G. Validity
Denzin 1994: 295 claims that truth value becomes almost circular, whilst without validity, there is no truth, and without truth, there is no claim of validity.
The trustworthiness of this research would be based on the degree on the validity. As this study employs mixed-method, then the best suited validity were internal
validity and external validity as Cohen 2000: 107 states that both qualitative and quantitative methods could address internal and external validity.
1. Validity in Quantitative Research
This part would mainly discussed validity for quantitative research. Newman and Benz 1998:34 state that design validity for quantitative
research traditionally has been addressed through the concepts of internal and external validity.
a. Internal validity
Newman and Benz 1998: 33 define internal validity as the extent to which any causal difference in the dependent variable can be attributed
to the independent variable. Further, he explains that internal validity as the extent that they are observing and measuring what they think they are.
Cohen 2000:107 claims that internal validity seeks to demonstrate that the explanation of a particular event, issue, or set of data which a piece of
research provides can actually be sustained by the data. He adds that the finding must accurately describe the phenomena being researched. Based
on the claims above, then it could be concluded that the extent of internal validity was the research must be able to explain what was being
researched by giving accurate description toward the phenomena and presenting accurate data which supported the description.
In order to raise the degree of internal validity, the questionnaire and interview were conducted under the same environmental conditions,
using the same instruments, and by the same researchers. The instruments used were also generated from trustworthy source, that the questionnaire
were taken from Oxford‘s SILL 1990 that had been used time after time, whilst t
he interview questions were derived from Oxford‘s concepts of learning strategies and based on questionnaire itself.
b. External validity
Newman and Benz 1998: 33 further define external validity as the extent to which the results of the research study can be generalized to
other settings or groups. Cohen 2000: 109 mentions that external validity refers to the degree to which the results can be generalized to the wider
population, cases, or situations. Based on these claims above, external validity was the extent in which the result of the research could be
generalized over broader field where the subjects of the research were addressed.
As the main goal of this study was to present information about freshmen students‘ learning strategies, the result of this study was
expected to represent how freshmen students of English department of State University of Yogyakarta used learning strategies on their learning.
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