Reliability of the Test

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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study

The objects of this research were the sixth semester students of the 20152016 academic year, in English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma University. The sixth semester students were chosen to be the object of this research because the researcher intended to measure their ability in mastering the English prepositions for and to. Besides, the researcher also expected that the sixth semester students had already mastered the use of each preposition as part of English Grammar lesson that they had studied form first semester to fifth semester Structure I to Structure V.

B. Approach of the Study

The approach of the study applied in this research was the syntactic approach. According to Guralnik, syntax is the study of the arrangement of words as the elements in a sentence to show their relationship one another 1986: 1444. Moreover, syntax can also be defined as the rules, which specify how words may be combined with each other to produce grammatical and well-performed sentence Fromkin, 2000: 90. She also adds that syntax is made up of formal rules, which are formulated in a precise way with clearly defined properties. The syntactic approach was applied because this research dealt with the usage of prepositions for and to as the elements to form a correct sentence. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Furthermore, this approach was applied to identify the usage of rules of both prepositions in order to build a well-performed sentence.

C. Method of the Study 1. Data Collection

As mentioned previously, the objects of this research were the sixth semester students at English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma University. Due to the fact that the object referred to a group of person, the researcher then used the theory of population. According to Sprinthall et al, the term population or universe refers to the entire group of persons, things, or events that shares at least one common trait 1991: 27. They further highlight that ……..if a researcher wish to identify the population of college students, the factor of being a college student would be the common trait, and you would then have to list each and every such students in the entire world ─ a modest little assignment. Or if you wished to add another trait, you might limit your population to U.S. college students, or by adding a third trait, to U.S. college students attending state university. Obviously, the more traits you add, the more you limit the designated population… It means that the more traits that can be shared among the population chosen to be the object of a research, the more the researcher limit the populations of his object. Regarding this statement, the researcher then chose the sixth semester students at English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma University as the object of this research, for they shared some traits in common; they are students of English Letters Department of the 20152016 academic year who are studying in Sanata Dharma University and have passed the Structure I to Structure V. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Throughout this research, the researcher decided to use a random sampling technique for achieving representative samples from the total number of population. Sprinthall et al state that random sampling demands that each member of the entire population must have an equal chance of being included, and that there is no member of the population may be systematically excluded 1991: 28. Concerning to this statement, the researcher chose the object of this research by considering their equal traits, which is the students of English Letters Department in Sanata Dharma University of the academic year 20152016. Since this research was a quantitative research, a test should be administered. According to Brown 2001: 384, a test is a method of measuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given domain. He further explains that: “A test is first a method. It is a set of techniques, procedures, and items that constitute an instrument of some sort that requires performance or activity on the part of the test-taker and sometimes on the part of the tester as well, the someone’s authenticity of pronunciation, or it may be quite explicit and structured, as in a multiple-choice technique in which correct responses have already been specified by some “objectives” means.” 2001: 384 A test was administered by the researcher to comprehend the language acquisition of using English prepositions for and to among the students. Since a test is commonly used as the instrument in collecting data to measure someone’s ability or competence in particular environments or circumstances, the researcher then decided to use this type of measurement instrument as the data collecting instrument. The researcher therefore applied a diagnostic test since it was designed to diagnose a particular aspect of language Brown, 2001: 390. This kind of test would differentiate someone’s ability from others in a particular language. The test administered in this research was divided into two parts. The first part of the test was gap-filling task. This type of test was designed to see whether or not the students could differentiate the use of prepositions for and to. This gap- filling task was also used to measure grammatical form and meaning of each preposition Purpura, 2004: 135. In this part, the students were required to fill the blanks in the given sentences either using preposition for or to. The objective of this part was the students were able to show their ability in using the prepositions for and to in a sentence. The second part was structure recognition test in form of multiple choice. According to Lado, this structure recognition test presented utterancessentences to the students which contain the structure problem and to determine whether or not the students understand the use of certain structure 1961: 150. In this part, the students were required to choose a or b which English translations was the best for the Indonesian sentences. The objectives of this part was the students were able to make a distinction between the rules of Indonesians prepositions untuk, kepada, ke, buat and bagi if they were translated into for or to. To make a better view of the test that was conducted in this research, the researcher showed the distribution of functions of the prepositions for and to that were used in the test as follows. Table 3.1 The Blueprint of the Distribution of the Prepositions for and to Applied in the Test No. Prepositions Questions number in Part A Questions number in Part B Type Functions 1 For To show who is intended to have or use something or where something is intended to be put - - PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI