The course develops in four parts. The first part is an introduction to key features/aspects of the research process (contrasted with “research” in the form of popularized knowledge/information in the media) and involves practical work on the Article Review and the Research Proposal.

The second part focuses on research methods, with emphasis on quantitative and qualitative types of methodology for the purposes of linguistic research (e.g. questionnaire, interview, experiment, ethnography, case study).

The third part aims at familiarizing students with the main principles of descriptive and inferential statistics (e.g. measures of central tendency and dispersion, introduction to sampling, Analysis of Variance – ANOVA). Furthermore, students learn to conduct specific statistical analyses using specialized statistical analysis software (SPSS v.13).

The fourth part deals with the process of writing up one’s research project and aims at familiarizing students with issues concerning the structure and organization of the written and/or oral presentation of a research project. In particular, students are familiarized with the process of writing up a research project in terms of content (e.g. review of the relevant literature, presentation and discussion of findings) and format (e.g. Table of Contents, Bibliography). Furthermore, students are familiarized with issues related to the presentation of their research project at informal seminars as well as at academic conferences.

Students are assessed on the basis of written assignments and a research project, which they complete and submit during the semester.

Instructors: Aggeliki Tzanne, Michalis Georgiafentis