s bing 0605175 chapter3

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the process of doing this research. This includes research questions, research design, research site and participants, data collection and data analysis.

3.1 Statement of Problems

The study was inspired by the necessity of EAP course students, especially those taking IELTS training, of getting the minimum IELTS total band of 6.5 to be admitted in most universities in Australia and England. The data of students’ achievement taken from several times of practice tests showed that their writing competence was not good enough. It was supported by their mean scores of writing practice test which were below 6. For that reason, the students’ problems in writing hindering the students obtaining the score needed should be seriously addressed and solved.

3.2 Research Design

Since it was aimed at exploring students’ problems in accomplishing Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module and what the students and teacher did to overcome these problems, this study employed a qualitative research design with the characteristic of a case study.

A case study is chosen because the phenomena being observed is so complex that a variety of different kinds of data is needed in order to gain a full picture Wray et al., (1988:188). The phenomenon was complex since, related to the research questions, the students’ problems in writing, especially EFL writing and also writing for exam, might be varied. Therefore, it needed a variety of different kinds of data to gain a complete picture. In this case, the researcher used triangulation of data collection methods involving classroom observation, interviews with the teacher and the students, and documentation of students’ texts. Verschuren (2003, cited in Dornyei, 2011: 152) says that although case studies are typically discussed under the label of qualitative research (because a single case cannot be representative of a population), actual case studies often include quantitave data collection instruments as well as questionnaires. Thus, the case study is not a specific technique but rather a method of collecting and organizing data so as to maximize our understanding of the unitary character of the social being or object studied.

Besides, it was a case study since it was carried out in “a small scale, a single case” (Stake, 1985: 278, cited in Emilia, 2005). It “focused on one particular instance of educational experience or practice” (Freebody, 2003: 81), employed “multiple data collections and analytic procedures” (Freebody, 2003: 83).

3.3 Setting

state university in Bandung. The EAP course has two programs: TOEFL and IELTS training, but in this research, the IELTS training program was preferred since IELTS has been a high stake test covering four language skills.

The research site was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, this research site has been conducting EAP courses focusing on the IELTS Academic Module for pre-departure students of the Directorate of Higher Education for several terms. It is more reliable to conduct the research here than in an institution that has just opened a new EAP course focusing on the IELTS academic module.

Secondly, having been a teaching member in this language center for almost five years, the researcher hoped to get access easily to the research site, and thus to increase feasibility of the study. The researcher’s familiarity with the situation in the research site was expected to lead to a more natural conduct of research, in the context that normally occurs.

In addition, this research site is easy to reach by the researcher. Moleong (2005:128) states that the limitation of geographies and practice such as time, cost and energy should be considered in determining the research site.

3.4 Participants

The population of this research consisted of the three-month IELTS training program students covering four classes and each class comprised 25 students on average. Based on their performance during the lessons and the result of their practice tests, it was assumed that there was no significant difference in terms of students’ achievement. The four classes’ mean scores of twelve practice tests were

quite similar. Besides, based on the preliminary study, it was shown that the students faced similar problems in completing Writing tasks. Therefore, the researcher used one class as population. As to the sample, this research used purposive sampling in that participants were not chosen randomly as individuals. With the help of the Writing teacher, who knew the students’ achievement well, the students were chosen as representatives of three groups, namely: above average, average, and below average achievers based on their average IELTS scores for academic writing from the writing practice tests. Above average group consisted of three students whose average score for writing was more than 5.5, average group consisted of three students whose average score for writing was between 5 and 5.5, and the last, below average group comprised three students whose average score for writing was below 5.

All participants were between 30-38 years of age, four males and five males. They were originally from the Javanese ethnic group, having Bahasa Jawa as their mother tongue. Bahasa Indonesia is their second language and English is thus their foreign language.

Six students involved in this study had taken English courses but none of them had taken any EAP course or the real IELTS test. All participants enrolled this EAP focusing on IELTS training since they intended to take a PhD program in universities in Australia and England, and they were granted by the Directorate of Higher Education for taking this course.

All participants had studied English in Indonesia for more than six years at junior and high school levels and are now university teaching members having

different majors. Their majors include Computer Science, Biology Education, Anthropology, Research and Education, Management, Hard Science Education, Education Technology, Electrical Engineering, and Agricultural Engineering.

3.5 Data Collection

As stated above, this study employed a qualitative research and several data collection techniques. There were three data collection techniques used in this study including interview, questionnaires, and documentation of students’ texts.

