Research Instruments and Data Gathering Technique
27 the students’ condition and teacher’s method in teaching writing. This observation
helped researcher to know students’ characteristics, problem experienced by students, and the teacher’s teaching method.
This observation checklist was used when the researcher observed the class at the beginning of the research as the first step of implementing
experiencing techniques. This checklist provided some elements to be analyzed. They were the physical setting, the participants, the activities and the interactions
Merriam, 2009, p. 120. 2
Field Notes Field notes refer to the notes researchers take in the field. In educational
research, the notes focus on the educational setting. The notes are about the reflection of the problem experienced by the students in the class. The researcher
followed field notes strategy suggested by Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen 2010, p. 527. The field notes used in this research contained the setting, participants,
activities, events, purposes, and time of observation. The contents of field notes had to be highly descriptive Merriam, 2009, p. 130. From the field notes, the
researcher was able to identify the source of the problem experienced by students in analyzing the texts organization and writing texts based on the correct
organization. Field notes were used together with observation checklist when the
researcher observed the class. They were used together because field notes enabled the researcher to record the teaching and learning steps, students’
questions, and teacher’s answers to the questions which could not be found in the
28 observation checklist. Hopkins suggests any researchers to use field notes because
they provide ongoing record and keep memory of the observation 2008, p. 105. Both field notes and observation checklist implemented the experiencing
technique because the researcher needed to gather data from the experience in observing the class. The data would be used to see how the teaching and learning
activity were administered. From the teaching and learning activity, the researcher analyzed the root cause of the problem and the solution to it.
3 Students’ Writing Assignment
In the observation data before the implemetation, the researcher analyzed students’ writings before implementing the action planned. Their writings were
obtained from writing exercise given by the English teacher on April 18
th
, 2012. Each of them had to write a descriptive text. The researcher collected the data for
the baseline from assessing the organization of their descriptive texts. As criterion of success, the researcher defined 20 as the score of good paragraph. The same
criterion was also used to score the students’ writings in the implementation.
Table 3.1 : The Scoring Criteria of Students’ Writings
No Aspects
Scores Characteristics
1 Topic sentence
5 Very good
Each paragraph contains a very clear topic sentence. Analysis is not required because
the readers can find the topic sentence easily.
4 Good
Each paragraph contains a clear topic sentence. However, it needs little attempt to
analyze the paragraph to find the topic sentence
29
No Aspects
Scores Characteristics
3 Fair
Each paragraph contains a topic sentence, but it is not well-developed. It needs further
analysis to find the topic sentence.
2 Poor
Some paragraphs do not contain topic sentences. In those paragraphs, analysis is
not supported because the topic sentences are not elaborated well.
1 Very Poor
All paragraphs do not contain topic sentence. Many sentences in each paragraph
are not organized and connected, so they do not support the existence of a topic
sentence.
2 Supporting
sentence 5
Very good All sentences in the paragraphs support the
development of the topic sentences. 4
Good Almost all sentences in the paragraphs
support the development of the topic sentences.
3 Fair
Several sentences in the paragraphs do not support the development of the topic
sentence. They are not relevant to the topic sentences.
2 Poor
Many sentences in the paragraphs are not relevant to the topic sentences. Thus, the
topic sentences are not elaborated well.
1 Very poor
Almost all sentences in the paragraphs are not relevant to the topic sentences. Thus, all
topic sentences are not elaborated. 3
Coherence 5
Very good The paragraphs are perfectly-connected and
very easy to follow 4
Good The paragraphs are connected well and easy
to follow 3
Fair The paragraphs are slightly connected and
rather difficult to understand 2
Poor The paragraphs are hardly connected and
difficult to follow 1
Very poor The paragraphs are not connected and
difficult to follow 4
Organization 5
Very good All sentences in the paragraphs are well-
ordered. They are maintained to show perfect connection between sentences, so
the ideas are sequenced well.
4 Good
Almost all sentences in the paragraphs are well-ordered. Connection between
sentences is a little bit distracted because the new information does not support the
old one.
30
No Aspects
Scores Characteristics
3 Fair
Many sentences in the paragraphs are well- ordered. Connection distraction is often
found because the sentences are not organized by presenting new information
after the old one.
2 Poor
Several sentences in the paragraphs are well-ordered. Many sentences are not
controlled because the rule of presenting new information after old information is
violated.
1 Very Poor
Almost all sentences in the paragraphs are not organized. The readers cannot follow
the ideas because the old information is not supported by the relevant new information.
