30 pays attention to the context of the events, the subjects’ point of views, reasons for
the events, and the phenomena that need more exploitation and explanation, especially when facing several variables correlating to each other. Other than that,
descriptive study is appropriate to be used in this research study since it “aimed at ascertaining the status of a set of variables, ... without any critical analysis or
attempt to test casual hypotheses”.
5
3.2 Research Participants
The subjects of the research were the eleventh grade students of the international class of SMAN 3 Yogyakarta. The eleventh grade students were
chosen because they have had the sufficient amount of the exposure of English, the experience and the broader knowledge compared to the tenth grade students. Also,
they were not as busy as the twelfth grade students in terms of the preparation for the final examination.
The background knowledge of the research participants is considered quite good, especially in relation with the research. This is due to the selection test that
they had to take before enrolling into the international class. Thus, the researcher assumed that their basic ability in English is relatively better than students in
regular class. In conducting the research, the researcher employed random sampling, in
which the researcher chose a number of students to be observed randomly. The use of random sampling was due to the reason that random sampling is a fair
technique, in which each member of the population has an equal opportunity to be
5
Taken from http:www.answers.comtopicdescriptive-study. Accessed on June 26, 2009.
31 chosen as a sample. Therefore, it is expected that the result would be the best
reflection of the population’s characteristics. Determining the number of research participants in this research was quite
difficult. This is due to the fact that there is no exact formula on determining the number of participants for a research. In fact, it highly depends on the type of the
research being done. However, due to a general concession, the researcher decided to employ the 50 + 1 principle, which is formulated by n = N 2 + 1. Here, n is
the number of the research subjects and N is the total number of population. The n is generated randomly from the class attendance list.
The total number of students in the class is 38 N. So, the number of the samples is:
n = 38 2 + 1 = 20
Seeing the result of the calculation, the researcher decided to take twenty students out of the whole population.
3.3 Research Instruments
The researcher utilized two instruments in completing the research. The instruments were field notes and interview checklist. Further elaboration on each
instrument will be discussed below.
3.3.1 Field Notes
As a way to ensure the objectivity of the research, the researcher employed field notes as one of the research instruments. Field notes were chosen because
32 they have two important components. The first component, the descriptive part,
includes a complete description of the setting, the people and their reactions and interpersonal relationships, and accounts of events who, when, what was done.
The second component, the reflective part also referred as observer comment or OC, includes the observer’s personal feelings or impressions about the events,
comments on the research method, decisions and problems, records of ethical issues, and speculations about data analysis Ary et al., 2002.
The two components of field notes are helpful in bringing about a successful outcome of the study because they provide more comprehensive and
provided accurate details. By having the reflective part of the observation, the researcher could also avoid the observer bias, a situation when the observer’s
personal attitudes and values affect the observation andor the interpretation of the observation, so that the research became more valid and reliable. The field notes
were mostly important in answering the first formulated problem, namely to see how Content-Based Instruction CBI is implemented in the international class.
3.3.2 Interview Checklist
As the other research instrument, interview checklist was employed as the guideline in conducting interviews with the research participants. The use of
interview checklist was important because it focused the data gathering directly on the topic of the research Yin, 2002. The interview checklist was developed as a
way to gather data from the research participants. Due to these reasons, interview checklist has the most advantage of supplying large volumes of in-depth data
rather quickly, especially when compared to other research instruments, and is PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
33 related to the second formulated problem, namely the influences of CBI
implementation in the international class towards the eleventh grade students’ mastery of English reading skill.
In detail, the interview checklist was divided into three sections, namely the Students’ Characteristics section, International Class section, and Reading section
see Appendix 6 pp. 90-91. The divisions were made to help the researcher use the appropriate data in addressing the formulated problems.
The two instruments were relatively equal in providing the researcher with sufficient sources and data in conducting the research study. The outcome of each
instrument being used could not provide all data that were needed in fulfilling the research study. Therefore, rather than emphasizing one research instrument over
another, the researcher combined both instruments to obtain the best results of the research so that the outcome would be more valid and reliable.
3.4 Data Gathering Technique
Data gathering was conducted by employing several techniques. The first technique was by employing field notes. The researcher employed this technique
by conducting classroom observations and reporting the observation results in forms of field notes. Since this technique was important in ensuring the objectivity
of the research, the researcher only reported the actual events taking place during the observations whereas the researcher’s opinions and comments were put in the
OC observer’s comment part of the field notes. In addition to that, the researcher employed the non-participant observation.
