Thinking strategically about longitudinal classroom research

Longitudinal research can show how language develops overtime in ways that are not possible with cross-sectional research. It can also offer contextualized understandings of relations. In fact, some of the seminal studies in SLA (i.e., Hakuta, 1976; Schmidt and Frota 1986) are longitudinal. Nevertheless, longitudinal research is scarce and often involves a small number of cases (Loewen and Plonsky, 2016). Longitudinal classroom research takes time yet the academic context does not always provide it. The limited length of some funded research projects and the pressure academics undergo to publish regularly often preclude longitudinal research. Having to often combine research with teaching and management duties means that there is little flexibility left to adapt to the schedules of the language teachers/students we would want to investigate overtime. The fact that universities often expect MA and PhD theses to be completed over a limited period of time is yet an additional explanatory factor. If we want longitudinal and classroom research to happen more regularly we will need to think strategically otherwise it will not happen naturally. One action could involve a prestigious journal dedicating an exclusive section to longitudinal research in an attempt to promote it, as Language Teaching does with replication research. Another strategy could be the setting up of an AILA Research Network. Also, researchers could plan to fragment longitudinal studies into shorter pieces of research in such a way that research projects or graduate work could be based on data that was collected in succession from the same participants and with the same research questions and methods so that eventually truly long periods of time could be covered. This strategy will be illustrated with a 10-year longitudinal study that looks at the trajectories of a group of young learners of English (EFL) using a mixed-model design (Muñoz, 2016).