A Study On The Design Adequacy Of Method Section

In recent years,mixed methods research(MMR)has been gradually employed in master�s theses of applied linguistics in China.However,limited research is available on their writing of Method section.Accordingly,the present study aims at analyzing the design adequacy of Method section to investigate its writing.This study adopted 30 master�s theses of applied linguistics employing MMR as data,which were all downloaded on CNKI and published from 2010 to 2017.Additionally,in the corpus,Method sections were reserved while the rest parts of the theses were cut off.Based on the previous studies,a model was constructed and Chi-square was employed to investigate the design adequacy of Method section.The results indicated that the theses employed qualitative and quantitative methods to collect and analyze data and their move structures were relatively complete in general.However,the deficiencies of certain constituent steps in each move led to certain problems in design adequacy of Method section.Specifically,in Move 1 ?Preliminary information?,most theses described the research questions,purposes or hypotheses;however,the deficiencies of several steps,including synthesizing research design,introducing the MMR,and stating the reasons for choosing MMR,weakened the design adequacy of move 1.As for move 2 ?Participants?,most theses described the information of participants,but rough descriptions of sampling method and criteria,the lack of reasons for selected participants,and the deficiency of ethical issues had a negative impact on design adequacy of this move.In terms of move 3 ?Instruments?,the contents or sources of instruments were introduced,but inexplicit description of the design of the instruments,unapparent relationship between qualitative and quantitative instruments,and the lack of validity and reliability analysis weakened the design adequacy of this move.In regard to move 4 ?Data collection and data analysis?,the procedures of data collection and analysis were depicted in most theses,but inexhaustive description of the procedures,and the deficiencies of justifying the procedures lowered the design adequacy of this move.The results are of importance to enabling postgraduates to realize the shortcomings of the writing in Method section and improving the utilization of MMR.Additionally,it provides teachers with certain implications for improving the teaching of Method section.