Choice of data collection methodology
By Stephen Shimanek . Last update : 10 July 2007. translation of A. Morgenstern
Each data gathering method has its advantages and drawbacks.
Diaries are in general kept by one of the parents who, as such, know the child very well and can pick up on all the meaningful phenomena. However, this method obviously does not lend itself easily to discourse analysis.
Longitudinal corpora: the researcher sees the child fairly regularly and working from a particular research angle is able to observe and measure specific constants. He knows the child well especially if he has done the recording and transcription himself, but is unable to study many children at the same time.
Databases make it possible to compare a large number of children speaking different languages, and to conduct relatively broad quantitative studies.
For the Léonard project , we wanted to create a small database of reasonable proportions: each researcher works with one or two children, but helps others to analyze their data. In this way several the researcher can be acquainted with several case studies and have the basis for making pertinent comparisons of good quality.
