CSU SPAN workshop: Planning Surveys and Designing Questionnaires

Today I attended Part 1 of the 3-part presentation titled "Planning Surveys and Designing Questionnaires. It was presented by Gail Fuller who works with the CSU Spatial Analysis Network (SPAN). Gail has been a fantastic support for our own research and research students.

This three part integrated workshop is designed to introduce the processes and steps involved in planning a survey and creating a questionnaire that effectively gathers the data you need to satisfy your research questions. It will cover question and questionnaire design and type, population size, choice and how to connect, testing and redesign, data collection and storage, what works and what doesn't over the entire process, what support is available.

Census = entire population

Target population = scope

Survey population = coverage

Exploring multilingual speakers’ perspectives on their intelligibility in English

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication. It forms part of Helen Blake's PhD research:
Blake, H. L., Verdon, S. & McLeod, S. (2019, in press February). Exploring multilingual speakers’ perspectives on their intelligibility in English. Speech, Language and Hearing.
50 free copies are available from this link: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/eJF8jisEZg7UkRtFFBIM/full?target=10.1080/2050571X.2019.1585681
Here is the abstract:

Multilingual speakers’ ability to communicate effectively and intelligibly in the language of their country of residence is crucial to their participation. This study explored multilingual speakers’ motivations for improving their intelligibility in English and their perceptions of potential barriers and facilitators to enhancing intelligibility. Participants were multilingual students and staff at 14 Australian universities. Extended response data from 137 survey responses were combined with seven semi-structured interviews, thematically analysed using the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a conceptual framework, and coded using NVivo software. Three overarching themes were: motivations, barriers, and facilitators. Themes that emerged under motivations were meeting their own and others’ expectations and career aspirations. Themes that emerged under barriers to intelligibility were lack of self-awareness of reduced English intelligibility, use of ineffective strategies (e.g., fast speech rate to disguise pronunciation difficulties), language differences, lack of opportunity to practise English, participants’ perceptions of others’ negative attitudes to their English skills, and challenging conversational partners. Facilitators to intelligibility were emotional support from others, beneficial strategies (e.g., confirming listener understanding), and opportunities to practice. The results highlight the importance of supporting multilingual speakers’ efforts to improve their English intelligibility. An environment with barriers such as lack of opportunity to practise English may restrict an individuals’ performance and participation, while facilitators such as support from others may increase participation. This study will inform the understanding of speech-language pathologists engaged in Intelligibility Enhancement, as well as SLPs working with multilingual speakers in any context.