Observations, Case studies, Recordings

September 17, 2008

Human subjects research

ObservationsCase studies RecordingsExperimentsQuestionnairesInterviews

Before starting . . . IRB (Institutional Review Board) http://orca.byu.edu/IRB/

Human subjects research

For each type of HSR, we will examine

a. What it is/when to use it (with what kind of data)

b. How to use it (example studies using these methods)

c. Advantages and disadvantagea. observer’s paradox

b. data collection

c. data analysis

d. variable control

1. Observations

a. What are they/when to use them: "The collection of data without manipulating it: Simply

observe ongoing activities, without making any attempt to control or determine them"

When to use them:a. When the subjects are too young or too vulnerable to

get good data otherwiseb. When you really want to avoid the observer’s

paradoxc. Mostly used by sociolinguists/L1 and L2 acquisition

researchers examining behavior in social situations (conversation analyses, pronunciation differences, classroom behavior, children at play)

1. Observations

b. How to use them/previous studies:

3 types:

a. Non-participant observations (speech errors, comments in classrooms, Oprah study, FLSR)

b. Participant observations (jocks and burnouts, children play time)

c. Covert observations (street and shtreet, might could, fourth floor, help desk at ASB)

1. Observations

b. How to use them/previous studies:

General methodology:Different environments yield different data (e.g. slips of the

tongue) Make notes on environmental variables (time of day,

number in group, what doing, male/female, etc) If possible, decide what you want to examine, make a tally

sheet for easy analysis

Observations Example

Goldin-Meadow (1982) and Judy Kiegel: Looked at children in Nicaraugua who grew up in a school for deaf children—were not allowed to learn sign language—but still developed sign language together

Goldin-Meadow (1997) looked at children in Nicaraugua who develop their own sign language—the language looks very similar across all the children

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3922325http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/2/l_072_04.html

1. Observations

c. advantages/disadvantages

Advantages:

Disadvantages:

2. Case studies

a. What are they/when to use them: Case studies involve observing one or more individuals (but

usually very few) over an extended period of time

When to use them: Longitudinal studies (sign language study)Individual circumstances (Paradis aphasia victims)Complex phenomena/interesting cases (Christopher)Can use in: L1, L2 Speech impediments / aphasia-stroke / speech therapists

2. Case studies

b. How to use them (example, Genie, Christopher)

Hopefully someone you know and who feels comfortable with you (often researchers use their children)

Treat the subject with respect Create baseline and measure from there Measure often and the same thing over and over againTend to collect a lot of data, then sort through to determine

what is important

Case Study Example: Christopher

(Neil Smith, 1995)

Non-verbal IQ of 60

Cannot tie shoes or live on his own

Can speak 16 different languages.

Learned Dutch on the way to an talk show interview through reading a book

Learned Hindi from brother-in-law—just by listening to him speak

http://www.uga.edu/lsava/Smith/Christopher1PD.movhttp://www.uga.edu/lsava/Smith/Christopher1.html

2. Case studies

c. Advantages:

Disadvantages:

3. Recordings

a. What are they/when to use them:Note: Ethical question on recordings (book says OK, but

US / IRB issues)observations/case studies/interviews pronunciation:

ethnic influence foreigner talk first language acquisition

vocabulary: frequency of usage regionalisms

conversation analysis

3. Recordings

b. How to use them

Practical considerations:Audio only or audio and video? What kind of recorder/microphone? (analog or digital?) Problems with subjects wanting/being able to record Identifying speakers Quiet place, no kids running around, traffic

New technologies:Recording from Internet (e.g. BBC or regional English): Replay A/V For transcripts only, can sometimes get these on Web: e.g. CNN, NPR,

movie scripts PodCasting, etc

3. Recordings

c. Advantages/disadvantages

Advantages

Disadvantages

3. Recordings

Examples of Recordings

Linguistic Data Consortium: Membership, collects corpora, used by programmers, speech recognition-transcribed orthographically, phonetically, time stamp. Examples:

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Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English