Designing a Pilot Study Ryan Boylan Doctoral Student Georgia State University February 10,

Moderator of Conversations in Doctoral Preparation Dr. Peggy Albers, Professor, Language and Literacy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA,

Online interactive and participatory web seminars with a purpose to prepare doctoral students to work in the Academy Website: Doctoral students at all stages in their program are invited to present; Please contact Dr. Peggy Albers,

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Tonight’s Presenter: Ryan Boylan Doctoral student Research interests Foreign Language Education, specifically how the teaching of language in a cultural context influences language proficiency among students Doctoral advisor: Peggy Albers

BY RYAN N. BOYLAN PH.D. CANDIDATE FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION Designing a Pilot Study

You are here! Where is “here”? “Here” is some point in the Ph.D. program when you are ready to begin thinking about developing and carrying out your own research.

Why a Pilot Study? For many Ph.D. candidates, while reading and unraveling the research of others is nothing new, doing your own research is! However, this is the last piece of our Ph.D. puzzle. One of the best ways to test your study out before actually going into it full- fledged is to develop and carry out a pilot study, focusing on one aspect of your dissertation. (This could also take care of the research requirement of your residency.)

The Process 1. Choose your topic 2. Choose your advisor 3. Complete the IRB 4. Study the existing research 5. Decide what you want to test 6. Choose your participants 7. Choose your research instruments 8. Set up and run your study 9. Interpret your data 10. Write the study up

Choosing your topic The first task you have before you is choosing the topic of your study. This may be a bit difficult, but it gets you thinking about your research interests. For a pilot study this needs to be fairly narrow in scope. It should also, perhaps, be in line with your anticipated dissertation topic.

The Advisor Once you have chosen your topic, you need to choose someone in academia who is an expert in that field. They are not there to run the study, but to serve as a support and guide. This comes in handy in the next few steps.

CITI and the IRB Each institution has on IRB, or Institutional Review Board, which approves the protocol for each study conducted. In order to carry out your study, you need to complete CITI training and submit and IRB. The IRB is more long and tedious, ahem, thorough, than it is difficult so get this done the semester before your study is to be conducted.

Existing Research When designing your study, you need to know which questions have already been answered and which are still needing answers. Your advisor can point you to key sources in the field. The key here is to READ, READ, READ!

What and how to test? Now that you have done all the reading and are caught up to speed on what has already been tested, you need to fashion out your niche and determine what it is that you are trying to test and how you want to test it. Don’t do what has already been done ad nauseum, but don’t reinvent the wheel either. Strive to build on the existing research by taking what is known and adding another level to that knowledge. Note: At this stage choose whether you want to do a qualitative or quantitative, or mixed methods study.

Participants You can’t conduct a study without participants. This is the “Who?” of your study. Given the nature of this study, you might want to to choose a convenience sample if possible. In addition to choosing your population, you need to explain why you choose this group in your IRB – so be purposeful in your selection.

The Instruments (Tools) The last piece of the puzzle in the set up is choosing your instruments. Your advisor can help you with this, but you want to choose research instruments which are tried and true. You can always modify them to fit your topic and needs, just notate this in your write up.

The Study Everything is in place and now you can begin your study. Make sure to have your participants sign Informed Consent forms before you begin and that you have a time frame in place for the completion of your study. Note: Keep a running log for your methods section.

Data Collection Complete! You are almost there!!!! The actual study is complete, but what did it yield? Take your data and analyze it. Make sure you keep track of how you did this for your write up.

It’s Article Time! The study is done, data has been collected and interpreted and you have your findings in hand. If you planned well enough, everything you need to write up the study, from the lit review to the methods and data analysis, should be right at your finger tips and some of it probably has already been written. Put it together with your advisor and submit it for publication if you want.

This is a long process, but in the end you will be more prepared to do your dissertation than you were before.

Designing a Pilot Study Ryan Boylan Doctoral Student Georgia State University February 10,

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