Examples of research questions / hypotheses (Education) Example 1 1.4.

Research questions This research is aimed at trying out and testing the impact of implementing authentic materials in teaching English tenses. The study attempts to answer the research questions: 1. Are the learners competence and performance of progressive tenses improved when authentic materials are used to teach English progressive tenses? Do male and female learners improve their competence and performance of English progressive tenses equally? 2. What are the learners perceptions of the grammar course in which authentic materials are used to teach English progressive tenses? 1.5. Hypothesis The researcher hypothesized that the use of authentic materials would enhance the learners competence and performance of English progressive tenses. It was also expected that there would be positive feedback about the content and usefulness of authentic materials from learners. Example 2 Can Tho University EFL Learners problems in the preparatory stage of doing research (Nguyen Thanh Tung) 2.4. Research questions 1. What are the problems that EFL learners at Can Tho University often experience in the preparatory stage of doing research? To what extent do they face the problems? 2. What are the causes of the problems? Do the problems perceived originate from a. the researchers inability of taking advantage of research skills? b. the lack of research resources (i.e. facilities, materials, supervising staff, etc.)? 3. Do B.A researchers and M.A researchers face the same or different problems? Example 3 A study of effectiveness of metacognitive and cognitive strategy use to writing performance in EFL classrooms (Nguyen Thai Huu) This research was conducted to answer the two following questions: 1. Is there a correlation between metacognitive and cognitive strategy use and writing performance? a. Are the more strategies used, the higher the written text scores are?

b. Is there a correlation between metacognitive strategies and the task completion, between cognitive strategies and the language achievement? 2. Which of the metacognitive and cognitive strategies used lead to more successful writing performance? The writer hypothesized that, first, there would be a strong interaction between metacognitive and cognitive strategies and writing performance. In other words, the more strategies writers would use, the higher their scores of written texts would be. Also, there would be a correlation between metacognitive strategies and the task completion, between cognitive strategies and the language achievement. Second, metacognitive strategies would play more important roles than cognitive ones in the success of the written texts. The writer would like to conduct this research project to test these hypotheses. Example 4 Improving Can Tho University English Majors Reading Performance with Self-Access Language Learning (Luu Hoang Anh) 1.2 Aims and Questions The aims of the research were to study the impact of self-access learning on students performance and to explore their attitudes towards SALL. Hence, my study is guided by the following research questions: 1. Does second-year students reading performance from 2 interventions (directed and selfdirected) differ from each other? 2. To what extent do the students attitudes towards the self-access program enhance their performance? Do these attitudes promote the integration of SALL pedagogy in Cantho University? 1.3 Hypothesis I set myself the essential task of guiding students of English to self-access learning by designing and implementing an experimental syllabus with the purpose of investigating differences in reading performance of students in two conditions. It is my hypothesis that when these students were helped to become independent learners with SALL, their reading performance would be improved at the end of the semester. This study helps gain insights into the students attitudes towards the self-access learning program. If their attitudes are positive and their performance is improved, they will help integrate a self-access program into the fundamental language courses.