Researching Phonology: Mixed Methods Research

Abstract This entry reports on two mixed method studies in phonological research showing how the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods was essential for better understanding the complex constructs of intelligibility and comprehensibility, broadly defined as listeners' perceptions of how easily they understand second language (L2) English speech. Study 1 examined whether intelligibility is an adequate goal and appropriate criterion for assessing L2 pronunciation proficiency in the academic domain. Speech samples of international graduate students from different language backgrounds were elicited using tasks from a standardized test often used to screen international teaching assistants at North American universities. Results of a fine‐grained analysis of the speech combined with undergraduate students' intelligibility ratings suggested that intelligibility, though an adequate assessment criterion, is a necessary but insufficient condition for graduate students to instruct undergraduate courses as teaching assistants. Study 2 was grounded in the need to better understand which linguistic aspects underlie comprehensibility, given the shortcomings of modeling this construct in rating scales (e.g., vague descriptors). The research deliverables—preliminary L2 English comprehensibility rating scale guidelines—were informed by both raters' perspectives of the most salient influences on their L2 comprehensibility ratings and the linguistic measures that most efficiently distinguished between low, intermediate, and high L2 comprehensibility levels. The studies differ in the timing of data collection, with the first study representing a concurrent mixed methods design, and the second typifying a sequential mixed methods design. Both studies are enriched and their results strengthened through the use of different but complementary sources of evidence.