ABSTRACT

Replication is both a much-neglected and much-needed feature of AL research. This need is not so much to enable us to generalize from previous studies but because AL research has typically sought to accumulate knowledge in a somewhat haphazard fashion – rather than organize and construct it by consciously building upon this previous work. The conclusion one might reasonably draw from such a modus operandi was that previous studies were not flawed to a sufficient degree, nor did they contain sufficient error that need worry us. We saw ourselves somehow sanctioned, therefore, to move on from earlier work and extend our related research into new contexts without further detailed attention to what had gone on previously.