t bing 0907767 chapter3

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Nadya Nitiswari, 2012

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter will discuss the methodology that the researcher has applied in this study. There are five sections that are going to be elaborated in this chapter. The first section is the research question, the second section is the design which presents the method used in conducting the research and how the study is carried out. The research site and the elaboration on the participants involved in the study will be elaborated in the third section. The data collection and the instrument applied in the study will be discussed in section fourth. The last section that is the fourth section will give an overview of how the data in this study is collected, analyzed, and interpreted.

3.1 Research Question

As mentioned in Chapter One, this study aims to, firstly, investigate realizations of the use of L1 in the EFL classroom. Secondly, this study aims to find out the teachers and students perspectives of the use of L1 in the EFL classroom. Thus to meet these two purposes, two research questions are proposed:


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2. What are the perspectives of the Teachers and Students about the use of L1 in the EFL Classroom?

3.2Methodology

3.2.1 Research Design

The type of the research is falls under the category of case study which is qualitative in nature. Paton (2001) as quoted in Golafshani (2003) states that qualitative research uses a naturalistic approach that seek to understand phenomena in context-specific setting such as real world setting where researcher does not attempt to manipulate the phenomenon of interest. The research also will utilize a survey approach that will be collected through questionnaire. Therefore, the focus is on describing the realization of L1 used in the EFL classroom, the teachers’ perspectives and the reason of using L1 in the EFL classroom and also the students’ attitudes toward it.

3.2.2 Research Site

The research was undertaken at two Public Senior High School in Cimahi-Jawa Barat. The first school is a regular school and the second school is RSBI School. The school was chosen for the present study due to several reasons. The first reason for choosing the school was because the researcher was the alumni of school 1 so it gave relatively easy access to do the research. Moreover, the second school was chosen because the researcher was familiar with several teachers in the school.


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Nadya Nitiswari, 2012

Another reason for choosing this school was both of the school was the familiarity of the teacher and the students. The teacher had taught the students for one semester, so she had been familiar with the students. Therefore, it was expected that there will be natural performance in the instructional process during this study (Emilia, 2005).

3.2.3 Participants

The participants of the study were two English teacher and the two classes of the eleventh grader consisting of 40 students each classroom. Grade eleven were chosen in this research, the reason for choosing eleventh grade is because they are not focusing themselves on the National Examination (UN), so the research hopefully will not disturb the preparation of the examination. The purpose of choosing one whole class is also based on the researcher’s intention to have a real picture of a classroom situation mainly in terms of number which, in Indonesian context, mostly of large class consisting 35- students. This choice is in line with Van Lier’s suggestion to have research in ongoing and regular classes (1988) that further contribute to the reliability of the study.

3.2.3.1 School Profiles

School characteristics can be seen in the table 3.1 below. Information on school and student characteristic were obtain from classroom observations done by the researcher while conducting the pilot study in the


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classroom and from informal interviews with some English teachers at these schools.

Table 3.1 School Characteristics

No Level of

Education

School Characteristic Number of

Participants

1 Grade XI

Senior High School

RSBI (Pilot International Standard School), favorable in Cimahi, English is taught 6 hours a week. Most students in this school have generally good English, since the speaking English ability is one of the requirement to enroll the school

40

2 Grade XI

Senior High School

Regular school. English is taught 5 hours a week. From an informal interview with one of the English teachers in this school, students in this school need to be motivated to learn. Most students in this school can be can be categorized as mid achiever.

40

3.2.3.2 Teachers Profiles

Two English teachers who were involve as respondents in this study have the same level of educational background. the followings are the description of them.

Teacher A was graduated from English Education Department of a private university in Bandung. She has been teaching English at School 1 since 1984 up to present. To develop her knowledge in teaching English, she will enroll the post graduate studies on the next semester.


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Nadya Nitiswari, 2012

Teacher B was graduated from English Education Department of a state university in Bandung. She has been teaching English for 20 years, but it was her 15 year-teaching in school 2. She has participated some workshops and seminars to improve her knowledge in teaching English.

3.3Data Collection Method

This part elaborates how the data obtained in the study. The descriptions are presented below:

3.3.1 Preliminary Study

Two pilot studies were conducted prior to the real study. Both of pilot study was conducted in a second grade of senior high school in Cilegon. In these schools, the data needed in this study were significantly found during learning activities.

3.3.2 Classroom Observation and Classroom Video-recording

Classroom observation was the first data collection techniques used in this study. A video recorder was used to collect a natural data and as clear as possible. According to Van Lier (1988), recording was not only functions as a means for description and analysis in a research, but also as an estrangement device which is needed to look at the phenomena with detachment. The


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observations and recordings were conducted six times for each class from Jan 12th until Feb 13th 2011.

