Pragmatic Competence is relatively more difficult to improve comparing the Organizational Competence in SLA, the result of Kasper’s study 1997 Can
Pragmatic Competence be taught? with the answer is “No” as the conclusion, and
the pragmatic failure theory by Thomas 1983 in which Thomas believes that in many cases language teachers focus more on the linguistic forms and exposure
less on the importance of understanding any cultural differences between L1 and the target language which in turns causes the cross-cultural communication
breakdown.
38
CHAPTER III
:
METHOD OLOG Y
METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the methodology and procedure employed in the study. It consists of five sections. They are a Research method, b Research
setting, c Research instrument, d Data collection, and e Data analysis technique. The first subchapter presents the research method used in the study.
The second subchapter discusses the nature of the data. The third subchapter provides the discussion on the research instrument. The fourth subchapter is about
the data collection. The fifth subchapter talks about the data analysis technique of the study.
A. Research Method
The present study, which aims to find the answer of this study: Is there any significant difference in the pragmatic competence of implicature in spoken
English among students with different length of study?, is a developmental study. There are two types of developmental study, namely longitudinal study and cross-
sectional study Ellis, 2008: 163. Ellis explains that longitudinal studies are clearly desirable for plotting developmental pattern, as they are enable change to
be analyzed in a single learner at the micro level. The consequences are beside they are very time consuming, there is the danger that repeated observation or
interviewing will influence the learner’s behavior ibid. Cross-sectional studies, on the other hand, can be conducted quickly and can compare groups of learners
with different levels. The weaknesses of cross-sectional study are they do not permit the analysis of causal relationship and cannot chart individual differences
in development over time ibid. Papalia 2003 also mentions as follows: “Cross- sectional study is a study design in which people of different ages stages are
assessed on one occasion” page 53. Due to the limited time, despites the weakness of cross-sectional study, the present study was conducted as a cross-
sectional study. The present study compared groups of learners with different levels on one occasion.
The present study is a quantitative research because it will find the answer based on some numerical data. Grix 2004 mentions “Quantitative
research is predominantly with quantity and quantifying” Grix, 2004: 32. The present study used the quantitative technique because the researcher believed that
the exact numerical data is more accountable to describe the students’ pragmatic competence in implicature. This belief was also based on Neuman’s 2000
statement which is cited by Grix as follows: “this technique produces precise numerical information which can be understood as the empirical representation of
the abstract concepts”Grix, 2004: 117. The present study was conducted using quantitative technique as it was
aimed to give description on the sample without giving any treatment to the sample. The technique was chosen also based on Creswell’s 2003 definition
about the technique, “A survey design provides a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population by studying a sample
of that population” Creswell, 2003: 153. Gall 2007 adds that “quantitative
researchers attempt to discover something about a large group of individuals by studying a much smaller group” Galls, 2007: 166.
Based on the definitions above, the researcher used the quantitative analysis in conducting the present study. Some conditions taken into consideration
were, firstly the present study was supposed to give a description on the students’ pragmatic competence in Implicature which can be seen through the exact
numerical data. Secondly the present study which described the students’ pragmatic competence in the notion of implicature was done on a sample of small
group of students without giving any treatment before. The numerical data was taken through a multiple choice Discourse Completion Tasks. The multiple choice
DCTs being used will be discussed in the research instrument section.
B. Research Setting
As it is already stated above that “Quantitative researchers attempt to discover something about a large group of individuals by studying a much smaller
group” Gall, 2007: 166, the researcher conducted the study in Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, with the students of the English Language Education
Study Program as the participants. So, the population was the students who were preparing themselves in finishing their undergraduate in English Language
Education. Based on Gall’s statement about the population validity as follows: “To
achieve good population validity, quantitative researchers must select the sample randomly from the defined population to which they wish to generalize their
