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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the methodology used to conduct the research. This chapter is divided into six main discussions which are the discussion of research
method, research instrument, research participants, data collection, data analysis and research procedure.
3.1 Research Method
Research method used in this study was survey method. According to Ary et al 2002: 374 “survey is a research techniques in which data are gathered by
asking questions of a group of individuals called respondents”. In this study, the researcher focused on students’ perception toward portfolio. Since the researcher
focused on students’ perception toward portfolio, survey method is the suitable method to use.
Due to the use of this kind of method, the researcher used questionnaire as the research instrument. “The questionnaire is the instrument to gain the
information relating to facts, feelings, and so on” Ary, et al, 2002. Using questionnaire, the researcher asked some questions about the implementation of
portfolio assessment in writing class to groups of writing class students. During this study, there were actually more than four writing classes
which used portfolio as an assessment tool but the researcher only used four writing class as the object of the study. These four writing classes were chosen
28 because these writing classes were suitable with the researcher’s criteria about the
implementation of portfolio assessment in writing classes. These four writing classes had similar pattern of portfolio implementation. At the beginning of the
semester, the lecturer had set some topics. During the semester, the students created some compositions about these topics and every week they had regular
activities which were writing, checking others’ composition, giving feedback, and revising their composition. Then, at the end of the semester, students submitted
their portfolio which consisted of their drafts, compositions, and revisions that they have made during the semester to the lecturer and it was the lecturer who
would assess their portfolio. Since not all of the writing class students were distributed the questionnaire, we can say that this study used sample survey.
Sample survey is “a study that studies only a portion of the population” Ary, et al, 2002. The kind of sampling used was purposive sampling. Purposive sampling
is the selection of subject based on certain criteria Patton, 1990 – object which meet the criteria were used as subject of the study whereas object which do not
meet the criteria were rejected.
3.2 Research Instrument
To collect the data there was only one research instrument used in this study which was questionnaire. From the previous study about portfolio, there
were two researchers namely Elango and Lee who used questionnaire which can be seen in the appendix II as their research instrument. In this study, the
researcher adapted those questionnaires and adjusted it with some theories about
29 portfolio. In the questionnaire, the researcher only stated the advantages of
portfolio so that it will be clearer for her to differentiate the participants who have positive perception and negative perception – students who choose ‘agree’ or
‘strongly agree’ had positive perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class and vice versa.
From the two example of the questionnaires used in previous study and some theories about portfolio described by the experts in chapter II, the researcher
also generated some open-ended questions. These open-ended questions were used to find students’ reason for having positivenegative perception toward the
implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class and to find students’ suggestions for further implementation of portfolio assessment in assessing
writing. Table 3.1 in the next page shows the statements and questions used for
the questionnaire in this study.