研究方法与论文写作PartIIIThesisWriting-Methodology.ppt

Welcome to the Course,Research Methods and Thesis Writing,Liu Liyan March 2011,Contents,Thesis Writing,An Overview of Thesis Writing,How many aspects does the body fall into? -Five parts (or five chapters) (1) Introduction (2) Literature review (3) Methodology (4) Results (5) Conclusion,Body Part,A general remark about Methodology: The Methodology chapter presents a detailed description of the way your proposed study is conducted. The description should be explicit, transparent and sufficiently detailed (清晰，明了，详实）. By reading this chapter, the reader can easily visualize your research process and replicate your study if he/she whishes to. (读者可以详细了解整个研究过程，也可以根据所描述的程序，重复此项研究) It is easy to write this part, compared to a literature review, however, it is difficult to meet the requirements of explicitness, transparency and sufficiency in detail.,Describing Methodology 撰写研究方法,Describing Methodology,Major components (主要内容） 1. Introduction 2. General and specific research questions / hypotheses 研究问题或研究假设 3. Information about subjects 研究对象 4. Instruments 研究工具 5. Data-collection 数据收集程序 6. Data-analysis 数据分析程序 7. Limitations 研究的局限性,How to describe the methodology chapter in different designs? As we know, a study may employ the design of a survey study, or an experimental study, or a case study, or a combination. Regardless of the research design, the headings or components are the same for the description of each design but with different content (但是描述每个研究设计的标题基本相同). What if a study employs two different types of design? In such a case, a common practice is to describe the two designs separately. That is, you may have two sections or two chapters: one section/chapter on the survey study and the other on a case study.,Describing Methodology,Lets discuss the writing of each component, while taking into account the differences in describing different types of design. 1. Introduction paragraph The chapter begins with an introductory paragraph in which the specification of research design is followed by an overall description of the organization of this section/chapter. (研究方法的引言简要介绍研究设计和这一章的总体框架） What is the length of this introduction paragraph on research design? -Only one or two short sentences. For example:,Describing Methodology,Writing Introduction to your research design 撰写研究方法中的引言,“为了弄清学习策略与专业英语四级考试成绩之间的关系， 本研究对来自5所大学的300名英语专业的学生进行了问卷调查。” (P.275) 也可以这样写： “本研究使用问卷调查的方式来探索使用语言学习策略与外语成绩之间的关系。” The general organization is a sort of an advance organizer (先行组织/前导组织）that prepare readers for what is to follow. You may describe the organization in terms of the first-level headings without the need to provide detailed content within each subheading. 写总体框架的目的是让读者了解这一章的大致情况，其描述只限于第一层次的标题(一级标题），不必提供详细内容（不必介绍到二级标题）。,Research questions and hypothesis,2. General/Specific research questions/hypothesis 总的/具体的研究问题或假设 In this section, all the general questions are presented together with the specific questions. If you have formed hypotheses instead of questions, then, you should list all the hypotheses. What is the purpose of writing this section? This section serves two purposes. The first is to give the reader clear information about what questions the study is intended to address (目的一是让读者了解要研究的问题；,Research questions and hypothesis,What is the purpose of writing this section? The second is to provide a framework for the Result Chapter (第二是为后面“研究结果和讨论”这一章提供框架). Note 1: All the questions appearing in this section need to be answered in the Results Chapter. Problems with graduate students: They often forget to refer to what has been written in this section when they write the Results Chapter. As a result, the Results Chapter does not cover all the questions ，or the order of questions presented is not the same as that in this section (报告研究结果与研究问题的顺序也不一致）.,Research questions and hypothesis,Note 2: Tense and Wording in this section Different from the other sections in this Chapter (Method chapter), all the questions /hypotheses are stated in the present tense rather than in the past tense; The wording in question (研究问题中的措辞）should be clear and precise, and each question should address one issue. Why are the questions / hypotheses in this section, quite often, not the same as were developed at the beginning of your research? The reasons are various. First, data may be analyzed and reanalyzed many times before the you are satisfied.,e.g. your hypothesis may be that “there is no relationship b.t. risk-taking and L2 achievement”. The result could not rejected the null hypothesis (你的研究结果证明不能排除零假设). Then you choose age as a moderator variable (调节变量）to make a further analysis. Accordingly, you add one more question in this section, i.e. “Is the relationship b.t. risk-taking and L2 achievement affected by age? What is the alternative way to the problem? In another case, you may delete one or two research questions developed earlier simply because you realized there would