Psych 229: Assignments

Everyone is expected to contribute to the class discussion. To prepare for this, you should come up with at least two questions or observations about the assigned readings. This will ensure that you have something you are comfortable discussing in class. Before coming to class, be sure you can summarize the key points of all of the reading selections to be discussed that day. You should be able to follow the flow of logic. Keeping these questions in mind will help direct your reading:

• What is the theoretical or empirical issue being addressed?
• For theoretical selections, what are the key data points used as the foundation of the argument? Do you agree with them?
• For empirical studies, what is the method? Do you understand the figures in the paper? What do the figures represent? Are the overall conclusions supported by the data in the results section?
• What are the main results & implications of the paper? Keep in mind at least one set of data points or one figure that illustrates the main gist of the paper. How does this relate to other selections read that week, or in previous weeks? Most selections are chosen precisely because they are on the same topic as others during that week, though either from a different perspective or as an interesting extension to previous work. All of them aim to answer something about the "big picture" of language learning, so keep in mind what they're trying to tackle. Can you think of any extensions that might logically follow from the current results?
• Important: Don't get hung up on every little wrinkle. Much of this will be primary source language-learning literature, and it may have terminology you're unfamiliar with and background assumptions you don't share. Don't panic: this is what class discussion is for.

Writing short reaction papers will give you valuable experience critically reading original research selections and concisely stating how they relate to other work. Selections that are available for reaction papers are marked with * in the reading list on the schedule. Each paper should briefly (ideally in about 2 pages, single-spaced)

• state the goal of the research article (what problem does the article claim it addresses)
• summarize the methods and findings (the level of detail should be equivalent to the "brief literature reviews" that appear in the introductions of some of the articles we read)
• offer a critical evaluation of the data and interpretation (this includes whether you think the article addressed the problem it said it did, if the article draws conclusions you agree with, any problems you foresee with the data or results when applied to other scenarios like different languages or multiple languages, etc.)
• relate the theoretical implications of the research to the larger theoretical framework (i.e. what impact these results would have on the "big picture" of language acquisition - does the study really show something that tells us about how language acquisition in the real world works)

The final paper of class will be either (a) a proposal for a language learning study or (b) a literature review of several related articles on language learning. The paper should aim to be concise (ideally between 4 - 6 pages, single-spaced).

If you are designing a research study, you must include the following:

• the question you are trying to address
• relevant previous work on this question
• the methodology you would use
• possible results, and what implications each set of results would have for the question you are trying to address
• how the results would fit into the "big picture" of language acquisition

If you are writing a literature review, you must first agree with the instructor what reading selections should be included. Ideally, this would be 3-5 articles (depending on length) that are related to the same question. For a literature review, you must include the following:

• the main question(s) the articles are trying to address
• the connections between the articles (are they using different methodologies, are they defending different viewpoints, are they extensions of previous work, etc.)
• brief summaries of the methodologies and results
• the implications of each set of results, and how they relate to each other (do they reinforce each other contradict each other, refute each other, etc.?)
• an evaluation for the combined contribution of this research to the "big picture" of language acquisition