Field Notes Questionnaires Instruments and Data Gathering Technique

34

C. Research Participants

The participants of this research were students of VIIID in SMPN 1 Wungu. The class consisted of 10 female students and 9 male students. The academic year was 20122013. At that time, they were at the second semester of eighth grade and they were learning the materials of a recount text. Then, in the preliminary study, the researcher found that they had some problems in writing a recount text

D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique

There were some instruments used by the researcher during this research. They were field notes, questionnaires, interviews, observation checklist, and the students‟ diaries.

1. Field Notes

The researcher made the field notes when the strategy was implemented in the classroom. She obser ved the students‟ improvement overcoming their problems in writing a recount text during the implementation of weekly diary assignment followed by the teachers‟ feedback. According to Dovey 2012 field notes itself is Notes made by the researcher in the course of qualitative fieldwork, often observations of participants, locations or events. These may constitute the whole data collected for a project as in an observational project or add to it as when field notes supplement conventional interview data As cited in Wallace, 1998, P. 120. When the researcher conducted the preliminary study, she also used field notes as the instrument to observe the teacher in classroom. 35 Besides, the researcher always used it during taking action in the class like taking notes some information as date time, class, number present, absentees, work done, homework, etc., as cited by Wallace 1998. Wallace 1998 also states that field notes could help the researcher to prevent her hard-won experience, ebbing away and being lost in the tide of pressur es caused by „getting on with the next thing‟ p. 58.

2. Questionnaires

The researcher distributed questionnaires twice during this research. The first questionnaire was distributed for all of the students in the preliminary study to convince what the real problems which were faced by the students were. The second questionnaire was distributed for all of the students at the end of the research to know whether the implementation of weekly diary assignment improved students‟ writing abilities in writing a recount text or not. These are the sample of the questionnaires: Table 3.1 The Sample of Questionnaire in Preliminary Study No. Pernyataan SANGAT TIDAK SETUJU TIDAK SETUJU SETUJU SANGAT SETUJU 1. Saya menyukai kegiatan menulis dalam Bahasa Inggris Jelaskan alasanmu 2. Kemampuan menulis Bahasa Inggris saya sangat baik 3. Saya selalu mendapatkan nilai yang baik pada kegiatan menulis dalam Bahasa Inggris 4. Saya pernah menuliskan pengalaman masa lalu saya dalam Bahasa Inggris 5. Saya mempunyai kendala pada saat menulis dalam Bahasa Inggris terutama menulis tentang pengalaman masa lalu 36 Table 3.2 The Sample of Questionnaire at the end of the Third Cycle No. Pernyataan SANGAT TIDAK SETUJU TIDAK SETUJU SETUJU SANGAT SETUJU 1. Saya semakin menyukai pelajaran Bahasa Inggris. 2. Menulis dalam Bahasa Inggris adalah kegiatan yang semakin menyenangkan untuk saya. 3. Menulis pengalaman pribadi berbentuk recount dalam diary adalah hal yang menarik. 4. Saya mengerjakan sendiri tugas weekly diary dengan tertib. 2x seminggu 5. Weekly diary banyak membantu saya meningkatkan kemampuan menulis saya, terutama menulis pengalaman pribadi dalam bahasa Inggris berbentuk recount. Wallace 1998 states “we use questionnaires and interviews when we want to tap into the knowledge, opinions, ideas, and experiences of our learners, fellow teachers, parents, or whatever” p. 124. In other words, the researcher wanted to know students‟ opinion based on their experiences during the implementation of weekly diary assignment. Wallace 1998, p. 124 also adds that questionnaires are more effective than the other instrument because it can save the time and structured systematically. Burns 2009 divides questionnaires into three types as cited by Nugroho, 2011, p. 35. They are closed items, scaled items, and open-ended items. The researcher used scale items as the form of each questionnaire. She used Likert Scale which consists of four scales, such as strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. Besides, the researcher completed the questionnaires with some questions which are included into open-ended items. 37

3. Interviews