Dr. Jenifer Larson-Hall, associate professor of applied linguistics at Kitakyushu University, Japan, taught a joint course “Quantitative Research Methods in Second Language Acquisition” for MA students of English Department in SEU from September 17 to September 30, with Dr. Yawen Han as her co-teacher.
In this course, Dr. Larson-Hall focused on how to use the statistical program R to conduct statistical tests frequently done in SLA research. Using data sets from real SLA studies, she taught these students how to generate descriptive statistics, how to choose a statistical test, and how to conduct and interpret a variety of basic statistical tests. She covered the statistical tests that are most commonly used in second language research, including chi-square, t-tests, correlation, multiple regression, ANOVA, and non-parametric. She illustrated with graphs and tables depicting actual data sets, and exercises to help the students understand concepts. Dr. Larson-Hall’s course attracted MA, and PhD students and faculty from the School of Foreign Languages of several universities, such as Nanjing University, Nanjing Normal University and Nanjing Xiaozhuang University.
Jenifer Larson-Hall currently works at the Department of English, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Kitakyushu University. Jenifer does research in Second Language Acquisition, Statistics and Phonology. She is a well-known scholar for her research on statistics in second language acquisition.
Reported by Han Yawen
