Research Methodology Research Participants Research Setting

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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology employed in this study in order to answer the research problems. It covers the description of the kinds of methods used in the research, the research subjects, the research setting, the research instruments, the data source, the data collection, the data analysis, and the research procedures.

3.1 Research Methodology

The method employed in this study was descriptive research. Ary, Jacobs and Razavieh 1990: 381 state that descriptive research studies are designed to obtain information concerning the current status of phenomena. The phenomenon investigated in this research was the responses of students toward written feedback given by their teacher. This research was typically qualitative research since its primary purpose was description Sprinthall, Schmutte and Sirois, 1991: 98. Fraenkel and Wallen 1993: 386 state that qualitative research produces descriptive data from the actual words or actions of people. As a result, the data in this research would be in the form of verbal statements, not numericalstatistical one. This research also employed document analysis method in order to obtain the data. According to Fraenkel and Wallen 1993: 386, document analysis involves an analysis of the written or visual contents of a document. A document is a piece of writing belonging or pertaining to the setting Holliday, 2002: 72. The 24 document being analyzed in this study was the first to third chapter of students’ undergraduate thesis.

3.2 Research Participants

The subjects of this study were four students of semester eight of the English Letters Study Program, Sanata Dharma University in the academic year 20052006 who were taking thesis writing course. Those four participants came from two different classes in which their thesis has the same field that is linguistics. The eight semester students were chosen as the participants because they were considered to have higher competence in writing skills compared to the lower semester students. Moreover, they were in the process of finishing their thesis which means that feedback is crucial for them to ensure that their thesis were reliable and understandable since, later on, they would defend it orally in order to graduate from their department.

3.3 Research Setting

This research was conducted at the English Letters Study Program of Sanata Dharma University which is located at Mrican, Yogyakarta. The research was conducted at the English Letters Study Program of Sanata Dharma University because it has good reputation in teaching English. In 2006, it obtained “A” accreditation from National Accreditation Board Badan Akreditasi Nasional . Moreover, students of English Letters conducted their undergraduate thesis under the advice of one lecturer. Guided by one lecturer only, the students could fully concentrate on writing their thesis since they would get feedback from PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 25 one lecturer only. This also might prevent students from confusion which might occur if they have two lecturers as their advisor.

3.4 Research Instruments