Research Participants Research Instruments

B. Research Participants

The participants of this study were the tenth grade students of SMA 1 Sapuran, Wonosobo located in Jalan Purworejo km 2, Sapuran, Wonosobo, Central Java. The reason for choosing the tenth grade students as the participants was because the students of this level had difficulty in choosing appropriate prepositions in their writing based on the context. The participants are chosen by the English teacher of the tenth grade because the teacher’s consideration that the students in this class have finished the material for the mid-term test and they are able to be participants for this research. The participants are chosen from one of the classes of three parallel classes at tenth grade. The number of the participants was thirty students. The research was conducted in SMA 1 Sapuran, Wonosobo because this school was the best school in Sapuran. It can be proven by the students who were carefully selected to study in SMA 1 Sapuran, Wonosobo. That is why the tenth grade students of SMA 1 Sapuran, Wonosobo were chosen as participants in this research.

C. Research Instruments

In carrying out this study, the researcher used three instruments. The first instruments were students’ writing assignments. The researcher used two writing documents from each student to investigate the students’ errors in two different topics of writing. The students’ writing documents were used to gather the data from the students. By using the documents, the researcher intended to answer the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI first question in problem formulation stated in the previous chapter, what forms of prepositions are errors made by students SMA 1 Sapuran, Wonosobo. The second instrument was questionnaire. The questionnaire was used to gather the data about the preposition errors. The researcher applied close-ended questionnaire. Close-ended questionnaire is the questionnaire whose respondents are offered a set of answers and ask to choose the one that closely represent their view Nachmias and Nachmias, 1996: 235. The researcher chose this kind of questionnaire because the questionnaire is easy to ask and quick answer Nachmias and Nachmias, 1996: 254 and since the all subjects respond to the same option, standardized data are provided Fraenkel and Wallen, 2009: 396. The questionnaire consisted of seven questions and each question consisted of three items. Question number one to two asked about students’ opinion of importance preposition in writing, question number three to five asked about students’ ability to choose appropriate preposition in certain context, question number six and seven asked about the students’ problem to produce appropriate preposition. The third instrument was an interview. According to Mc Namara 2007, interviews are particularly useful for obtaining the story behind participants ’ experiences. The researcher conducted interview with six students as samples. The participants were chosen randomly to avoid subjectivity. The type of interview that the researcher used was open-ended interview where the participants are free to answer the questions. This type of interview facilitated faster interview that can be more easily analyzed and compared McNamara, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 2007. The researcher asked four questions to each participant. The questions were about students’ opinion in using preposition in their writing, students’ problems or difficulties in producing appropriate preposition, the sources of students’ error in using preposition, and the students’ effort to solve their problem in using preposition. Those three instruments students’ writing assignments, questionnaire and interview were triangulated to answer the problem formulations which were mentioned in Chapter I.

D. Data Gathering Technique