Common use of Study Methodology Clause in Contracts

Study Methodology. While the thirty compositions examined in this study were written to assess English fluency for college placement, this study will use the compositions to assess whether or not the student writers transfer agreement patterns from their native L1 Arabic into their L2 written English. The compositions were written in a timed, topic-writing classroom setting to satisfy the following topic: “Compare: choose to follow customs of new country, or keep customs of original country. Which do you prefer? Why?” The thirty compositions that are included in this study were written to address this topic and determine if the writer’s English fluency was sufficient to enter university classes or if lack of fluency necessitated enrollment in the university’s intensive English program. The financial and social impact of performance on this composition task cannot be understated so the likelihood of a student sloughing off on this assignment, through either inattention or poor attitude, are minimal. Although it is curious that the topic assignment is grammatically deficient in article usage, I surmise that this was a test device the institution intended to foil imitators. The repeated use of this particular topic at the institution and its role in accurate student placement speaks to its instrument reliability and internal consistency. The student compositions, based on this topic instrument, were obtained more than one year after they were written by the students, and this study was not done in conjunction with, nor was ever associated with, the original fluency assessment. Since the compositions were completed independently of this study, there is no impact from students knowing that they are part of a study (the Hawthorne effect) or from students trying to provide content that they feel is expected (the halo effect) (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, p. 114; Bergen, 2016, p. 195). This study performs error correction, data analysis, and supplemental grammatical correlations on thirty compositions written in an L2 English by native Arabic writers, which were written to fulfill the above referenced university fluency assessment. The composition sampling that populates this study was done randomly within the L2 English fluency assessment setting with a stipulated participant characteristic of native Arabic writer from Saudi Arabia. Despite the fact that biometric information is not available for these writers, the thirty compositions exhibit concrete references to locale and culture that support the writers’ link to the Arabic language and having lived the Saudi experience. Although the sample group is small, their random sampling from the highly specified cluster of native Arabic speakers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia makes the results of this study generalizable to similar language/cultural groups (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, pp. 119-120). In addition, the results may be generalizable to the larger group of native Arabic speakers/writers as a whole, a group that has become globally significant. In the data analysis phase of this study, where verbs are examined for agreement errors, the accuracy of the corrections have been checked and commentary is provided where judgments are necessarily holistic. These grammaticality assessments are straight-forward and there is no attempt to be hyper-critical in enforcing syntax minutiae nor to be ultra- sensitive to native idiom constructions. In attention to a study on phi-feature resolution rule application by L2 English writers, the method of data analysis employed on these compositions “adequately captures the construct of interest” (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, p. 108) for such research. In a similar vein, the use of archived compositions from the same source, written in fulfillment of the same function on the same day, and administered according to the same parameters ensures the internal validity of this study (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, p. 109). Research validity is integral to the production of a worthy study and I have paid attention to the necessary requirements to ensure that the instrument is valid and the project analysis is reliable. The aim of the primary study was to assess person phi-feature agreement competence and record how this competence may be influenced by L1 syntactic resolution rules; this paper addresses only the number phi-feature. The measurement scales imposed upon the data are less important than the broader perspectives that the data sets themselves provide.

Study Methodology. While the thirty compositions examined in this study were written to assess English fluency for college placement, this study will use the compositions to assess whether or not the student writers transfer agreement patterns from their native L1 Arabic into their L2 written English. The compositions were written in a timed, topic-writing classroom setting to satisfy the following topic: “Compare: choose to follow customs of new country, or keep customs of original country. Which do you prefer? Why?” The thirty compositions that are included in this study were written to address this topic and determine if the writer’s English fluency was sufficient to enter university classes or if lack of fluency necessitated enrollment in the university’s intensive English program. The financial and social impact of performance on this composition task cannot be understated so the likelihood of a student sloughing off on this assignment, through either inattention or poor attitude, are is minimal. Although it is curious that the topic assignment is grammatically deficient in article usage, I surmise that this was a test device the institution intended to foil imitators. The repeated use of this particular topic at the institution and its role in accurate student placement speaks to its instrument reliability and internal consistency. The student compositions, based on this topic instrument, were obtained more than one year after they were written by the students, and this study was not done in conjunction with, nor was ever associated with, the original fluency assessment. Since the compositions compositons were completed independently of this study, there is no impact from students knowing that they are part of a study (the Hawthorne effect) or from students trying to provide content that they feel is expected (the halo effect) (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, p. 114; Bergen, 2016, p. 195). This study performs error correction, data analysis, and supplemental grammatical correlations on thirty compositions written in an L2 English by native Arabic writers, which were written to fulfill the above referenced university fluency assessment. The composition sampling that populates this study was done randomly within the L2 English fluency assessment setting with a stipulated participant characteristic of native Arabic writer from Saudi Arabia. Despite the fact that biometric information is not available for these writers, the thirty compositions exhibit concrete references to locale and culture that support the writers’ link to the Arabic language and having lived the Saudi experience. Although the sample group is small, their random sampling from the highly specified cluster of native Arabic speakers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia makes the results of this study generalizable to similar language/cultural groups (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, pp. 119-120). In addition, the results may be generalizable to the larger group of native Arabic speakers/writers as a whole, a group that has become globally significant. In the data analysis phase of this study, where verbs are examined for agreement errors, the accuracy of the corrections have been checked and commentary is provided where judgments are necessarily holistic. These grammaticality assessments are straight-forward and there is no attempt to be hyper-critical in enforcing syntax minutiae nor to be ultra- ultra-sensitive to native idiom constructions. In attention to a study on phi-feature resolution rule application by L2 English writers, the method of data analysis employed on these compositions “adequately captures the construct of interest” (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, p. 108) for such research. In a similar vein, the use of archived compositions from the same source, written in fulfillment of the same function Linguistic Portfolios–ISSN 2472-5102 –Volume 6, 2017 | 137 on the same day, and administered according to the same parameters ensures the internal validity of this study (▇▇▇▇▇▇ and ▇▇▇▇, 2011, p. 109). Research validity is integral to the production of a worthy study and I have paid attention to the necessary requirements to ensure that the instrument is valid and the project analysis is reliable. The aim of the primary study was to assess person phi-feature agreement competence and record how this competence may be influenced by L1 syntactic resolution rules; this paper addresses only the number person phi-feature. The measurement scales imposed upon the data are less important than the broader perspectives that the data sets themselves provide.