Essential Statistics for Applied Linguistics

173 Pages·2012·2.649 MB·English

by  Wander Lowie, Bregtje Seton

ESSENTIAL STATISTICS FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Also by the authors
Kees de Bot, Wander Lowie and Marjolijn Verspoor, Second Language
Acquisition: An Advanced Resource Book
Marjolijn Verspoor, Kees de Bot and Wander Lowie (eds), A Dynamic
Approach to Second Language Development: Methods and Techniques
Monika Schmid and Wander Lowie (eds), Modeling Bilingualism: From
Structure to Chaos
Essential Statistics for
Applied Linguistics
Wander Lowie
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
University of the Free State, South Africa
and
Bregtje Seton
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
© Wander Lowie and Bregtje Seton 2013
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identifi ed as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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ISBN 978–0–230–30481–9
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Contents
List of Tables ix
List of Figures xi
Preface xiii
PART I THE BASICS
1. Types of Research 3
1.1 Introduction 3
1.2 Hypothesis generating vs hypothesis testing 4
1.3 Description vs explanation 7
1.4 Non-experimental vs experimental 8
1.5 Process research vs product research 10
1.6 Longitudinal vs cross-sectional 11
1.7 Case studies vs group studies 12
1.8 Qualitative vs quantitative 13
1.9 In situ/naturalistic research vs laboratory research 14
1.10 The approaches taken in this book 16
2. Systematicity in Statistics: Variables 17
2.1 Introduction 17
2.2 Research design 17
2.3 Why do we need statistics? 18
2.4 Variables and operationalization 19
3. Descriptive Statistics 25
3.1 Introduction 25
3.2 Describing datasets: means and dispersion 25
3.3 A different view on variability 30
3.4 Frequency distributions 31
4. Statistical Logic 39
4.1 Introduction 39
4.2 The chance of making the wrong decision 39
vi Contents
4.3 Statistical decisions 43
4.4 Degrees of freedom 46
4.5 Parametric and non-parametric statistics 46
4.6 Checking assumptions 47
4.7 Alpha and beta 48
5. Doing Statistics: From Theory to Practice 51
5.1 Operationalization 51
5.2 Forming hypotheses 52
5.3 Selecting a sample 52
5.4 Data collection 54
5.5 Setting the level of signifi cance 55
5.6 Statistics 55
5.7 Interpretation of the data 56
5.8 Reliability of outcome 57
6. Common Statistics for Applied Linguistics 59
6.1 Introduction 59
6.2 Comparing groups 59
6.3 Assessing relations 65
6.4 Analysing frequencies 72
6.5 Doing statistics 74
7. Conclusion 77
7.1 Statistical dangers and limitations 77
7.2 Validity and reliability 77
7.3 Meaningful outcomes 79
7.4 Statistics and the real world 80
Notes 81
References 83
PART II HOW TO SPSS
1. How to Do Descriptive Statistics 87
2. How to Check Assumptions 91
3. How to Do a t-test 95
4. How to Do a One-way ANOVA 101
5. How to Do a Two-way ANOVA 107
6. How to Do a Correlation Analysis 113
Contents vii
7. How to Do a Simple Regression Analysis 117
8. How to Do a Chi-square Analysis 121
PART III SPSS PRACTICALS
1. Exploring SPSS and Entering Variables 131
2. Descriptive Statistics 133
3. Calculations Using SPSS 137
4. Inductive Statistics 143
5. Miscellaneous Assignments 147
6. Miscellaneous Assignments (Revision) 151
Index 155
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List of Tables
I.1.1 Types of research 16
I.2.1 Variable types 22
I.3.1 Mean dispersion calculation 28
I.3.2 Calculating the standard deviation 29
I.3.3 Frequency distribution 32
I.4.1 Error types 42
I.4.2 Making decisions about H 43
0
I.5.1 Example output from SPSS representing the descriptive
statistics of a study 56
I.5.2 Example output from SPSS representing the deductive
statistics related to Table I.5.1 57
I.6.1 Choice of statistics for group means analyses 60
I.6.2 Profi ciency scores 60
I.6.3 SPSS output descriptives 60
I.6.4 SPSS output ANOVA 61
I.6.5 SPSS output for a post hoc analysis 62
I.6.6 Non-parametric equivalents for some of the parametric
means analyses 64
I.6.7 The sum of squares values in an ANOVA table 65
I.6.8 SPSS output correlation analysis 67
I.6.9 SPSS output with partial correlation 69
I.6.10 SPSS output table of the regression coeffi cients 71
I.6.11 SPSS output using cross-tabulation 73
I.6.12 SPSS output using Chi-square test 73