Participants of the Preliminary Field Testing

51 ended items and typi cally used in confirmatory or quantitative research” Burke Christensen, 2008, p. 177. To construct the questionnaires, the researcher firstly identified variables of the study, created indicators of the variables, and developed the statements Widoyoko, 2012. Before developing the indicators of variables, the researcher constructed conceptual fields for supporting the statements in the questionnaires Widoyoko, 2012. Three variables of this study were the preference of contextual materials, preference of task-based learning activities and the perception on the difficulty in reading and writing. The contextual materials promoted contextual learning supported by Brown‟s constructivist approach Imel, 2000 and a framework for TBLT Nunan, 2004. The preferences of task-based learning to design instructional activities were yielded on Willis ‟ task-based learning framework 1996 and Nunan‟s TBLT Nunan, 2004. The perception on the difficulties in reading and writing were to determine the scope of learning or the level of learning Morrison, Ross, Kalman, Kemp, 2011. Furthermore, they perceive that “knowing the learner‟s skills, attitudes, or aptitudes is obviously important in determining the appropriate d ifficulty level of instruction” Morrison, Ross, Kalman, Kemp, 2011. Similary, Brown 2001 provides guidelines to identify the level of language proficiency which is adapted from ACTF proficiency guidelines 1986. The general levels were the novice or beginners, Intermediate, and advanced Brown, 2001. Based on the conceptual fields, the researcher used some indicators for developing ten statements for every variable. The amount of the statements 52 considered the containings and partic ipants‟ interest to fill the questionnaires. Some controlled statements were designed to direct their attentions to evaluate and choose the proper communicative learning activities. Other statements figured out the relevance of the contextual materials for the students. Also, some statements in the questionnaires regarded the students to assess their own difficulties in learning. To measure the statements, the researcher used Likert scale and the types of the statements are used close – ended statements requiring participants to choose from predetermined responses Burke Christensen, 2008. The Likert scale is a summated rating scale which each of items is rated by the respondents in four or five points rating scale Burke Christensen, 2008. Accordingly, Likert 1932 produced five responses alternative which were “1 Strongly Approve, 2 Approve, 3 Undecided, 4 Disapprove, and 5 Strongly D isapprove”. The questionnaires used four scales responses to measure the students‟ attitude. The researcher asked the respondens whether they strongly agree SA, agree A, disagree D or strongly disagree SD with the items. Hence, the statements of the variables were divided into favorable statements and unfavorable statements. To rate the students‟ difficulties, the statements were unfavorable or negatively stated items as shown in table 3.4 and the others were favorable statements as shown in table 3.3. According to Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen 2010: For favorable or positively stated items, strongly agree is scored 5, agree is scored 4, undecided is scored 3, disagree is scored 2, and strongly disagree is scored 1… Thus, for unfavorable statements, strongly agree