Replication in CALL

Guest editor: Cornelia Tschichold (Swansea University, UK)

Call for Papers

In CALL as in other areas, replication studies are essential in order to establish a more robust research grounding for the field (Camerer et al. 2018). Many published studies, if they can be replicated at all, fail to produce similar results, but successfully reproducing the positive results of a CALL study will strengthen the argument for the adoption of technology in the classroom. 

However, in a field where technological developments are often fast-paced, replications can be a challenge as the software used in the original paper has evolved, become obsolete, or is not available in the language(s) required. This may be one of the reasons why – despite several calls for more replications in CALL within the last decade, e.g. Handley (2014), Plonsky (2015), Smith & Schulze (2013) – there is still a shortage of published replication studies in CALL. With databases such as IRIS (www.iris.org), detailed instructions on how to conduct replications (Porte & McManus 2019), and a small but constantly growing list of published replication studies (e.g. in Language Teaching), it should now be possible to successfully overcome this challenge and carry out replication studies of some of the interesting empirical work in CALL. This will increase the validity, reliability and generalizability of findings, which in turn could lead to better acceptance and more realistic views of what CALL can do for the language learner.

 The principal theme for this special issue is replication, in any area of CALL. The studies submitted for this issue should be replications of published empirical studies in the area of CALL from the last twenty years.  Close, approximate and conceptual replications are all welcome, including:

• replications of studies where the participants’ L1 was the variable that was changed,
• replications of studies on English where the target language was modified to a language other than English,
• replications of studies where the original software was changed,
• tightly constructed, conceptual replications that extend an original study from a non-CALL context to a CALL context.

The replication studies should show how the methodology of the original paper was reproduced, what the challenges were, and to discuss recommendations for best practice.

ReCALL on replication in CALL. We particularly welcome proposals from early career researchers to submit their ideas for replications or contact the guest editor (c.tschichold@swansea.ac.uk) to discuss their ideas at this point.

References

Camerer, C. F., Dreber, A., Holzmeister, F., Ho, T. H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M. & Altmejd, A. (2018) Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(9): 637.

Handley, Z. (2014) Constructing an evidence-base for future CALL design with "engineering power": The need for more basic research and instrumental replication. The EuroCALL Review, 22(2): 46-56.

Plonsky, L. (2015) Quantitative considerations for improving replicability in CALL and applied linguistics. CALICO Journal, 32(2): 232-244.

Porte, G. & McManus, K. (2018) Doing replication research in applied linguistics. Abingdon: Routledge.

Smith, B. & Schulze, M. (2013) Thirty years of the CALICO Journal – replicate, replicate, replicate. CALICO Journal, 30(1): i-iv.

Timeline

• Call for papers: 30 April 2021
• Expressions of interest: 30 September 2021
• Submission of papers: 15 May 2022
• Final manuscripts: 31 January 2023
• Publication: May 2023

Instructions for authors

The usual guidelines for ReCALL submissions apply.

For any questions relating specifically to the special issue and its content, please contact c.tschichold@swansea.ac.uk.

For any other queries, please contact recall.editorial@cambridge.org.