The path to completing a research study effectively is fraught with obstacles, as documented impressively in a new volume edited by McKinley and Rose (2017). Their book has chapters dealing with everything from challenges selecting the sample to staying objective as a researcher as well as honest about the findings, to dealing with a low response rate in surveys and with participant attrition in longitudinal research. The contributors provide suggestions for how to deal with these challenges. It is refreshing to see books like this one that document the struggles researchers face as they investigate applied linguistic phenomena.

In conducting the study reported on in Chapter 4 and in writing it up, it was imperative to make comparisons between the NTs and the NNTs in the sample with the greatest of care. It is all too easy to make unwarranted generalizations based, for example, on the nature of the sampling. It is hoped that the study was conducted and reported in a manner that reflected the spirit of open investigation and fairness to the participants. I know that I learned a great deal from the findings of the survey and that the often robust teachers' responses contributed significantly to this book, especially to Chapter 6.

The current chapter provides ideas for how to conduct pragmatics research, especially as concerns contexts involving NTs and NNTs. Various options are provided in order to illustrate that the design and execution of any research project entails making choices. Conducting a pragmatics study successfully involves navigating through some thorny issues, as was the case in writing this book on NTs and NNTs. For one thing, it is crucial not to view teaching contexts as static; rather they are constantly in flux, bringing with them ever changing patterns of interaction.

10.1 Taking a Multi-Method Approach to Research on TL Pragmatics

There is now a robust literature about research methods for investigating and assessing how well NSs and NNSs handle TL pragmatics in their receptive and productive performance in various contexts (e.g. see Félix-Brasdefer, 2010; Taguchi & Roever, 2017; Yamashita, 2008).