3.5.1 Classroom Observation

Observation is one of qualitative forms of data (Creswell, 2008: 220). Observations represent a frequently used form of data collection, in which the researcher is able to assume different roles in the process (Spradley, 1980, cited in Creswell, 2008). In this study, the researcher was a non-participant observer. She was an observer who visited the research site and recorded notes without becoming involved in the activities of the participants. Creswell (2008: 222-223) says that the nonparticipant observer is an “outsider” who sits on periphery or some advantageous place to watch and record the phenomenon under study (i.e. the back of the classroom).

In this research, classroom observations were conducted for six meetings. During the observations, the researcher observed the teaching and learning activities in the classroom. It covered the interaction between the teacher and the

students. Further, the researcher made notes of what was said and what was done by both the teacher and the students in classroom interaction.

Unfortunately, the classroom activities were not recorded. This may become the weakness of the study. However, Alwasilah (2002: 226) states that researchers are suggested to videotape the observation. This implies that videotaping is not a must. Instead, a researcher must be a good note taker who is able to note the whole activity in the classroom. In this case, the researcher had tried to be a good note-taker who noted the activities covering all that the teacher and the students said and did.

3.5.2 Documentation of Students’ Texts

This technique constitutes the ways to elicit the information by analyzing the written or visual contents of a document (Fraenkel and Wallen, 1993:385). In line with Travers (2001:5), the researcher could gain a lot of data from documents available. They can be a valuable source of information in qualitative research (Creswell, 2008: 230) since they provide the advantage of being in the language and words of participants, who have usually given thoughtful attention to them.

As stated above, the participants whose texts analyzed were chosen based on their level of achievements as recorded by their writing teacher. In collecting documents, the researcher collected nine students’ texts in the form of Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module.

The compositions were the last students’ works of a three-month IELTS Preparation program. Those texts were written to accomplish the task of the last

practice test. These texts were chosen based on a consideration that they could represent the students’ achievement after taking the IELTS preparation program for about three months.

The texts were written based on a task. The participants were given a chart giving information about global population percentages and distribution of wealth by region. Then, they were asked to summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparison where relevant. As usual, for accomplishing Writing Task 1 candidates are suggested to spend about 20 minutes on writing at least 150 words.

The texts collected were analyzed based on the assessment criteria of Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module. The data found then were classified into four categories: problems related to task achievement, problems related coherence and cohesion, problems related to lexical resources, and problems related to grammatical rage and accuracy.

3.5.3 Interview

Interviewing is a frequent part of the social life. People often participate in interviews of various types as either interviewers or interviewees. As Miller and Crabtee (1999, cited in Dornyei, 2011:134) point out, the interview genre with its turn-taking conventions and expectations for participant roles, etiquettes, and even linguistic phrase is usually shared cultural knowledge. It is exactly because interviewing is a known communication routine that the method works very well as a versatile research instrument – in fact, although there is a range of qualitative

research techniques available for researchers, the interview is the most often used method in qualitative inquiries. It is regularly applied in a variety of applied linguistic contexts for diverse purposes.

In this study, the researcher conducted interviews with the teacher and the students for obtaining information to address the research questions. Interview with the writing teacher was done to investigate the teaching and learning activities in the writing class, and find the solution to solve the students’ problems. Besides, interview with the students was conducted to identify what the students and teacher did to minimize the problems of students in writing.

Interview with the teacher was conducted at the end of the observation. Interview with the student was conducted after the observations.

There were two reasons why interviews were conducted in this research. First, they were to confirm and/or to verify the data obtained from observations. Second, it was expected that the data gained through observations could be made clearer by the presence of interview data.

The researcher conducted ‘semi-structured interview’ type since it offered a compromise between the two extremes (Dornyei, 2011: 136):

“Although there is aset of pre-prepared guiding questions and prompts, the format is open-ended and the interviewee is encouraged to elaborate on the issues raised in an explanatory manner. In other words, the interviewer provides guidance and direction (hence the ‘structured’ - part in name), but is also keen to follow up an interesting developments and to let the interviewee elaborate on certain issue (hence the ‘semi’ – part).”

It is in line with Seidman (2006: 9) who says that the purpose of in-depth interview is not to get answers to questions, nor to test hypotheses, and not

Related to the recent study, the researcher had a good enough overview of the phenomenon in question as she was a also one of the teaching members in which the study conducted and was able to develop broad questions about the topic in advance but she did not want to use ready-made response categories that would limit the depth and breadth of the respondents’ story.

