Linguistic and Methodological Features of Research Questions in Mixed Methods TEFL Dissertations: A Corpus-Based Analysis

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of English Language, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Fasa Branch, Fasa, Iran

Abstract

Research questions (RQs) play a pivotal role in mixed methods research (MMR), guiding the integration of qualitative and quantitative strands to address complex inquiries. This study investigates how the linguistic formulation of RQs reflects, rather than determines, the methodological choices made in MMR-based PhD dissertations in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).  Drawing on Creswell’s (2009) mixed methods design typology, a corpus of 518 RQs extracted from 92 Iranian TEFL dissertations (2019–2024) was analyzed using a manually coded corpus-based approach complemented by qualitative content analysis. RQs were operationally defined as all explicitly numbered or labeled research questions, excluding aims, hypotheses, and embedded declarative statements. The quantitative findings show a clear preference for sequential designs, particularly explanatory (39.1%) and exploratory (34.8%), which is a pattern consistent with TEFL’s emphasis on staged, context-sensitive inquiry. Regarding syntactic realization, non-polar Wh-questions were most frequent (56.8%), with factual (62.6%) and evaluative (20.4%) types prevailing across designs. Simple sentence structures (66.0%) and present-tense framing (99.2%) dominated, indicating a preference for clarity and alignment with the conventions of dissertation writing rather than discipline-wide tendencies. The qualitative findings illustrate how these syntactic patterns support transparency in reporting and help structure methodological decision-making. The findings contribute to understanding how researchers in Iran construct RQs in applied linguistics landscape and provide a foundation for cross-context comparisons

Keywords

References

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Journal of Studies in Language Learning and Teaching
Volume 2, Issue 2
July 2025
Pages 121-135

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History

  • Receive Date: 28 January 2026
  • Revise Date: 03 June 2026
  • Accept Date: 14 June 2026

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