lecturer’s direction, so the lecturer becomes the primary attention and source of knowledge in the class.
The traditional or conventional seating arrangement has its advantages and disadvantages.
Don Clark 2001:1 stated the characteristic of the traditional or conventional
seating arrangement
which is
best used
for short
lectures, communication tends to be one way and lecturer cannot see the students in the back.
As stated above, the most beneficial seating arrangement can be determined by the type of learning activities that teacher plans to focus on the teaching and learning
process in the classroom. The traditional or conventional seating is appropriate to be applied for the short lectures because in this activity, the communication tends to be
one way and considering the lecturer as the primary source of information where the lecture is giving a lecture and the students are only listening, but the problem is the
lecturer cannot see the students who sit in the back. It also becomes a problem, when the students have to do the group discussion because they have to gather in the group
whereas the seating arrangement is not really appropriate in group discussion. In the groups, the students have to sit face to face and it sometimes makes the students
move their desks and chair to do discussion with their friends in one group. In this paper, the researcher is going to focus on Public Speaking I class.
According to According to Gary D. Borich 1996: 78 in speaking class, “group work should entail 60-80 percent of the time to a cooperative activity; the remainder is
being devoted to whole class discussion.” It means that most of the time in Public Speaking I class used for cooperative activity in the group.
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Noticing the problem at Sanata Dharma University and being inspired by Alexandra Ramsden and Adams and Biddle on the traditional seating arrangement,
the researcher is interested not only in finding out the students’ and lecturers perceptions on the traditional seating arrangement but also in digging out suggestion
for teaching and learning process using traditional seating arrangement in Public Speaking I class. Nevertheless, how about the students’ and lecturers’ perceptions on
the traditional seating arrangement in Public Speaking I class? Do they perceive the conventional or traditional seating arrangement in positive or negative way?
Therefore, in order to dig out the students’ and lecturers’ perceptions and their suggestion about the conventional or traditional seating arrangement in Public
Speaking I class, the researcher conducts a research. In order to conduct the research, the researcher distributes a questionnaire and conducts the interview and will be
discussed further in Chapter III. 37
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents detailed discussion about the methodology used in this research. This discussion is presented into five major parts, namely
research methodology, the setting of the research, the research participants, the research
instruments, data gathering procedure, and data analysis procedure.
A. Method
The reason for choosing one methodology over another was related to the nature of the subject studied and the theories underlying the research objectives. In
this study, the methodology used was descriptive research to obtain data. According to Best 1970, as stated in Cohen, et.al., 2000: 169 describes:
Descriptive research is concerned with conditions or relationships that exists; practices that prevail; belief, points of view, or attitudes that are held; processes that
are going on; effects that are being felt; or trends that are developing. At times, descriptive research is concerned with how what is or what exists is related to some
preceding event that has influenced or affected a present condition or event. Best 1970, as stated in Cohen, et.al., 2000.
In this study, the researcher is going to dig out the students’ and lecturers’ perceptions on the traditional seating arrangement in Public Speaking I class at
Sanata Dharma University and their suggestions about the seating arrangement so the teaching and learning activities work efficiently in Public Speaking I class. Therefore,
in order to describe the phenomenon, the researcher conducted two methods of obtaining the data; those methods were:
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1. Distributing Questionnaire
Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh 1999: 418 stated that a questionnaire “was an instrument of the study to gather information through the respondents’ written
responses to a list of question.” The questionnaires consist of two parts question close and open-ended questions. The questionnaires were used not only to find out
students’ perceptions on the traditional seating arrangement in Public Speaking I class but also offer the space for the students to give any suggestions to make
teaching and learning activities work efficiently in Public Speaking I class using the traditional seating arrangement at Sanata Dharma University. The close-ended
questions in the questionnaire were used to find out the students’ perceptions on the traditional seating arrangement while the open-ended questions in the questionnaire
were used to find suggestions to improve teaching and learning activities and make those activities works efficiently in Public Speaking I class using the traditional
seating arrangement at Sanata Dharma University.
2. Conducting Interview
The researcher asked some open-ended questions which were designed to dig out Public Speaking lecturers’ perceptions on the conventional or traditional
seating arrangement and their suggestions to improve teaching and learning activities in Public Speaking I class using the traditional seating arrangement at Sanata Dharma
University. The interview was also conducted to some the fourth semester students. Fraenkel and Wallen 1993: 385 stated that “interview is the most important data
collection technique a qualitative researcher possesses.” The open-ended questions 39
