Framework of Thinking THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

findings that are systematic, generalizable, and open to replication by other investigators. 1 Furthermore, Creswell states quantitaive method have some characteristics which are describing a reserch problem through the description of trends or a need of explenation of the relationship among variabeles; providing a major role for the literature through suggesting the research questions to be asked and justifying the research problem; creating purpose statement, research question and hypotheses that are specific; collecting numerical data; analyzing trends, comparing group, or relating variable using statistical data; writing the research report using standard, fixed structure and evaluation criteria. 2 Then, this research was conducted to find out the empirical evidence of the effectiveness of using blended learning model on students reading comprehension. Since this study used quantitaive method, the design was used quasi- experimental. Quasi- experimental designs are “almost” true experimental designs, except that the participants are not randomly assigned into group. In quasi- experimental research, the researcher studies the effect of treatment on experimental and controlled groups. 3 This study was conducted to prove whether there was cause and effect between two variables. Those two variables were Independent variable mostly presented by X which is blended learning and dependent variable mostly Presented by Y which is reading comprehension of exposition text. In this quasi- experimental design used two groups which were divided into experimental group and controlled group. The experimental group was given treatment which was blended learning model and the controlled group was not given blended learning model but convensionaltraditional model. 1 Donald Ary et al, Introduction to Research in Education, Eigth Edition, Belmont: Wadsworth Cenage Learning, 2010 p. 23 2 John W Creswell, Educational Research, Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Fourth Edition, Boston: Pearson Education. Inc, 2012 p. 13 3 Donna M. Mertens, Research and Evaluation in Education and Psychology Intergrating Diversity with Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Method, Third Edition, California: SAGE Publication. Inc, 2010 p.138

C. Population and Sample

The population of this study is 11 th grade of students at SMA N 4 Kota Tangerang Selatan which consisted of around 350 students. This grade had 10 classes, each class consisted around 35 students. This grade also divided into two programs, those were science class and social class. This population was chosen because exposition text was taught in that grade. The process of gaining the sample of study, the writer used purposive sampling to find sample. Purposive sampling was one of form in nonprobability sampling which was also referred to judgment sampling, it is means that sample elements judged to be typical, or representative for the research, the sample was chosen from the population. 4 Then, based on the writer ’s interview with the writer’s supervisor who teached eleventh grade in social class at SMA N Kota 4 Tangerang Selatan was chosen from two classes which had similar characteristic in learning English. Those classes were XI Social 2 as experimentall class and XI Social 3 as controlled class, each class consisted 35 students.

D. Instrument of the Research

The research instruments used here was reading test which focused on reading comprehension of exposition text test. The test instrument was divided into two sections: pre-test and post-test. The pre-test and post-test instrument were used multiple-choice questions which were taken from some books of English 11 th grade related to reading in exposition text and other resources. The writer created 25 multiple-choice questions for pre-test and 25 for post-test, then before the test administer to students, the writers checked the validity and the reliability of the test instruments. To measure validity of the instrument the writer will use content validity and reliability of the instrument, the writer used ANATEST. The result of ANATEST was atteched at the appendix. 4 Donald Ary et al. op. cit, p. 156