Abstract:

The qualitative survey methods have become quite championed in the contemporary educational research and in foreign language pedagogy research specifically. However, a brief overview of the studies applying the said research method shows varying, sometimes even opposing, approaches to its practice adopted by numerous researchers. The paper first introduces the brief overview of the qualitative survey evolution in the last decade of educational research with a special attention paid to the research in teaching English as a foreign language. Second, it points out the areas where the various approaches diverge, converge and complement one another. In this aspect, the paper may help researchers in foreign language pedagogy select and combine various perspectives, techniques and strategies of the method which would best suit their research aims. Finally, the study brings in some implications/recommendations for a possible development of the method in the future (specifically in regard to testifying its reliability and validity).

Keywords:

Methodology, language pedagogy research, qualitative survey, meta-analysis, TEFL research.