguistics or second language acquisition. However, the thoroughness and clarity of the writing make this a great book for anyone who is thinking about research design and statistical analysis. The authors do a great job of anticipating difficulties and tying new information to what's already been presented. The book is suitable as a textbook/workbook (exercises are integrated into the text) or as a reference book.

The only drawback is the layout. It looks like it was just typed up in a word processing program and then printed out with no thought to page boundaries or layout. However, the outstanding quality of the contents more than makes up for this minor inconvenience.