The field notes were also utilized to support the data gathered from audio recordings during the observation. The notes were used to assist in coding the data and to provide the researcher with information, which are not included in video recorder. In addition, the transcriptions of the classroom observation in this study are provided in Appendix A.

3.3.3 Teachers Interview

The second data collection techniques used in this study were an interview with all participating teachers in this study. The interview data in this study were used to obtain the teachers perspectivess of the use of L1 in the EFL classroom. This enabled the researcher to verify the teachers’ use of L1 in the classroom.

In this study, two English teachers from two different public schools in Cimahi were interviewed to obtain information about their perspectives in the use of Bahasa Indonesia in EFL classroom. Those teachers were selected purposively. In addition, this interview was conducted after the process of the video recording had been completed to obtain more comprehensive data on their perspectives regarding with the use of L1 in EFL classroom.

The question items of the interviews were originally designed by Al-Shidhani (2009) in his research questionnaire and developed by the


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Nadya Nitiswari, 2012

researcher to obtain more detailed information about a person’s thoughts. The interview questions cover the teacher background information, their opinions on a number of statements about the use of the L1 in the EFL classroom, and the final part focused on the teachers’ use of L in the classroom. In addition, the interview questions which were used in this study and the transcriptions of the interview is provided in Appendix B.

3.3.4 Students Questionnaire

Students’ questionnaire was the last data collection techniques used in this study. A questionnaire is relevant with this study in order to find out the participants attitudes, as supported by Fasold (1984) who mentions that methods for determining language attitudes can be either direct or indirect. Direct method requires subjects to respond to a questionnaire or interview questions that simply ask their opinion about one or another language.

The questionnaire consists 6 items and uses Bahasa Indonesia to avoid

students’ misinterpretation. The questionnaire was inspired by Schweers’s

research in 1999 and Emilia’s research in and then developed by the researcher to meet the research needs. In this study, the researcher administered both the opened-ended and the close-ended questionnaires.

Two from six questions were in the form of Likert scale questionnaire. The questions was designed as a structured questionnaire since it aimed at obtaining specific data which were needed to analyze the students perspectives toward the use of L1 in EFL classroom (Akdon, 2008). In


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addition, the questionnaire which was used in this study is provided in Appendix C.

3.4Data Analysis

3.4.1 Data from Classroom observation

Data from observation were used to get factual phenomenon of the

teachers’ activities in the classroom dealing with the use of L1 in the EFL

classroom. The data from observation result were analyzed based on the amount of the used bahasa Indonesia and the discourse context in EFL classroom. The researcher presents in the class as non-participant observer and the researcher will describe the phenomenon that she investigated descriptively and factually.

The amount of Bahasa Indonesia (L1) spoken by teachers and students were analyzed by adopting the method of quantifying proposed by Duff and Polio (1990). This method used an utterance as a basic unit. With reference to this method, each coded utterances produced by teacher were then categorized into TL refers to utterances completely in L or with one word or phrase in Bahasa Indonesia; and Mixed refers to utterances completely in Bahasa Indonesia or with one word or phrase in L2, plus utterances with an equal mixture of Bahasa Indonesia and English.


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Nadya Nitiswari, 2012

The data from Interview aimed to answer the second research question; the perspectives of teachers and students in using Bahasa Indonesia in EFL classroom. The data from interview were firstly transcribed. During the transcription stage, teacher’s names were replaced with alias names (Kvale, 1996). Secondly, the data that have been transcribed were categorized based on the themes which were related to the research questions. Thirdly, the data from the interview were subsequently presented in condensed body of information. To keep the objectivity of the study in analyzing the data, during the transcribing process the participants name were changed into alias name (Kvale, 1996). In the final step, to follow Cohen and Manion, (1994) and Kvale (1996) the transcripts were given back to the participants to make sure that it was exactly what the teachers said and meant.

3.4.3 Data from Questionnaire

The data from questionnaire aimed to answer research question number two; the students’ perspectives on the use of bahasa Indonesia in the classroom and the benefit of using bahasa Indonesia in the EFL classroom. The questionnaire consisted of 6 questions, 2 of the question were in the form of likert-scale, and 4 questions were in the form of open-ended questions. (the questionnaire can be seen in appendix C)

The data were analyzed qualitatively using thematic analysis. The data were categorized based on the central theme of the research, and then


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interpreted based on the category. The following are the calculation of the Likert-scale.

3.4.3.1 Calculating the Likert Scale

To follow Ockert (2005), two answers (see appendix C) gained from the questionnaire were calculated using Likert scale; the steps were scoring, finding out the score of the answer, calculating the central tendency of the answers, and classifying the average percentage. Those steps are considered to be processed in order to make the statistical number (Ockert, 2005). The steps are pointed out as follows.

a) Scoring

Each answers were labeled with value from 1-4. Example of scoring

students’ answers in the positively-framed statements is depicted below.