5 Generic
Structure 5
Very good The text shows correct generic structure
clearly. There is no misplaced idea
4 Good
The text shows correct generic structure but it is a little bit unclear. Almost all ideas are
placed correctly based on the generic structure
3 Fair
The text shows correct generic structure but it is unclear. Several misplaced ideas are
found, but it does not affect the essence of structure
2 Poor
The text shows incorrect generic structure in several paragraphs. Some misplaced
ideas are found and almost alter the generic structure
1 Very Poor
The text shows incorrect generic structure in all paragraphs. All ideas in the paragraph
are misplaced and alter the generic structure
4 Questionnaire
The researcher distributed a questionnaire to know students’ ability and difficulty in analyzing and composing text based on their opinion. By distributing
the questionnaire, the researcher could identify the problem, explore the cause of the problem, and determine the solution to it. The questionnaire was distributed on
April 23
rd
, 2012.
31 The questionnaire consisted of twelve items which had to be responded
by the students. In order to give the students chance to give further opinion about their paragraph writing skill and their difficulties in organizing ideas, the
researcher provided five open-ended questions. 3.4.2
The Research Instruments during the Implementation The instruments used during the implementation were questionnaire,
students’ writing assignment, field notes, observation checklist, and semi- structured interview.
1 Questionnaire
Questionnaire is a research instrument which consists of series of questions to gather information from the participants. Questionnaire is commonly
used in Classroom Action Research because the questions are easy to structure and the process to obtain broad and rich information from students is easy and
quick Hopkins, 2008, p. 118. In this research, questionnaire was used to ask the students as
participants about the improvement of their paragraph writing skill related to the organization and the effectiveness of arranging jumbled paragraph activity in
improving their paragraph writing skill. The questionnaire supported root cause and problem solving strategy analysis.
The questionnaire was distributed after the action was carried out. The questionnaire was given to 15 students of XA in SMA Santo Mikael in the
academic year 20112012. The questionnaire helped the researcher to find the improvement of students’ skill to organize their paragraphs. The researcher
32 provided scaled items, so the students gave response based on their agreement or
disagreement. The rating scales or Likert scales were used because they provided a range of responses to a given statement based on the students’ level of
agreement Cohen, Manion, and Morrison, 2000, p. 253. There were thirteen items that had to be responded by the students. The
researcher also provided two open-ended questions. The open-ended questions were given to know students’ opinions about the implementation of arranging
jumbled paragraph activity. Questionnaire implemented the enquiring technique because it asked questions to gather data.
2 Semi-structured Interview
The researcher interviewed four students from the classroom to obtain deeper information about the problem. Conducting interview supported the
information obtained in the questionnaire. The interview helped the researcher to know students’ opinions about the activity and whether they thought that
arranging jumbled paragraphs helped them improve their paragraph writing skill or not. Semi-structured interview was chosen because the interviewer was allowed
to modify the sequence of questions, change the wording, and add follow-up questions Merriam, 2009, p. 268.
The researcher interviewed four students from XA students. Those students were the sample of the population. They were selected purposively. The
researcher selected two students whose writings were poor and two students whose writings were fair. The purposive sampling was used because the
33 participants were believed to be information-rich cases Wiersma, 1995, p. 298.
In the interview, the researcher asked nine open-ended questions. 3
Students’ Writing Assignments The first assignment which was given after arranging jumbled
paragraphs in the first cycle aimed to see the improvement made by the students in organizing the paragraphs. The writing assignment was given on Monday 30th,
2012. In the second cycle, the researcher gave writing assignment on Monday 7th, 2012. The purpose of the second assignment was to confirm that arranging
jumbled paragraph activity was effective to improve students’ paragraph writing skill. To take the scores, the researcher used the scoring criteria described in Table
3.1 4
Observation Checklist There were two observers who helped the researcher to fill the
observation checklist. The observation checklist was used to gain feedback on the teaching and learning activity conducted by the researcher and to reflect on the
lesson that day. The observers were a research partner and a nonreciprocal observer. The research partner and the researcher observed one another’s
teaching, but the researcher did not observe the nonreciprocal observer’s teaching because she worked with her own project Wallace, 2010, p. 106.
5 Field Notes
The two observers also helped the researcher to record the field notes in the teaching and learning activity. The field notes helped the researcher to see the
34 process of implementing the action in the class. The researcher could improve the
process of the implementation by monitoring the class through the field notes.