available time, the study was held nine times which included pre-test, three meetings for Cycle I, progress test, three meetings for Cycle II, and post-test.
They were during 17
th
November 2014 to 1
st
December 2014. Each meeting was in 2 X 30 minutes.
C. Subjects of the Research
This study involved the researcher as the trainer, an editor as the collaborator, and 21 writers of PLUSWRITER Company as the participants. The
participants were selected based on some reasons. First, it was possible for them to come to office and to join the study. There were some freelance writers who
did not live in Yogyakarta and could not join the study. Second, editors suggested them to have this study to improve their writing skills. Some of the participants
had a lot of difficulties in writing good articles although some other wrote well. All of them were expected to have better writing skills after joining this study.
D. Procedure of the Research
There are five structural steps of action research suggested by Kemmis and McTaggart in Burns 1999: 32. They are reconnaissance, planning, action,
observation, and reflection. Those steps were implemented for the procedure of this research. The explanations are as follow:
1. Reconnaissance
The reconnaissance step was performed by doing an observation, interviews with participants and editors, and pre-test. Conducting these actions
was aimed at seeking out some problems related to the participants’ writing skills. Then, the researcher could find obstacles and difficulties to be solved.
2. Planning
In this phase, the researcher identified some feasible problems to be considered in arranging a plan to improve the writing skills of the participants. In
collaboration with a collaborator, he discussed and decided the actions to overcome the problems. They also planned when the actions were conducted. The
actions were during 17
th
November 2014 to 1
st
December 2014. Course grids and lesson plans were designed to complete the actions.
3. Action
The actions were conducted in two cycles. Each cycle was conducted in three meetings and ended with a test. During these cycles, some materials and
tiered activities were provided. After providing the materials and activities, the researcher
checked the participants’ work and gave feedback to them. To support and to check the run of these actions, some interviews with the participants and
collaborator were conducted. 4.
Observation Observation was also done during the actions. The results of the
observation were combined with the results of the interview. Then, the researcher and the collaborator had some corrections for the previous meetings to be
implemented in the next meetings.
5. Reflection
Reflection was done after the implementation of the actions. The researcher reflected on, evaluated, and described the implementation of the
actions. Successful actions were applied for the following meetings while the unsuccessful actions were improved for the more suitable actions for the next
meetings.
E. Techniques of the Data Collection
In this study, there were two types of data, i.e. qualitative and quantitative data. To collect the data, the researcher employed some techniques. For the
qualitative data, interview and observation were used and resulted data in the form of interview transcripts and vignettes. While for the quantitative data,
writing tests were used. The results of writing tests were presented in the form of score transcripts.
Interview was conducted before, during and after the implementation of tiered activitie
s in teaching and learning process. This dealt with participants’ and collaborator’s opinions and suggestions about the actions of the study. With this
information, the actions were checked to make sure that they were going on the right track. In conducting the interview, interview guideline was used. It was used
to guide the researcher in interviewing some participants and collaborator to get the exact data related to the researcher’s behavior and also the participants’
behavior before, while, and after the actions.
