Designing, running and reporting experiments

obligatory courses

Classroom

The aim of this course is to provide students with practical knowledge concerning the ways in which different experiments can be prepared and run. Students will discover different methodologies based on case studies and papers reporting experimental research in linguistics. They will identify key points and learn how to adopt the reviewed research paradigms to their own needs. The types of experiments viewed in detail will depend on the research interests of the students and will include standard techniques, such as rating tasks, lexical decision tasks, matched guise and priming studies using such measures as accuracy, reaction times, eye movements, pupil dilation, and event-related potentials.

The aim of this course is to provide students with practical knowledge concerning the ways in which different experiments can be prepared and run. Students will discover different methodologies based on case studies and papers reporting experimental research in linguistics. They will identify key points and learn how to adopt the reviewed research paradigms to their own needs. The types of experiments viewed in detail will depend on the research interests of the students and will include standard techniques, such as rating tasks, lexical decision tasks, matched guise and priming studies using such measures as accuracy, reaction times, eye movements, pupil dilation, and event-related potentials.

The course will take the form of a workshop. Students will be looking at case studies and experiments conducted by researchers in different subdisciplines of linguistics, psycho-, neuro- and sociolinguistics.

In each case, we will discuss study design and piloting, the choice of methodology and analysis type, the procedure and implementation, the presentation of results (including proper visualisation), as well as their interpretation and theoretical implications.

Field, A., & Hole, G. (2003). How to Design and Report Experiments. Sage Publications.

Grant, T., Clark, U., Reershemius, G., Pollard, D., Hayes, S., & Plappert, G. (2017). Quantitative Research Methods for Linguists: a questions and answers approach for students. Routledge.

Johnson, K. (2008). Quantitative Methods in Linguistics. Wiley-Blackwell.

Knowledge: the graduate knows and understands:

-in-depth, specialized terminology in the fields of theoretical linguistics, corpus linguistics, neuroscience

-in-depth, the main directions of development and contemporary research trends in lexperimental inguistics

-in-depth, research methods used in: psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, corpus linguistics, digital linguistics and text linguistics, as well as statistical models

Skills: the graduate is able to:

-use in-depth theoretical and practical knowledge to carry out research work and solve complex problems in experimental linguistics using appropriate methodology

-to an in-depth degree, search, analyze, evaluate and select information in the native language and foreign languages

-use advanced research tools of linguistics and select research methods appropriately to the problems undertaken

-use in-depth knowledge of linguistics through the selection and appropriate application of modern information and communication technology (including statistical analysis) when working with research data

-use in-depth knowledge of research methodologies used in modern linguistics to plan and carry out a methodologically correct scientific study, as well as to analyze its results and identify implications

Social competences: the graduate is ready to:

-recognize the importance of the latest linguistic knowledge and critically evaluate research in experimental linguistics, especially studies published in scientific journals and monographs and popular science sources.

We will be working in groups. Students will be assigned readings and assignments consisting in finding studies illustrating or investigating particular problems / research designs, and jointly analysing and reporting on them in class.

Short quizzes on the Kampus platform will evaluate readings.

One final group project will be prepared by students in written form and graded separately.

Graded components:

20% - class participation and attendance

40% - in-class group assignments, readings and quizzes

40% - final written group assignment

Grading system:

5 91-100%

4.5 81-90%

4 71-80%

3.5 61-70%

3 51-60%

2 50% and less