Research Method RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

24

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the method employed in this research. It consists of six parts, namely, research method, research subjects, research instruments, data gathering techniques, data analysis techniques, and research procedures.

A. Research Method

This research was a qualitative inquiry, because it dealt with descriptive data. In accordance with Ary, Jacobs, Razavieh 2002: 425, who mention about qualitative inquiry, this research made use of descriptive data rather than numeral and statistical ones. Investigation on the face validity of the national final examination year 2007 for vocational high school and the content validity of its reading section involved descriptive analysis. The researcher measured the test validity by analyzing the test items in reference to the aspects of test validity which have been explained in the previous chapter. Measuring the test‟s validity, the researcher needed the Competency- based Curriculum as the test specifications. He needed to observe the relevance of each test item with the learning materials included in the curriculum. In order to do that, the documents of the national final examination and related curriculum were needed as primary sources. The researcher made use of those important documents and did necessary analysis based on some theories on language test validity. Since the primary sources are those of academical documents, this research was a documentary analysis. In relation to the documentary analysis, Ary et al. 2002: 27 put forward a notion that document analysis focuses on analyzing and interpreting recorded material within its own context. Best 1977: 129 explains that document analysis, or content analysis, copes with a “systematic examination” of existing documents as the sources of data. In this research, the analysis or examination of national final examination wa s followed by the researcher‟s description about the relevance of each test item with the curriculum. This research was thus called a descriptive research, and was categorized as a qualitative research. Ary et al. 2002: 425 explain that qualitative research “deals with data that are in the form of words, rather than numbers and statistics ”. It is an important consideration in a qualitative research that the researcher deals with those descriptive data which are gathered from interviews, observations, and the collection of documents. In relation to that, during the investigation, a qualitative researcher generally makes his or her own records in order to keep his or her thoughts, feelings, assumptions, motives, and rationale that he or she needs for decisions making. Here, in this process, the researcher gathers the data and at the same time works on the data analysis. He does not need to wait until all data are ready to start on interpreting the data. Furthermore, Ary et al. 2002: 425, 426 put in plain words the so-called inductive analysis. From the outset of the first interview or observation, the qualitative inquirer is reflecting on the meaning of what he or she has heard and seen, developing hunches working hypotheses about what it means and seeking to confirm or disconfirm those hunches in subsequent interviews or observations. It is a process of inductive data analysis –it proceeds from data to hypotheses to theory. This research worked on the similar inductive analysis in investigating the validity of national final examination. Having worked with his own notes and records on the test validity, the researcher confirmed his presumption in the results of preceding and subsequent interview and observation.

B. Research Participants