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HOW TO DESCRIBE THE METHOD OF RESEARCH

 

The method section describes the steps you followed in conducting your study and the materials you used at each step. The method section is useful to readers who want to know how the methodology of your study may have influenced your results, or who are interested in replicating or extending the study. In this unit we will look at:

· the general kinds of information included in method section;

· description of the materials and some ways to integrate it with procedural description;

· recommendations for writing clear paragraphs

 

Information Conventions

This section has to be thoroughly prepared and presented because, from what you write here, readers must be able to replicate an identical investigation or series of tests. The main part of the method section is a description of the procedural steps used in your study and the materials employed at each step. However, other elements are commonly described in this section as well.

 

Read the following selection fromthe field of educational psychology; notice the elements that have been included in the method section and order in which the information is presented

 

AUDITORY COMPREHENSION OF ENGLISH BY MONOLINGUAL

AND BILINGUAL PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

Method

 

overview A bilingual group and a monolingual group, each comprised of 30 children, were compared. ln each group there were six subjects at
sample each of five different age levels. The subjects were selected from seven day care centers in Houston.
restrictions These centers accept only children from below poverty threshold; thus, comparable socioeconomic status among the test subjects was insured.
sampling technique The bilingual subjects were selected from the 99 Mexican-American children in a previous study (Carrow, 1971) on the basis of performance at age mean or above in both languages on a test of auditory comprehension. This criterion was employed to assure basic understanding of both languages.
materials The test instrument employed in this study was a revised version of the Auditory Test for Language Comprehension (Carrow, 1968), which permits the assessment of oral language comprehension of English and Spanish without requiring language expression. lt consists of a set of 114 plates, each of which contains three black and white line drawings representing 15 grammatical categories.
procedure Both groups were tested by the same examiner, a Mexican-American fluent in both languages. The children were brought individually to a test area where they engaged in spontaneous conversation. For the bilingual children, conversations were conducted in English and Spanish to determine the language in which each child appeared more fluent. Each bilingual subject was tested first in the language in which he demonstrated less fluency so that learning would not be a significant factor in subsequent performance when the test was administered again in the second language. The test required the child to indicate his response by pointing to the picture which corresponded to the examiner’s utterance. A score of one was given for each item passed. Test administration required 30 to 45 minutes in each language for each child.
statistical treatment A 2 x 5 analysis of variance was used to test for age and language group differences.

(Weissberg. & Buker, 1990, p. 91)



  1. What elements other than procedures and materials did the author include in this section?
  2. Why do you think the author chose to order the elements in this way?
  3. Did you find the procedural description clear and easy to understand?

The elements included in the method section and the order in which they are presented are not fixed. However, the following list is conventional and may provide you with a good model.

 

INFORMATION ELEMENTS INCLUDED IN METHOD (AND MATERIAL) SECTION

 

  1. Overview of the Experiment.
  2. Population/Sample (when humans are the participants, report sampling technique, restrictions, major demographic characteristics; describe the group specifically).
  3. Procedures(the best way to describe a procedure is step-by-step or chronologically).
  4. Materials(laboratory equipment, surveys, questionnaires, tests, computer and mathematical models).

The description of the steps you followed in conducting your study should be written clearly so that a reader in your field could accurately replicate the procedure.

If the materials you used are well known to researchers in your field, it is conventional to identify them only. However, if you used speciallydesigned or unconventional materials in your experiment, it is common to write a detailed description of them in the report.

It is conventional to divide the ‘Method’ section into labeled subsections. These usually include descriptions of the participants (subjects), materials, procedure and others. Remember, that the ‘Method’ (or ‘Method and Material’) section should tell the reader what you did and how you did it in sufficient detail so that a reader could reasonably replicate your study.

 


Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1198


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