Help me get my bachelor's degree!

[Marie]

Hello fellow language learners!

I am Marie and I am studying anglistics at the Potsdam university in order to become a translator.

For my bachelor thesis I need to create a survey and analyze the results.
YOU'd be an immense help if you could fill out the survey I created about postcurricular language learning. It really only takes 5 minutes.

https://www.umfrageonline.com/s/9eca0ed

I know links aren't well received in forums, but it's the only way I can reach my target group.

Please be gentle and I once again thank you for your time. ♥

[chove]

I put "beginner" because "intermediate" wasn't an option and "advanced" would be a lie.

[Cavesa]

Yes, the lack of "intermediate" or of cefr is a bit problematic. Also, I find it weird that I am asked only about my native language and the currently learnt languages. Don't you expect a difference between learners, who have already learnt (and are no longer actively learning) a few languages, and the first time learners? Also, it is a bit hard to answer as there are huge differences between the anki (which is more like non app, if we compare it to the stardard being duolingo) and others, and for people using both ways.

[Cavesa]

Also, why are people so obsessed with creating a short survey, instead of creating an actually good one?

People in your target public love to talk about their language learning journey. Not only in this community, but in the other similar ones too. They won't be driven away by a longer survey. But it is really disheartening to see the same mistakes in survey making again and again. And to know, that if we limit our experience to fill your premade answers, we will further perpetuate the prejudices and the unfortunate trends in the language learning world.

Your survey, no offence meant, is very superficial and looks like by "app user", you mean a person playing with duolingo, and by "non app user", you mean a person going to group classes. This is gonna lead to skewed results. A person using Duo is getting something different than a serious user of Anki. A person using a high quality coursebook and tons of input (like real books and tv series) is definitely different from a person just going to a class.

[aokoye]

So first I will say that I understand that making good questionnaires is a skill and not as easy as most people think. I've taken a number of questionnaires aimed at academic research and have written a few myself (and will be writing another one at some point within the next handful of weeks). I will also say that I didn't submit this for a number of reasons that I will lay out below.

First, I don't know what research policies with regards to human subjects are in Germany, but did you have to get Institutional Review Board (or the equivalent) approval for your thesis research? If so, is there a reason why that information (and/or the contact info for your thesis advisor) isn't on the first page of the questionnaire?

That most major of logistical hurdles out of the way, what do you mean by "postcurricular"? Given that that term hasn't been defined I can't come close to accurately providing responses to the questions. People have already touched on the skill level issue with regards to a lack of "intermediate" so I'll move forward. I'll also preface this by saying that the bulk of my criticism (including just about all of the following that I'm going to provide) lies in the fact that your questions are very leading which means that in the best case scenario your results aren't going to be as accurate as you'd want them to be. In the question that asks about the proficiency one's "most recently learned language", do you mean the language that was most recently started? If so how are you accounting for people who have started two or more languages at once? On the same page you ask about how much time is spent on language learning a week. If "postcurricular" means "not learned in a school setting", so as part of a class let's say, are you asking people not to take into account the time spent studying for languages that they are learning for academic reasons? Also what if they started the language in school but have since graduated or stopped taking foreign/second language classes in that language - does it still count as postcurricular?

Moving on to the next series of pages, after you ask what methods of language learning someone uses the questions branch off depending on the answer. Great, except they're all leading questions to varying extents. I'm asked about the benefits of apps vs non-apps, which implies that one is better than the other. What if I don't perceive there to be benefits of one over the other? I don't have the option not to answer.

If you click both (again, under the methods used section), it is unclear what the "favorite functions" is in reference to. It, having played around with the survey, appears that you're asking about apps, but that isn't clear. Additionally the likert scale needs some work if you want to get useful data - especially with the options that you get when you select "both" for the language learning methods. Lastly, by sex (on the last page) do you mean gender or do you mean sex?

At the end of the day, I think you need to take a research methods class if you haven't already. Barring that, perhaps a statistics class run specifically by a psychology department. If you can't do either of those things, you need to research and/or ask for advice on how to make good and accurate questionnaires, again, from the perspective of someone in the humanities. If your linguistics department doesn't have those resources then ask psychology professors.

[Kraut]

"Bachelor thesis" might be the wrong term. This is what I find at the Potsdam site about the "Bachelorarbeit", much less than what you seem to expect.

Bachelorarbeit

Mit der Bachelorarbeit sollen die Studierenden zeigen, dass sie in der Lage sind, ein Problem aus einem Fach des jeweiligen Studiengangs mit Hilfe von wissenschaftlichen Methoden selbstständig zu bearbeiten und die Ergebnisse sachgerecht darzustellen.

Die Bachelorarbeit wird daher in der Regel studienbegleitend innerhalb des letzten Semesters angefertigt. Der Umfang der Bachelorarbeit kann zwischen 6 und 12 LP betragen.

https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/studium/s ... helor.html

[ke9310g]

done!

[Ezra]

Today I learned: "anglistics" is a legitimate word.

[Kraut]

Today I learned: "anglistics" is a legitimate word.

Not really genuine, but borrowed from German.

[aokoye]

"Bachelor thesis" might be the wrong term. This is what I find at the Potsdam site about the "Bachelorarbeit", much less than what you seem to expect.

Bachelorarbeit

Mit der Bachelorarbeit sollen die Studierenden zeigen, dass sie in der Lage sind, ein Problem aus einem Fach des jeweiligen Studiengangs mit Hilfe von wissenschaftlichen Methoden selbstständig zu bearbeiten und die Ergebnisse sachgerecht darzustellen.

Die Bachelorarbeit wird daher in der Regel studienbegleitend innerhalb des letzten Semesters angefertigt. Der Umfang der Bachelorarbeit kann zwischen 6 und 12 LP betragen.

https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/studium/s ... helor.html

Bachelor's thesis is the correct term. I doubt that I'm expecting anything more than Universität Potsdam is having written a BA thesis at a US institution that also involved doing research with human subjects (which is what we, the Marie's potential questionnaire takers, are). There's more detailed information on what's expected at Potsdam here - https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/studienbe ... rbeit.html

It seems in line with what I would expect out of a Bachelor's thesis.