3.6 Data Analysis

Data analysis is different from data collection. It is recursive and dynamic (Merriam, 1998:156). In this research, data analysis was conducted during and after data collection. It was done simultaneously with ongoing activities related to teaching and learning activities in writing, especially Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module. As stated previously, this study collected the data from classroom observations, documentation of students’ texts and interviews. Then, all data gathered were analyze, summarized, and then classified.

Students’ written texts were collected and analyzed to reveal the students’ problems in completing Writing Task 1. All students’ compositions were taken from the last practice test. The texts then were analyzed based on the assessment criteria for Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module to find the students’ problems. To address the research questions, the data were categorized into four types: problems with fulfilling task achievement, achieving coherence and cohesion, making use of lexical resource, and using grammatical range and accuracy.

Regarding the task achievement, all the texts were analyzed to examine the students’ ability in interpreting the task and in summarizing significant features of the graph or diagram. Moreover, those texts were observed to see the students’ ability in including key data to support and completing the summary, in using complete sentence and in avoiding using bullets, and also in writing at least 150 words in 20 minutes.

The analysis of cohesion was related to how the students’ words were linked to form sentences, and how their sentences were joined together logically to form the argument – all was achieved if the students applied correct agreement between subject and verb; with number (singular and plural forms); agreement with case (word forms before and after verbs; and possessive forms); and gender forms. Besides, it analyzed the sequence and order of tenses, and verb forms for different tenses that help organize information in the text; articles (a/an and the); pronouns; and conjunction (joining words) that are important for linking ideas, causes and results, giving reasons, presenting conditions and contingencies, and explaining and clarifying statements.

Related to coherence, the stress was put on the organization of the whole text – the introduction, body paragraphs and the concluding paragraph. It also analyzed how paragraphs were organized – the topic sentence, supporting and developing sentences and concluding sentence. The use of transition signals (linking words) is important as they signal the stages and sequence of processes and procedures, narratives, and the logical development of ideas.

The analysis of lexical resources referred to students’ ability in using a range of vocabulary across academic topic areas and paraphrasing to easily and clearly summarize and described a variety of graphic texts with an appropriate tone and level of formality. Then, it involved the command of word forms (for example, machine, mechanic, mechanization, mechanical, mechanize, mechanically). It also focused on the correct spelling (the number of spelling mistakes is a clear indicator of language ability), and punctuation.

The students’ command of the grammar of English: active and passive voice structures and the correct use of preposition of time and place were analyzed to know their problems in grammatical range and accuracy. Furthermore the analysis was on the sentence types: the use of a mix of simple, compound, and complex sentences of varying length. In additional, it observed the length of sentences.

The data from classroom observations were analyzed and summarized. The data from the interviews were used transcribe d and classified. Then the data from both sources were used to answer the second question.

students. Further, the researcher made notes of what was said and what was done by both the teacher and the students in classroom interaction.

Unfortunately, the classroom activities were not recorded. This may become the weakness of the study. However, Alwasilah (2002: 226) states that researchers are suggested to videotape the observation. This implies that videotaping is not a must. Instead, a researcher must be a good note taker who is able to note the whole activity in the classroom. In this case, the researcher had tried to be a good note-taker who noted the activities covering all that the teacher and the students said and did.

3.5.2 Documentation of Students’ Texts

This technique constitutes the ways to elicit the information by analyzing the written or visual contents of a document (Fraenkel and Wallen, 1993:385). In line with Travers (2001:5), the researcher could gain a lot of data from documents available. They can be a valuable source of information in qualitative research (Creswell, 2008: 230) since they provide the advantage of being in the language and words of participants, who have usually given thoughtful attention to them.

As stated above, the participants whose texts analyzed were chosen based on their level of achievements as recorded by their writing teacher. In collecting documents, the researcher collected nine students’ texts in the form of Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module.

The compositions were the last students’ works of a three-month IELTS Preparation program. Those texts were written to accomplish the task of the last

practice test. These texts were chosen based on a consideration that they could represent the students’ achievement after taking the IELTS preparation program for about three months.

The texts were written based on a task. The participants were given a chart giving information about global population percentages and distribution of wealth by region. Then, they were asked to summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparison where relevant. As usual, for accomplishing Writing Task 1 candidates are suggested to spend about 20 minutes on writing at least 150 words.

The texts collected were analyzed based on the assessment criteria of Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module. The data found then were classified into four categories: problems related to task achievement, problems related coherence and cohesion, problems related to lexical resources, and problems related to grammatical rage and accuracy.

