ABSTRACT
Data are the essence of what second language researchers work with, but the question of where data come from is a complex one. This chapter deals with some common issues in data collection and discusses very small number of data collection methods. Second language research methods have their origins in research methods from other disciplines, notably linguistics, child language acquisition, sociology, and psychology. Because gathering cross-sectional data involves large numbers of subjects, there is typically an experimental format to the research, both in design and in analysis. Many studies do not involve actual language data, but rather deal with aspects of individuals—for example, aptitude, attitude, motivation, learning styles, and personality characteristics. Intuitional data are not limited to judgments of acceptability. Other means of obtaining judgments that reflect learners’ intuitions are preference judgments and rankings. Intuitional data come from participants being asked about their intuitions about whether a given sentence is grammatical in a certain language.
