They left that, as they said, to 'future research', but as yet no future research seemingly has been done on that subject. This is the contribution of this study.

Research Objective

The first step is to replicate Dulay & Burt's (1973) previous study. Times have changed. The educational system has changed. Our aim will be to test whether the 12% of syntactic errors are indeed unique, or whether their appearance is due to educational standards and particular curriculum.

Hypotheses

Our hypothesis is that educational systems generate child's comprehension and internalization of the subject. The educational system of the '70s (when the study was conducted) was quite different to that of today. Our aim will be to conduct a study that will be closely replicated on Dulay & Burt's (1973) original study. The children will be the same age. They will be extracted from the same area. The same schools (if in existence) will be approached. In all ways, therefore, demographics will be repeated. An alternative supplementation to the study may be following that study with a sample extracted from an older age who come from different schools and different states. The contrast may be informative and the one study will be helpful in reinforcing or contradicting the other thereby causing us to investigate the issue further..

The alternative hypothesis of this research is that unique errors in advanced syntax in L2 depend on educational transmission (i.e. style...

One mode of teaching produces more or less "unique errors" than another mode may.
The null hypothesis is that no difference in teaching will be observed. Namely amount of unique errors will remain constant regardless of mode of education.

Contributions of research

Implication of research will be the following: If the amount of unique errors found as outcome of study approximate 12% which is the number of Dulay & Burt's (1973) study, then Dulay, & Burt are correct in assuming that reason for this is a conundrum and further research is warranted in creating a theory what would explain this phenomenon.

However, if we discover, as presumed that the discovered outcome of unique errors is significantly more or significantly less than those in Dulay & Burt's (1973) case, we may plausibly conclude (although other reasons may as satisfactorily explain the situation) that it is differences in teaching that introduce the quantity and type of errors.

The study will follow that of Dulay & Burt (1973) in all details. Schools will be solicited for permission, and the data will be evaluated by SPSS. Parents and teachers will also be told about experiment and parents too will be solicited permission. The tabulation of errors and summarization will be done by 2 objective associates. Teachers will review results.

Source

Dulay, HC & Burt MK ( 1973) Should we teach children syntax? Language learning, 23, 245-261