Foreign Language Course Enrollment - Research Proposal Example

Research Design At the of XYZ (UK), undergraduates in the Humanities and Social Sciences area are given the option to choose a foreign language as part of their studies. Foreign language courses used to be very popular among the XYZ student community. In addition, there have been no changes in the language curriculum or in any other foreign language provision. However, there has been an observed decline in the number of students choosing a foreign language as part of their studies. This paper would like to investigate whether this observation is an accurate representation of the current situation. Specifically, this paper would like to address the following research questions: 1. How many students are enrolled in a foreign language course during the academic years 2007-2010? 2. Is there a decline in the number of students choosing a foreign language as part of their studies from 2007 to 2010? 3. What are the reasons for students to enroll in a foreign language course? 4. What are the reasons for students not to enroll in a foreign language course? Methodology In order to answer the identified research questions, the researcher will use simple quantitative analysis on the foreign language course enrollment trends. However, the majority of the research will require a descriptive design, specifically, cross-sectional studies. A cross-sectional design is done by describing the characteristics of samples that differ on a particular key characteristic (Houser, 2008), that is, those who enroll in a foreign language course and those who do not. Information will be collected from the University Course Enrollment Office, covering academic years 2007-2010, to find out if there is a significant decline in the number of students who choose a foreign language as part of their studies. If there is an identified decline, the researcher shall proceed with gathering information on what could be possible causes of this decline. To do this, the researcher will first acquire a list of all currently enrolled Humanities and Social Sciences students from the University Registrar. Then, stratified sampling will be used to get a sample of students from the Humanities and Social Sciences student population. Stratified sampling is done by grouping the population into strata or groups that allow the members of the population to be classified according to a common characteristic (Creswell, 2003). In this particular research, the students will be grouped according to the department that they belong to (Humanities or Social Sciences), and then further grouped into their year level (First, Second, etc.). Once they are grouped as such, convenience sampling will be employed to gather data from the students. Convenience sampling is done by getting data from respondents that are readily available to the researcher (King, Keohane, & Verba, 1994). To make sure that the information that will be acquired is balanced, equal number of respondents will be taken from each year level. Furthermore, there will also be the same number of respondents enrolled in a foreign language course as those who are not enrolled in a foreign language course. In addition, the researcher will also identify selected Humanities and Social Sciences faculty members that can shed some vital thoughts and observations regarding the current trend in foreign language course enrollment rate. This additional information will make the qualitative data richer and more substantial. Data from the sampled students will be collected using a combination of a written survey in the form of a questionnaire and by conducting interviews. Surveys are broad based data gathering procedures designed to measure practices, opinions or other such variables (Berg & Latin, 2008) used in descriptive designs. Descriptive designs are meant to find out “what is going on” or “what exists.” The questionnaire will contain items that aim to capture the descriptive characteristics of the respondents and their thoughts on the current languages curriculum. The questionnaire will include questions such as: 1. Why have you not enrolled in a foreign language course? 2. Do you feel that a foreign language course will be helpful in your chosen career? 3. What will make you want to enroll in a foreign language course? In addition to the written questionnaires, the researcher aims to conduct interviews, especially with the Humanities and Social Sciences faculty members. If time and availability will permit it, the researcher also wishes to conduct focus group discussions with students of foreign language classes to gather more information regarding students’ feelings towards the courses. The quantitative data that will be collected on the number of students enrolled will be analyzed using the appropriate statistical tool with the aid of SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), a software that enables users to apply statistical techniques to quantitative data (Leech, Barett, & Morgan, 2005). Graphs and tables of figures will be presented where necessary. Quantitative data will include figures that represent the recent trend in foreign language course enrollment and quantifiable answers in some questionnaire items. On the other hand, qualitative data that will be collected will be classified and analyzed accordingly, taking note of particular similarities and trends in the subjects’ responses. Through a deep scrutiny of students’ responses and faculty members’ comments, this paper will be able to present substantial evidence on the reasons behind the recent trend in foreign language course enrollment. Limitations of the Study Owing to the extent of information that this research wishes to investigate, the researcher has identified possible difficulties that will be faced in conducting this study. The first challenge would be identifying students from the Humanities and Social Sciences Departments who will serve as participants in the study. Because convenience sampling will be used, there may be a danger of not being able to present data that will be representative of the population (Black, 2010). In addition, the researcher may face difficulty in getting students or even faculty members to spend time in providing data for the research. Another challenge that the researcher may encounter would be constructing a valid and reliable questionnaire and interview schedule for the purpose of gathering relevant data from the respondents. There is always a possibility that the questionnaire or interview schedule is not exhaustive and exploratory enough and thus, important information may be missed out (Kazmier, 2004). Lastly, the presence of pertinent data is not enough. The researcher must make sure that the proper quantitative and qualitative analysis will be used in accurately analyzing and correctly interpreting the data available. Bibliography Anderson, D. R., Sweeney, D., & Williams, T. (2009). Statistics for Business and Economics. Mason, OH: Thomas Higher Education. Berg, K., & Latin, R., 2008. Essentials of research methods in health, physical education, exercise science and recreation, (3rd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Lippincott Williams & Williams. Black, K., 2010. Business Statistics: Contemporary Decision Making. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Creswell, J., 2003. Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Houser, J., 2008. Nursing research: reading, using, and creating evidence. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. Kazmier, L., 2004. Schaums outlines: theory and problems on business statistics (4th ed.). USA: McGraw-Hill. King, G., Keohane, R., & Verba, S., 1994. Designing social inquiry: scientific inference in qualitative research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Leech, N., Barett, K., & Morgan, G., 2005. SPSS for intermediate statistics: use and interpretation (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Read More