Uncovering Sampling Biases, Advancing Inclusivity, and Rethinking Theoretical Accounts in Second Language Acquisition: Introduction to the Special Issue SLA for All?

The social sciences have grappled with sampling biases, perhaps most notably the prevalent reliance on convenience samples drawn from university student populations. Researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) have likewise taken steps to assess and address the scope of these biases and their e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLanguage learning Vol. 73; no. 4; pp. 981 - 1002
Main Authors Godfroid, Aline, Andringa, Sible
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.12.2023
Subjects
Bias
College students
convenience sampling
Ethics
generalizability
Language acquisition
replication
Sampling
sampling bias
Second language learning
SLA
Social sciences
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Summary:The social sciences have grappled with sampling biases, perhaps most notably the prevalent reliance on convenience samples drawn from university student populations. Researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) have likewise taken steps to assess and address the scope of these biases and their effects on theory construction. This special issue presents a collection of replications and registered replication reports comprising one such initiative, titled SLA for All? The replications aimed to evaluate the generalizability of findings from foundational SLA studies, which were obtained with university‐educated participants, to nonuniversity participant groups. In this introduction to the special issue, we review and discuss the general failure to replicate the initial results, the complex notion of replication, and questions of research ethics. We offer an in‐depth reflection on how our perspectives, practices, and future plans have evolved and conclude with a vision for a more inclusive, diverse, and informative approach to SLA research going forward. A one‐page Accessible Summary of this article in non‐technical language is freely available in the Supporting Information online and at https://oasis‐database.org
Bibliography:Accessible Summary
We are most grateful to Emma Marsden and Pavel Trofimovich for enthusiastically supporting this initiative during their terms as Editors of
https://oasis‐database.org
Aline Godfroid
conceptualization; methodology; investigation; writing – original draft preparation; writing – review and editing.
Language Learning
We thank Matthew Coss for his detailed, insightful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.
Sible Andringa
of this article in nontechnical language is freely available in the Supporting Information online and at
CRediT author statement
The handling editor for this manuscript was Scott Jarvis.
A one‐page
ISSN:0023-8333
1467-9922
DOI:10.1111/lang.12620