Feb 25 Polio Chapter 2

From my point of view, the advantages of experimental research can also be its pitfalls. The first and foremost is its function of determining cause-effect relationships. Variables and conditions are strictly controlled so that certain effects can be attributed to specific treatments or manipulations. However, experimental studies have been criticized very often for being too reductionist; individualization and situated factors are ignored. This is actually because experimental researchers aim to discover the general trends or patterns of behaviors, rather than the details of performance or products. Thus, I would rather not say those are “advantages” or “drawbacks” of experimental research, but just suitable or not.

Apart from those mentioned above, Polio and Friedman (2017) also pointed out several other issues regarding the validity and the reliability of conducting experimental research. The operationalization of variables is a knotty one. The reality is that most variables in social sciences studies are very difficult to operationalize, such as the type of instruction in Zhang (2013). What synthesis instruction means is different with regard to different programs, students, researchers, etc., which will then lead to another concern of external and ecological validity in experimental research. The measurement of variables can be a nerve-wracking problem as well, especially for some studies that require heavy statistical analyses. There are a lot of pitfalls in this aspect, for instance, the values calculated from certain formula cannot be averaged and represented by arithmetic means, which SLA practitioners are not so good at and may appear silly as most statistic or natural science experts think.

Nevertheless, experimental research still attracts me, and most of my studies are quasi-experimental and explanatory. As a rational person who likes numbers, I would like to explore the underlying mechanisms of language behaviors, for example, the chunking mechanism (or we say strategy) in producing fluent utterances in a second language (L2). Such kind of research questions are better addressed by using experimental research methods, but I am also expecting to try some non-experimental projects to enrich my understanding of L2 acquisition processes.