Chapter Three
Methodology
In this chapter, the researcher explain the methodology in conducting this research. This research aims at knowing error types and calculating the subject-verb agreement error in essay writing class at the LTC of UMY. These chapter presents research design, setting and participants of the research, research instrument and data collection method. It also explains the data analysis technique.
Research Design
Approach. This study employed a quantitative research. Furthermore, this study adopted a descriptive statistic to report the data which have been analyzed and collected. William (2007) asserted that quantitative research explains phenomena using the collecting numerical data which are analyzed using mathematical models as the methodology of data analysis exactly in particular statistics. Descriptive statistic was employed to describe the result of the analysis using a frequencies and percentage stated by Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011). Quantitative research is suitable for this research because in this research the researcher examined not only subject-verb agreement error but also the frequency of error when students used subject-verb agreement.
Design. The researcher used error analysis as the design of this research. According to Corder (1981), error analysis is a part of methodology of
error analysis is a process of identifying, analyzing, and classifying the students’ error. Then, from the error analysis the teacher would know what error that produced by students when using subject-verb agreement.
Setting and Participant of the Research
Setting. The research was conducted at the Language Training Center (LTC) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY). LTC of UMY was a place where the students of UMY could enrich their own skill in learning foreign languages especially English. The specific place for this research is essay writing class at LTC of UMY. The other reason for picked LTC of UMY as the setting was because the accessibility of the researcher through these place. The researcher was still being a students in UMY, it was much easier to gather the data.
Also, the researcher chose essay writing class because she made sure that, in essay writing class, the students learned how to make a good writing, how to make a good sentence, and how to make a good paragraph. The researcher only took one of the essay assignments of essay writing class. There are mid-term essays of essay writing class assessment. This research was conducted from March to May 2017.
Population. The population of the research was IR students who took essay writing class at LTC of UMY batch 2016. The population were 246. Based on Creswell (2012), population is a group of individuals who possess one
researcher experienced, if non- English department compared each other, IR major has highly adequate competencies in English. It is supported by fact that the majority or more than 80% member of Unit Kerja Mahasiswa (UKM) Bahasa Inggris in UMY is IR students. The researher was a member of UKM Bahasa Inggris since 2013- 2016. Becoming a member of UKM Bahasa Inggris is not easy, there is an open reqruitment with some test in English first. Students who passed the English test with committee standardised then finally become the member of UKM Bahasa Inggris. The researcher wanted to proved the IR competencies in writing.
The researcher chose batch 2016 as the sample because they were in the first year. They were freshmen who learn English for one and half semester. The researcher was sure that they had already learned subject-verb agreement as how to make a good sentence. Thus, hopefully it will prevent them in making subject-verb agreement error later because the knowledge of subject-subject-verb agreement as the basic to learn English in the future – to prepare them in produce a good
writing.
Hence, the sampling technique was random sampling. The researcher used Slovin’s formula (David, Dan & Chris,2007) for calculate the number of sample. Slovin’s formula is a random sampling technique formula to estimate sampling
The researcher figured out a confidence level of 95 percent, so the error margin is 0.05. This error margin is used for social study like this research. So, it would be n = N / (1+ Ne2)
= 246 / (1+246 x 0.052) = 71.5 72
From the calcutation, it conclude that the minimum samples for this research was 72 essays from IR students batch 2016 who took an essay writing class at LTC of UMY. Moreover, for enrich the finding the researcher used 99 essay documents as sample for this research.
Research Instrument
To identify the errors made by students in the use of subject-verb agreement, the researcher used documents as a data instrument in this research. The documents were essays from IR students batch 2016 who took an essay writing class at LTC of UMY. Before having the documents, the researcher should meet the teacher who taught IR essay writing class batch 2016 at LTC of UMY. The researcher discuss with the teacher about essay documents that needed in order to support the research. Then, from the discussion found the essay
documents were from mid-term assesstment essay writing class of IR students batch 2016 at LTC of UMY.
Data Collection Method
The purpose of this study is to investigate subject-verb agreement error in the students’ writing at LTC of UMY. The method used by the researcher to collect the data was document analysis. The researcher collected students’
midterm essay writing assessment, and the researcher did document analysis on students’ essay writing. In beginning, the researcher made a permission letter
from Language Education Faculty for the equipment in gathering the data at the LTC of UMY.
The researcher need to determined the data or called language corpus because the scope of the research was on it. The data were collected from 100 of mid-term assessment essay writing class which were essay documents of IR batch 2016. But, the fact only 99 essay documents which available to be a sample of this research because 1 essay document could not be download by the researcher. One students submited his essays in his blog which the address could not be access by researcher. So, the total document that researcher gathered only 99 essays
documents.
Therefore, the teacher did not give a special topic, so the students have their freedom to choose the topic for the essay. It implied from the title of the essay it self. The essay document gathered from three different teacher that taught essay writing class batch 2016. The researcher copied the students’ essay with
Moreover, the researcher checked the validity of the document. The researcher gave the document back to the students and asked whether or not the documents belonged to them. That was how the researcher conducted member checking to ensure the validity. After all data already verified, the researcher change the format of softfile documents into plain text. It must save in plain text format because it was the format for Ant Concordance. Then, that is how the researcher collecting the data before analyze later.
Data Analysis Technique
After collecting the data, the next step was analyzing the data gained from the text. Data analysis can be defined as the process of bringing the order,
Furthermore, here was how the research was conducted. Collecting the data means that the researcher gathered the written data and sort them using seven keywords. The researcher used concordance as a tool to help to short the data.
According to Seale (2004), “concordance is a computer software which will analyze
texts in number of ways, including producing keyword lists and word frequencies, identifying main ideas, analyzing patterns of word use, and comparing vocabulary
between texts” (p.369). Concordance is software related to linguistic. It is because
concordance is able to shorting text, identifying main idea of the text, analyzing pattern of word use and comparing vocabulary between texts. The data is in form of essays which consist paragraph, and paragraph consist some sentences. The researcher is focus on the level of sentences. The sentences that researcher use later is the sentences which the subject is the keywords.
The researcher used Ant Concordance as a tool to help in shorting the text of the students’ essays. The first step of data analysis was to change the hard file
document into soft file document. Second, the researcher changed the format Microsoft Word into plain text. Third, the researcher inputted the plain text into Ant Concordance. Fourth, the researcher used the keyword (I, we, you, they, she, he, and it) to short the sentences. Fifth, the researcher copied the sentences containing those seven keywords into Microsoft Excel by naming every sheet with the each keywords. From the Ant Concordance programs, the total sentences obtained contain the keywords were 2,581 sentences.
the sentences later identified by using the grammatical features involving the subject-verb agreement, such as verb form, auxiliary verb and modals. The Ant Concordance program used only for helping the researcher in shorting the sentences using a certain keywords. The one who classified and identified the sentences later was the researcher itself. The researcher identified which correct sentences and error sentences. Then, the researcher would be focus on the error sentences only.
Classifying the error means that the researcher classified the subject-verb agreement error into the four error types such as omissions, additions,
misformation and misordering. The researcher would clasiffy the error into four classification which were four types of error. Accoding to Ellis (2003), there were four error types, addition, misformation, misordering and omission.
Explaining the error means that the researcher explained the reason why those error sentences belongs to each error type. At last, quantifying the error means counting the amount of error that occurs. Then the final step was counting the percentage of subject-verb agreement error production.
To count the subject-verb agreement error production made by students, the researcher used a formula according Bluman (2004):
F
P = x 100% N
Which:
The researcher classified the level based on Sugiono (2010) written as follows: 66%-100% of errors were classified as high.
