Computer room lesson for Mon(E)/Fri(A) and ongoing work - Methodologies and data collection

Independents,

I will be on a course on Tuesday, so see below for the work I would like you to do (the register will be marked E so you don't need to sign anything or attend) and over the holiday.

For the normal computer room lesson:

Finally choose your hypothesis and how you will test it.

Write your methodology in note form, taking into account the following:

• State your hypothesis first and explain the theory basis if necessary (this will go in your intro eventually, not your methodology, but I will need to know it) e.g. The interrogatives used by the caregiver will have an impact on the child's language (Bruner and Vygotski's ideas about social interaction)
• Explain what kind of data you will collect (be as specific as possible) and how it will help you to test the hypothesis e.g. three transcripts showing a dialogue between the caregiver and child in child-led tasks - this will allow me to see how the caregiver uses interrogatives and how/whether that technique structures the task and the child's responses
• Under the relevant sub-headings, deal with the three key factors from the green booklet to show your sophisticated considerations of the problems and how to solve them - reliability will be the most important factor in such a small-scale investigation and ethicality may not be an issue in public data - say so if that is the case. e.g. ethicality: I will get full, informed consent from the caregiver and all participants over the age of consent (using initial verbal consent and then a form explaining the use of the data and the participants' right to withdraw their permission)  and ensure that the recordings do not impact on the child's usual activities by having the caregiver record when the activity is already decided upon; comparability: I will ensure that the same caregiver and child are used, that all the dialogues are child-led as far as it is possible to ascertain this, that (where other participants are involved) any uncomparable sections of data are disregarded, that the context is the same as far as possible (home environment - although time of the day and day of the week will vary due to necessity of getting child-led dialogues, and the age of the child will need consideration as they develop so quickly at this age); reliability: longer transcripts and more of them are desirable (3 transcripts of >3 minutes seems a reasonable anmount of data for an investigation of this size), as averages will be less affected by anomalies, but the small amount of data means the effect of possible anomalies will need to be considered, especially when comparing the transcripts rather than using averages across them, and contextual factors will need close consideration when trying to determine how reliable each piece of data is.
• If you need to establish a protocol for what you will include in your testing and what you won't, draft one now, although it might go in your final analysis rather than your methodology

Get my help urgently if you need to ask permission to record natural speech or access private data e,g, someone's letters or diaries, someone's Facebook data if the expectation is that only friends will see it etc.

You will need to get me to check your methodology and any letters and forms urgently before you collect your data. Post the methodology to your blog asap and email me any permissions letters and informed consent forms. This will not be the marked draft which I will take after you have collected the data so it is accurate; this one is just for me to check you have made good choices and considered problems and issues.

The methodology should be completed by the end of the computer room lesson so, on Tuesday, I want you to use JSTOR (accessed via the LRC Moodle page), emagazine (logon info on our Moodle page in the top box (Course info) and any other sources of academic reading (the LRC if you are in college - find our Language shelf) to flesh out your theory reading for your investigation - you are looking for any theory that might be relevant, even if it is not the focus of your investigation e.g. if you are looking at gendered language, you could look at power or dialect theories to see where they might be relevant. Make good notes and keep a Harvard referenced bibliography - revision sites don't look good on that, so research from reputable sources like the ones I mention above. Blog a quick summary of the ideas you have found that could be relevant.

Then the next task is to collect your data by the end of the holiday (unless you are collecting natural speech and can't finish doing it by then). You must ensure I have commented that your methodology is okay. Email me if you haven't heard by Fri 21st with the relevant blog link.