Research Design RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the method in conducting the research which contains the research design, subject of the research, instrument of the research, method of data collection, method of data analysis, validity and reliability of the data, and procedure of the research.

A. Research Design

In accordance with the objective which was improving the students’ speaking ability through information-gap activities, this research was in the form of action research. It was conducted in a classroom situation, and aimed to improve the students’ speaking skill by using information-gap activities. Action research is some research done in a classroom context in order to solve a problem or to make the existing condition become better. McKay 2008 states that action research involves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approach to exploring the teachers’ teaching contexts. In doing action research, according to McKay, teachers can take an area they feel could be done better, subject it to questioning, and then develop new ideas and 50 alternatives. In other words, the teachers become an investigator or explorer of their personal teaching context, while at the same time being one of the participants in it. Further, McKay declares that the aim of action research is to identify a problematic situation or issue that the participants which may include the teachers themselves, the students, managers, administrators, or even parents, consider worth looking into more deeply and systematically. It tries to bridge the gap between what is happening and what is expected to happen. Related to what Irais states in McKay 2008 that action research is carried out by teachers in their context, in their classrooms and that in the research teachers identify a problem or an area they wish to improve and based on theory or experience or a hypothesis they think of intervention, in this action research study, the constructed hypothesis is that information-gap activities would help the students improve their speaking skill in some ways which have been discussed in the previous chapter. Further, Irais states that teachers, in carrying out action research, document the intervention and results of the research. If the results are positive, they could lead to the dissemination of the information. If not, the cycle may be started again. In accordance with that statement, the following paragraph will discuss the steps of action research in one cycle. What should be notified is that in some research, there might be more than one cycle in order for the repeated pattern to be seen and the conclusion from it to be drawn. There have been many proposals of the steps carried out in action research. Some argue that action research should be flexible depending on the 51 situation in which the research is conducted. On the contrary, Kemmis and McTaggart in McKay 2008 states that there are certain steps of action research. In a single cycle of action research, those steps are planning, acting, observing and reflecting. In order to see the repeated pattern happening in the process of conducting the research, in this action research study, the model of action research proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart was used. Therefore, in line with this, as what Burns 1999 elaborates, I at first developed a plan of critically informed action to improve what is already happening, acted to implement the plan, observed the effect, and reflected on these effects as the basis of a further planning. There were two cycles done in the research. The first cycle consisted of four meetings. Meanwhile, the second cycle consisted of five meetings. At the end of the second cycle, there was some discussion between my collaborators and I about whether or not there would be the third cycle. Based on the discussion of the observation during the two cycles, my collaborators and I agreed that the students’ speaking skill had improved. Therefore, we decided to end the research. Technically, this action research was collaborative action research. There were four collaborators in the research. The first collaborator was the English teacher of the students whose jobs were to observe everything happening in the class and take notes. The English teacher was chosen to be the collaborator since she knew the students ’ condition and characteristics. Meanwhile, the other three collaborators were my colleagues in English Education Study 52 Program, UNY. Their jobs were to record the teaching and learning activity and also to observe the students’ learning behaviors and improvement. Practically, my first collaborator observed everything happening in the class by watching the videos taken by my other collaborators. She did not enter the class when I was conducting my research since based on our discussion in a democratic atmosphere, if she entered the class, she would influence the atmosphere of learning. The students might feel threatened thus their speaking improvement would be impeded.

B. Research Setting