ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses a number of issues related to designs and analyses in quantitative instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) research. Most phenomena addressed by ISLA research-explicit instruction, task complexity, linguistic knowledge, for example-are qualitative in nature; that is, most of the constructs we study are not inherently numeric. Designs in quantitative ISLA will be stronger and more likely to contribute in meaningful ways to L2 theory and practice with: larger samples; samples consisting of under-researched demographics; more pretesting; and more delayed post-testing. The chapter describes several methodological concerns that remain and that pose threats to our understanding of instructed L2 development. The chapter concludes with two brief sets of recommendations for future research. The first set concerns methodologically oriented studies, and the second set of recommendations is directed toward the work of primary researchers and is based on many of the principles of sound research practice.