ABSTRACT
This study presents a systematic review of literature on Language learning and teaching Beyond the Classroom (LBC) from a perspective of research instruments, based on an analysis of 76 published articles from 2010 to 2020. The results show that LBC studies have used several types of research instruments for collecting and analyzing data. In particular, questionnaires (N = 57), interviews (N = 38), and observations (N = 20) have been employed frequently and consistently during the past decade. However, other instruments, such as language logs (N = 9), group interviews (N = 8), reflective journals (N = 5), computer tracking (N = 3), stimulated recall (N = 2), and language learning history (N = 2), have been used sparingly for researching learners’ LBC. The fact that LBC studies increasingly use several data elicitation tools is a promising finding, and the direction future researchers should continue to pursue. It is also suggested that more innovative data elicitation methods are needed to strengthen the trustworthiness and richness of the findings, which can further advance our understanding of the nature, process, and outcomes resulting from LBC.
