Validity, as you likely know, typically refers to how well a given experimental or test instrument actually measures the given construct it is meant to measure. If an experiment is meant to test vocabulary knowledge, for example, then its validity is dependent on how well it actually assesses and reports the vocabulary knowledge of its […]
Continue reading →The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy functions as both a joke and a warning. The idea is simple but powerful. A Texan decides he wants to prove his shooting prowess to his friends. He takes out his handgun and empties its magazine into the side of his barn. He then paints a bulls-eye where his shots are […]
Continue reading →I’m writing this from the Ninth Biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics conference, at Stanford University, where I’ll be presenting a paper on archival research. I had a situation this morning where I was genuinely unsure of the best way to be better a feminist (or feminist ally). I attended a panel in the first session on […]
Continue reading →In the social sciences and empirical humanities, it’s frequently easy to envy the directness of measurement that characterizes some work in the natural sciences. Because so much of what we measure in topics such as education, psychology, or sociology are incorporeal, it can be tempting to join a field where you can measure things in […]
Continue reading →Sorry I’ve been so out of the loop. Here’s a description of some current research of mine, taken from something I wrote in a different forum. I’m currently engaged in a research project investigating the composition processes of second language learners, in this case Chinese and Hindi L1s. I am utilizing corpus linguistics software to […]
Continue reading →This awesome Language Log post, which includes some audio examples and waveform data, reminds me of how I often used to get confused about the phonetics-phonology distinction. These are both among the major branches of linguistics, along with syntax, semantics, morphology, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics. (Fun activity: get a bunch of linguists together and ask […]
Continue reading →In recent decades, advances in eye tracking technology have made eye movement studies practical, non-invasive, and precise. Computers outfitted with sophisticated eye tracking equipment can record and analyze the movement of a subject’s eyes with great precision, giving us a tremendous amount of data about eye movement and vision. The traditional qualifier is that, while […]
Continue reading →I’m sure you’ve had the conversation, at some point in your life, where you’ve discussed the fact that some words have prefixes or suffixes that indicate an antonym, but no antonym exists. For example, we say someone or some act is uncouth, but not couth; our hair can be unkempt, but not kempt; you can […]
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