Research Method Research Participants

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BAB III METHODOLOGY

In this chapter the researcher discusses 1 the method employed in this study, 2 the research participants, 3 the research instruments, 4 the data gathering technique, 5 the data analysis technique, and 6 the research procedure.

A. Research Method

The method employed in this research was survey research. “Survey research is used to describe specific characteristics of a large group of persons, objects, or institutions” Jaeger, 1988: 303. The researcher categorizes this research as survey research because this research has characteristics of survey mentioned by Fraenkel Wallen 2009: 391. They are as follows. 1. Information is collected from a group of people in order to describe some aspects or characteristics such as abilities, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and or knowledge of the population of which that group is part. 2. The main way in which the information is collected is through asking questions; the answers to these questions by members of the group constitute data of the study. 3. Information is collected from a sample rather than from every member of the population. 31 This research covers those characteristics of survey research. Therefore, this research can be defined as survey research. Before conducting the survey research, the researcher conducted a library research first, which aimed to search for information and learn about the theories related to the research. Then, after conducting the library research, the researcher administered a test followed by an interview to some research participants to find the possible causes of the errors made by them.

B. Research Participants

Research participants of this research were the sixth semester students of the 20092010 academic year in the English Language Education Study Program ELESP of Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta. They were chosen because they were assumed to have taken Structure V class, the last Structure class offered in ELESP. Thus, they were expected to have sufficient knowledge of the English phrasal verbs. They already learnt those phrasal verbs when they were in the fifth semester of their study in ELESP. Because of the time limitations on conducting the research, the researcher then selected a sample with an assumption that a portion of the research participants was quite representative to study the sixth semester students’ mastery of the English phrasal verbs. Then, the researcher generalized the results obtained from the sample to the population. The researcher drew a sample from three different Translation II classes of ELESP, class A, B, and C. Since class A had been used for administering the pilot test, the real test was administered in class B 32 and C. Then, a sample of fifty 50 participants was drawn from the two 2 classes, class B and C. The researcher took those 50 participants with the consideration that they had represented the sixth semester students’ mastery of the English phrasal verbs. To select the representative sample, the researcher used the cluster sampling technique. This research employed this technique since, as stated by Ary, Jacobs Razavieh 2002: 168, the sampling unit chosen in this research is not an individual but a group of individuals who are naturally together that is the sixth semester students. Furthermore, the sixth semester students of the English Language Education Study Program were assumed to share the same level of mastery in utilizing English Phrasal Verbs because they had learnt about the English phrasal verbs in the same semester. Thus, there would no big differences among the achievement in each cluster. Further, for conducting the interview, the researcher chose five participants whose scores were the lowest. Those five 5 students were later asked about the errors they made and the possible causes of their errors. The researcher only took 5 participants as the interviewees because the researcher assumed those 5 participants had been able to represent the whole students who got low score.

C. Research Instruments