Table 3.2 Likert-Scale statements scoring rubric Category of

Response

Strongly Disagree

Agree Uncertain Disagree Strongly

Agree

Score 1 2 3 4 5

Table 3.3 Example of Statement in this research

No Pertanyaan Tidak

sama sekali

Sedikit

Ragu-Ragu

Kadang-Kadang

Sangat Suka

1 2 3 4 5


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Nadya Nitiswari, 2012

gurumu menggunakan Bahasa Indonesia di kelas Bahasa Inggris?

b) Finding out the score of the answer

To find out the score of each answer (table 3.3), the frequencies of the students answer are multiplied with the value of each answer.

score for option A (strongly disagree) : 0 x 1 = 0 score for option B (disagree) : 6 x 2 = 12

score for option C (neutral) : 10 x 3 = 30

score for option D (agree) : 14 x 4 = 56

score for option E (strongly agree) : 10 x 5 = 50 +

Total 148

notes:

- the ideal score for the lowest value = 1 x 40 (students) = 40 - the ideal score for the highest value = 5 x 40 (students) = 200 c) Calculating the central tendency of the respondents

Calculating the central tendency of the respondents employs the formula as shown as:

P=

× 100%


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P : Percentage

fo : The total value of answer

n : The ideal score of the highest value (Taken from Sudjana, 1984)

The calculation of the central tendency of the respondents as follow:

P = 148200× 100% = 74%

d) Classifying the average percentage

The final step in analyzing quantitative data gained from the questionnaire is classifying the average percentage. The classification is based on the criteria above.

Table 3.5 Score of percentage and its interpretation

Score of Percentage Interpretation

00% - 20% Very Weak

21% - 40% Weak

41% - 60% Enough

61% - 80% Strong

81% - 100% Very strong

Taken from Akdon (2008)

According to Ockert (2004), the interpretations of score percentage were made to make the descriptions of the data more systematical. Moreover, the interpretation which based on score percentage was formulated in order to classify the tendency of the response.


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Nadya Nitiswari, 2012

To promote credibility, there are some techniques commonly used in a qualitative, i.e. triangulation, member check, long-term observation, peer examination, participatory or collaborative modes of research, and researcher’s biases, thick description, typically or modal category, and multisite designs (Merriam, 1998; Cresswell, 1998; see also Alwasilah, 2000)

To establish trustworthiness, the researcher implemented two techniques namely triangulation and member check. Describing the data as clear as possible was also done to check the validity of the data. The techniques of triangulation and member checking are described as follows:

3.5.1 Triangulation

Triangulation refers to the use of various methods in collecting data needed for the research (Alwasilah, 2002). By applying triangulation, the researcher takes some benefit. First, the risk of making research conclusion that is limited to certain method and data source will be reduced. Second, the validity of the research conclusion will be increased. Therefore, the researcher triangulated the data by collecting information from three data resources (i.e. observation, interview, and questionnaire) and from two different parties (i.e. teachers and students).

3.5.2 Member Check

Member check will be carried out to verify data taken from the interview and observation. Respondents have been asked to review interview


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transcripts. According to Alwasilah (2002), the advantages of applying member check are: to avoid researcher’s misinterpretation toward respondents’ answer in the interview and respondents behavior in observation, to confirm respondents’ perspective toward ongoing process. Therefore, member checking was done by asking respondent who had been interviewed to check the transcripts of the interview.

3.6Summary of Chapter 3

This chapter has discussed the detail context of the study. The discussion has covered research questions that cover two questions: What are the realizations of the L1 use in EFL classroom? and What is the students and teachers perspective on the use of L1 in the EFL classroom? It also covers the description of a case study as the design used in this study. The setting of the study were at regular school and RSBI school in Cimahi and it involved two teacher of 11th grade in two different school as participants. The data for the study were collected through classroom observation, questionnaire and interview. A triangulation was applied in order to obtain consistency of the data gathered.


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The data from Interview aimed to answer the second research question; the perspectives of teachers and students in using Bahasa Indonesia in EFL classroom. The data from interview were firstly transcribed. During the transcription stage, teacher’s names were replaced with alias names (Kvale, 1996). Secondly, the data that have been transcribed were categorized based on the themes which were related to the research questions. Thirdly, the data from the interview were subsequently presented in condensed body of information. To keep the objectivity of the study in analyzing the data, during the transcribing process the participants name were changed into alias name (Kvale, 1996). In the final step, to follow Cohen and Manion, (1994) and Kvale (1996) the transcripts were given back to the participants to make sure that it was exactly what the teachers said and meant.

