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SAMPLE SIZE PLANNING IN QUANTITATIVE L2 RESEARCH

A PRAGMATIC APPROACH

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2020

Reza Norouzian Open the ORCID record for Reza Norouzian [Opens in a new window]
Reza Norouzian*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Reza Norouzian, Texas A&M University,Teaching, Learning, Culture, College Station, Texas 77845. E-mail: rnorouzian@gmail.com.
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Abstract

Researchers are traditionally advised to plan for their required sample size such that achieving a sufficient level of statistical power is ensured (Cohen, 1988). While this method helps distinguishing statistically significant effects from the nonsignificant ones, it does not help achieving the higher goal of accurately estimating the actual size of those effects in an intended study. Adopting an open-science approach, this article presents an alternative approach, accuracy in effect size estimation (AESE), to sample size planning that ensures that researchers obtain adequately narrow confidence intervals (CI) for their effect sizes of interest thereby ensuring accuracy in estimating the actual size of those effects. Specifically, I (a) compare the underpinnings of power-analytic and AESE methods, (b) provide a practical definition of narrow CIs, (c) apply the AESE method to various research studies from L2 literature, and (d) offer several flexible R programs to implement the methods discussed in this article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , September 2020 , pp. 849 - 870
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Open Practices
Open materials
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

The experiment in this article earned an Open Materials badge and an Open Data Badge for transparent practices. The materials and data are available at https://github.com/rnorouzian/i/blob/master/i.r.

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