Category: research

Uses of concordancing are more talked about than tested

It is often noted that the various educational uses of concordancing are more talked about than tested with real learners. Possibly this is because while the concordancing idea is promising, principled, and increasingly practical, trials with learners have often seemed too inclusive for publication. The choices at this point would seem to be either to abandon the idea of learner concordancing, or else to work on a database of approaches, interfaces, and learner behaviours within a research-and-development perspective. We are clearly advocating the latter.

Delian Gaskell, Thomas Cobb, Can learners use concordance feedback for writing errors?, System, Volume 32, Issue 3, September 2004, Pages 301-319

Research methods are very often seen as distinct from the knowledge they aim to develop

In many undergraduate courses in social sciences, the acquisition of the necessary knowledge and skills to carry out research is separated artificially from the process of learning the substantive content of the discipline. The widespread existence of courses on research methods is testament to this, and while courses on theoretical issues or substantive areas of a discipline may treat the ways in which empirical enquiry proceeds as intrinsic to the knowledge being discussed, this is by no means the rule. Thus research methods are very often seen as distinct from the knowledge they aim to develop; sometimes the distinction becomes a deep gulf. For the many researchers initially trained in this way, the idea that comparison and control are the basic building blocks of research design will be much less familiar, and our emphasis on the inseparability of theory, concept and method may even seem novel.
Frank Bechhofer & Lindsay Paterson. 2000.
Principles of Research Design in the Social Sciences. Routledge.

Research methods are very often seen as distinct from the knowledge they aim to develop

In many undergraduate courses in social sciences, the acquisition of the necessary knowledge and skills to carry out research is separated artificially from the process of learning the substantive content of the discipline. The widespread existence of courses on research methods is testament to this, and while courses on theoretical issues or substantive areas of a discipline may treat the ways in which empirical enquiry proceeds as intrinsic to the knowledge being discussed, this is by no means the rule. Thus research methods are very often seen as distinct from the knowledge they aim to develop; sometimes the distinction becomes a deep gulf. For the many researchers initially trained in this way, the idea that comparison and control are the basic building blocks of research design will be much less familiar, and our emphasis on the inseparability of theory, concept and method may even seem novel.
Frank Bechhofer & Lindsay Paterson. 2000.
Principles of Research Design in the Social Sciences. Routledge.