The role of digital video media in second language listening ...

Chapter Four: The pilot studyWhen there is a lack of a substantial body of work in an area or the proceduresneeded to conduct a successful investigation require practice, research methodologyspecialists (e.g., Hatch & Lazaraton, 1991; Miles & Huberman, 1994) recommendthat a pilot study be conducted. Following Buck (1990) and other second languagelistening researchers (Laviosa, 1991; Schwartz, 1992), the present investigationutilised a pilot study to clarify issues related to methodology, videotext appropriacy,segmentation and the viability of a conceptual framework. This chapter describesthat pilot study in four sections. First, the four-fold purpose of the pilot study is setout in the form of specific questions. Secondly, the participants and procedures usedto collect data are described. In the third section, the results of the data collection arereported and address each of four questions. The chapter concludes in the fourthsection with a summary and discussion of the results.The purpose of the pilot studyThis section of the chapter sets out the four questions that motivate the need toconduct a pilot study.Methodological issues1) To what extent should a researcher adopt a high intervention approach whenusing verbal reports as a means to study interactions with digital video media?In the review of current theory, verbal report protocols were found to be the mostsuitable means of data collection for the present study because 1) if gatheredcorrectly, they allow access to non-automatic processes (Ericsson & Simon,1984/1993); 2) verbal report data have provided insights in listening98