Research Setting and Subjects

B. Research Setting and Subjects

This research was conducted in English Letters Study Program in Sanata Dharma University. The research was conducted to the first semester students of academic year 20132014. During that semester, the students were taking Sentence Writing class or Writing 1 class as the compulsory subject. In conducting the study, the population and the sample of the study were determined. Population refers to the target of the research Cohen et al. 2000. A population is a group of individuals who have the same characteristics that researcher can identify and study Creswell 2012. Therefore, the target population of this research is 139 first semester students of year 20132014. Within a target population, a sample should be selected for this survey study. Sample is the representation of the population which is chosen or selected to solve the problem of expense, time, and access limitation that are usually faced by researchers Cohen et al. 2000. A sample is a subgroup of the target population that the researcher plans to study for generalizing about the target population Creswell 2012. In other words, a sample is the selected individuals as the representatives of the entire target population. Since it takes a minimum 30 cases for a statistical analysis in a research Cohen, et al. 2000 and it also requires 30 cases at least for a correlational research Borg Gall in Cohen et al . 2000, the researcher decided to take 30 students as the samples. In addition, these 30 students represents four different classes of class A 9 students, class B 7 students, class C 8 students, and class D 6 students. These students were randomly selected in four different classes in order to be able to represent their classes. Qualitative study, which was conducted through the use of interview, took 3 students out of 30 students in the sample of the quantitative research. Those three students were the representative of the students with low, middle, and high level of achievement. Each level was represented by one participant. The interviews for the high and low achievers were used to gain supporting data in answering the first and second research problems in correlational study, while the interview for the mid achiever was used as supporting data in answering the third research problem. The mid achiever was the one who showed improvement or progress along the semester. The most important thing is that the participants are taken based on convenient sampling, in which they were selected since they were eager and wiling to be interviewed Creswell, 2012. In obtaining qualitative data, quantity is not what matters most Bismoko 2013. Cohen et al. 2000 suggest that as long as the participants represent the heterogeneity of the population, they suffice the needs of the research.

C. Data Gathering Techniques