3.5.3 Interview

Interviewing is a frequent part of the social life. People often participate in interviews of various types as either interviewers or interviewees. As Miller and Crabtee (1999, cited in Dornyei, 2011:134) point out, the interview genre with its turn-taking conventions and expectations for participant roles, etiquettes, and even linguistic phrase is usually shared cultural knowledge. It is exactly because interviewing is a known communication routine that the method works very well as a versatile research instrument – in fact, although there is a range of qualitative

research techniques available for researchers, the interview is the most often used method in qualitative inquiries. It is regularly applied in a variety of applied linguistic contexts for diverse purposes.

In this study, the researcher conducted interviews with the teacher and the students for obtaining information to address the research questions. Interview with the writing teacher was done to investigate the teaching and learning activities in the writing class, and find the solution to solve the students’ problems. Besides, interview with the students was conducted to identify what the students and teacher did to minimize the problems of students in writing.

Interview with the teacher was conducted at the end of the observation. Interview with the student was conducted after the observations.

There were two reasons why interviews were conducted in this research. First, they were to confirm and/or to verify the data obtained from observations. Second, it was expected that the data gained through observations could be made clearer by the presence of interview data.

The researcher conducted ‘semi-structured interview’ type since it offered a compromise between the two extremes (Dornyei, 2011: 136):

“Although there is aset of pre-prepared guiding questions and prompts, the format is open-ended and the interviewee is encouraged to elaborate on the issues raised in an explanatory manner. In other words, the interviewer provides guidance and direction (hence the ‘structured’ - part in name), but is also keen to follow up an interesting developments and to let the interviewee elaborate on certain issue (hence the ‘semi’ – part).”

It is in line with Seidman (2006: 9) who says that the purpose of in-depth interview is not to get answers to questions, nor to test hypotheses, and not

Related to the recent study, the researcher had a good enough overview of the phenomenon in question as she was a also one of the teaching members in which the study conducted and was able to develop broad questions about the topic in advance but she did not want to use ready-made response categories that would limit the depth and breadth of the respondents’ story.

3.6 Data Analysis

Data analysis is different from data collection. It is recursive and dynamic (Merriam, 1998:156). In this research, data analysis was conducted during and after data collection. It was done simultaneously with ongoing activities related to teaching and learning activities in writing, especially Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module. As stated previously, this study collected the data from classroom observations, documentation of students’ texts and interviews. Then, all data gathered were analyze, summarized, and then classified.

Students’ written texts were collected and analyzed to reveal the students’ problems in completing Writing Task 1. All students’ compositions were taken from the last practice test. The texts then were analyzed based on the assessment criteria for Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module to find the students’ problems. To address the research questions, the data were categorized into four types: problems with fulfilling task achievement, achieving coherence and cohesion, making use of lexical resource, and using grammatical range and accuracy.

Regarding the task achievement, all the texts were analyzed to examine the students’ ability in interpreting the task and in summarizing significant features of the graph or diagram. Moreover, those texts were observed to see the students’ ability in including key data to support and completing the summary, in using complete sentence and in avoiding using bullets, and also in writing at least 150 words in 20 minutes.

The analysis of cohesion was related to how the students’ words were linked to form sentences, and how their sentences were joined together logically to form the argument – all was achieved if the students applied correct agreement between subject and verb; with number (singular and plural forms); agreement with case (word forms before and after verbs; and possessive forms); and gender forms. Besides, it analyzed the sequence and order of tenses, and verb forms for different tenses that help organize information in the text; articles (a/an and the); pronouns; and conjunction (joining words) that are important for linking ideas, causes and results, giving reasons, presenting conditions and contingencies, and explaining and clarifying statements.

Related to coherence, the stress was put on the organization of the whole text – the introduction, body paragraphs and the concluding paragraph. It also analyzed how paragraphs were organized – the topic sentence, supporting and developing sentences and concluding sentence. The use of transition signals (linking words) is important as they signal the stages and sequence of processes and procedures, narratives, and the logical development of ideas.

The analysis of lexical resources referred to students’ ability in using a range of vocabulary across academic topic areas and paraphrasing to easily and clearly summarize and described a variety of graphic texts with an appropriate tone and level of formality. Then, it involved the command of word forms (for example, machine, mechanic, mechanization, mechanical, mechanize, mechanically). It also focused on the correct spelling (the number of spelling mistakes is a clear indicator of language ability), and punctuation.

The students’ command of the grammar of English: active and passive voice structures and the correct use of preposition of time and place were analyzed to know their problems in grammatical range and accuracy. Furthermore the analysis was on the sentence types: the use of a mix of simple, compound, and complex sentences of varying length. In additional, it observed the length of sentences.

The data from classroom observations were analyzed and summarized. The data from the interviews were used transcribe d and classified. Then the data from both sources were used to answer the second question.