This is the presentation file from the English UK Annual Teachers' Conference talk on 9 November 2013. This looks at the tools and options available for English language teachers seeking to develop and action possible ELT related research.

1. Online Research in ELT
Martin Sketchley
9 November 2013
English UK Teachers’ Conference

2. Today’s Talk
• Developing online research
• The advantages of online surveys
• Application of technology with research
• Sharing online surveys via Web 2.0 applications
• Conducting and sharing the research
• Any questions

3. Techniques of Research
• There are numerous applications of research
including:
▫ Classroom observations
▫ Case studies
▫ Interviews
▫ Surveys & questionnaires
• Today’s talk will focus on the development of
surveys and questionnaires with online tools

4. Why Online Surveys?
• The advantages of online surveys:
▫ Participants can remain anonymous
▫ Wider participation from around the world
▫ Easier to read digital text than handwriting or
scribbling
▫ Online surveys can be embedded into blogs or
other websites
▫ Research results are ready to be analysed in a
digital format
▫ You save a lot of trees!

5. What Online Surveys?
• Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com):
provides a free basic version but more advanced
features cost
• Key Survey (www.keysurvey.co.uk): offers a free
30 day trial period but then you have to pay your
hard-earned money
• Google Drive (www.drive.google.com): it is free
and you can create quite complicated surveys
with multiple pages for no charge

6. How To Create Surveys
• We will be looking at Google Drive for the
creation of online surveys:
▫ It is free to use
▫ It can be shared with other researchers or
participants via email or other free blogging tools
▫ You can tweet a link
▫ It is very simple and the website is a breeze to use

7. Google Drive: Logging On
• Log on or subscribe for your Google Drive
account (www.drive.google.com)

8. Creating A Survey File
• Sign-in to Google Drive,
Sign in to Google Drive
and click on ‘Create’,
then click on ‘Form’.
• Forms are the main file
to create surveys and
questionnaires.

9. Naming Your Survey

10. Writing Questions
• It is intuitive to write survey questions in Google
Drive.
• You can create open and/or closed questions.
• Keep your questions simple:
▫ Avoid ambiguity
▫ Avoid acronyms
▫ Avoid leading questions
• What is the difference between ‘open questions’
and ‘closed questions’?

11. Different Question Types
• In Google Drive you can create different
question types. These can include:
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Text
Paragraph text
Multiple choice
Choose from a list
Scale
Grid
Date
Time

12. Example Survey Question

13. Travelling Surveys
• When participants complete a survey, you can
choose a destination - within Google Drive - to
receive responses to view and crunch the data.

14. Selecting Participants
• Think about the following questions to help you:
▫ How many people do I need to survey?
▫ How large should my sample be?
▫ Who shall my sample consist of?
(Dörnyei, 2010)
• When dealing with Web 2.0 tools, there will be
potential for randomised samples or a greater
possibility of snowballed sampling.

15. Sharing Live Surveys
• You can share surveys by using various Web 2.0
tools such as Twitter, Facebook or your own blog
(if you have one).
• Get the live URL of the survey and distribute via
Twitter or Facebook.
• Try to target a related group who will be your
target participant.
• Look at related Facebook Groups or get others to
share your survey.

16. Embedding Online Surveys
• With Google Drive surveys, you can
embed these within blogs (Blogger
or WordPress).
• Click on “File” and choose
“Embed…” and you will get:

17. Downloading Research Results
• It is quite easy to download and analyse the
research results from Google Drive. All it takes
is a couple of clicks
• You can download the responses in Excel format
for data analysis and data crunching

18. Additional Reading on ELT
Research
• “Teacher Research in Language Teaching: A
Critical Analysis” (Simon Borg, 2013)
• “Research Methods in Language Learning”
(David Nunan, 1992)
• “Questionnaires in Second Language Research:
Construction, Administration, and Processing”
(Zoltán Dörnyei, 2010)

19. Google Drive Surveys: Video
• YouTube videos available so that you can learn
how to create online surveys. It is available via:
…
• The accompanied hand out is also available via
my blog if you want an electronic copy:
www.eltexperiences.com
• Contact me if you want an electronic copy:
martinsketchley@gmail.com

20. Any Questions?
Contact Details:
•martinsketchley@gmail.com
•www.eltexperiences.com
•www.twitter.com/ELTExperiences