Method of Research Research Participants

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents detailed discussion about the methodology employed in this study. This includes the descriptions of the method of research, the participants, the setting, the instruments, the procedure, and the data analysis.

A. Method of Research

This study was a descriptive research. It was designed “to obtain information concerning the current status of phenomena” Ary et al, 1990: 381. At the same time the research was done without their being influences by the investigator. Therefore, there was no treatment toward the students’ diction in academic writing. The data were purely natural without the researcher’s interference. Descriptive research consists of several methods. To obtain the specific information, the research employed document analysis method. Documentary analysis is a research method applied to written or visual materials for the purpose of identifying specific characteristics of the material Ary et al, 2002: 442. Since this study explored the diction in the students’ academic writing as a major focus for investigation and interpretation, qualitative research was applied. Sprinthall 1991: 100 further states that the data gathered in qualitative research are purely descriptive and not numerical. Therefore, there was no hypothesis formulated in the research. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

B. Research Participants

The term population refers to the entire group of persons, things or events that share at least one common trait Sprinthal, 1991: 27. The target population of this research was all the sixth semester students who belonged to Writing VI classes of English Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University of the academic year 2003 2004. Since it would not be possible to survey the entire classes, a small sample designed to be the representative of the population was selected. A sample is “a subgroup taken from the population to represent it” Brown, 1991: 114. There are five Writing VI classes and class E was taken as the sample of the population in this research. Class E consisted of thirty students. Since two students were not sixth semester students, the researcher thus took 28 students as the sample.

C. Research Setting