Appraising Research in Second Language Learning: A practical approach to critical analysis of quantitative research

This book is written to guide student and novice researchers through their critical reading of a research paper in the field of second language learning.My aim is to help these readers relate the basic knowledge they acquire during introductory courses on investigation in applied linguistics to their own independent reading of research papers. They will be shown ways of approaching the appraisalof the abstract and the introductory section of the study, both of which set the stage by describing the rationale as well as the objective of the work. Similarly, the reader will be given ideas about how to assess the method and procedures section so that he or she can decide, for example, whether the research design was appropriate, and what precautions were taken to guard against threats of validity to the findings.