3.4.3 Data from Questionnaire

The data from questionnaire aimed to answer research question number two; the students’ perspectives on the use of bahasa Indonesia in the classroom and the benefit of using bahasa Indonesia in the EFL classroom. The questionnaire consisted of 6 questions, 2 of the question were in the form of likert-scale, and 4 questions were in the form of open-ended questions. (the questionnaire can be seen in appendix C)


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interpreted based on the category. The following are the calculation of the Likert-scale.

3.4.3.1 Calculating the Likert Scale

To follow Ockert (2005), two answers (see appendix C) gained from the questionnaire were calculated using Likert scale; the steps were scoring, finding out the score of the answer, calculating the central tendency of the answers, and classifying the average percentage. Those steps are considered to be processed in order to make the statistical number (Ockert, 2005). The steps are pointed out as follows.

a) Scoring

Each answers were labeled with value from 1-4. Example of scoring students’ answers in the positively-framed statements is depicted below.

Table 3.2 Likert-Scale statements scoring rubric

Category of Response

Strongly Disagree

Agree Uncertain Disagree Strongly Agree

Score 1 2 3 4 5

Table 3.3 Example of Statement in this research

No Pertanyaan Tidak

sama sekali

Sedikit

Ragu-Ragu

Kadang-Kadang

Sangat Suka

1 2 3 4 5


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gurumu menggunakan Bahasa Indonesia di kelas Bahasa Inggris?

b) Finding out the score of the answer

To find out the score of each answer (table 3.3), the frequencies of the students answer are multiplied with the value of each answer.

score for option A (strongly disagree) : 0 x 1 = 0 score for option B (disagree) : 6 x 2 = 12 score for option C (neutral) : 10 x 3 = 30 score for option D (agree) : 14 x 4 = 56 score for option E (strongly agree) : 10 x 5 = 50 +

Total 148

notes:

- the ideal score for the lowest value = 1 x 40 (students) = 40 - the ideal score for the highest value = 5 x 40 (students) = 200 c) Calculating the central tendency of the respondents

Calculating the central tendency of the respondents employs the formula as shown as:


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P : Percentage

fo : The total value of answer

n : The ideal score of the highest value (Taken from Sudjana, 1984)

The calculation of the central tendency of the respondents as follow:

P = 148200× 100% = 74%

d) Classifying the average percentage

The final step in analyzing quantitative data gained from the questionnaire is classifying the average percentage. The classification is based on the criteria above.

Table 3.5 Score of percentage and its interpretation Score of Percentage Interpretation

00% - 20% Very Weak

21% - 40% Weak

41% - 60% Enough

61% - 80% Strong

81% - 100% Very strong

Taken from Akdon (2008)

According to Ockert (2004), the interpretations of score percentage were made to make the descriptions of the data more systematical. Moreover, the interpretation which based on score percentage was formulated in order to classify the tendency of the response.


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To promote credibility, there are some techniques commonly used in a qualitative, i.e. triangulation, member check, long-term observation, peer examination, participatory or collaborative modes of research, and researcher’s biases, thick description, typically or modal category, and multisite designs (Merriam, 1998; Cresswell, 1998; see also Alwasilah, 2000)

To establish trustworthiness, the researcher implemented two techniques namely triangulation and member check. Describing the data as clear as possible was also done to check the validity of the data. The techniques of triangulation and member checking are described as follows:

3.5.1 Triangulation

Triangulation refers to the use of various methods in collecting data needed for the research (Alwasilah, 2002). By applying triangulation, the researcher takes some benefit. First, the risk of making research conclusion that is limited to certain method and data source will be reduced. Second, the validity of the research conclusion will be increased. Therefore, the researcher triangulated the data by collecting information from three data resources (i.e. observation, interview, and questionnaire) and from two different parties (i.e. teachers and students).

3.5.2 Member Check

Member check will be carried out to verify data taken from the interview and observation. Respondents have been asked to review interview


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transcripts. According to Alwasilah (2002), the advantages of applying member check are: to avoid researcher’s misinterpretation toward respondents’ answer in the interview and respondents behavior in observation, to confirm respondents’ perspective toward ongoing process. Therefore, member checking was done by asking respondent who had been interviewed to check the transcripts of the interview.

3.6Summary of Chapter 3

This chapter has discussed the detail context of the study. The discussion has covered research questions that cover two questions: What are the realizations of the L1 use in EFL classroom? and What is the students and teachers perspective on the use of L1 in the EFL classroom? It also covers the description of a case study as the design used in this study. The setting of the study were at regular school and RSBI school in Cimahi and it involved two teacher of 11th grade in two different school as participants. The data for the study were collected through classroom observation, questionnaire and interview. A triangulation was applied in order to obtain consistency of the data gathered.