This chapter discusses the components of research method of the present
study including the research design, the research site, the participants, the data
collection, the data analysis, the criteria of success and the research schedule.
3.1 Research Design
This study was designed as a Classroom Action Research (henceforth
mentioned as CAR). CAR as an integral part of Action Research, deals with
educational research as a social practice. Action Research has been defined by
Carr and Kemmis (in Nunan and Bailey, 2009: 226-227) as:
a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in order to improve the rationality and justice on their own practices, their understanding of those practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out.
Meanwhile, CAR is defined as an inquiry which is conducted systematically
to inform practice in a particular situation. Through CAR, teachers discover best
practices in their own classroom situation. Thus, teachers will make decision
about teaching based on empirical evidence (Mettetal, 2003). A very specific
characteristics of CAR is that it is conducted in the classroom and the focus of the
study is the interaction between the researcher and the participants. The researcher
involves as much as possible in the process and experience of the participants.
In this study, CAR is defined as a process of investigating problems about
teaching and learning descriptive text writing by implementing GBA that is
undertaken in a systematic way by a teacher-researcher who want to better
understand her own work. The teacher-researcher conducted a research study to
help her improve her teaching practice and the learning of her students.
In practice, this CAR employed a mixed method research design. According
to Lim (2007), a mixed methods research design is most applicable in action
and qualitative data in a single study (Creswell, 2005). The collection of
quantitative data is critical to this study because it is a part of the triangulation.
The quantitative data helped determine the impact of the effectiveness of the GBA
in the teaching of writing and in students’ writing achievements. The collection
and analysis of the data were done separately and the findings were then
combined.
Cohen et al. (2007) say that the CAR takes place when a single teacher
works with his/her own class as he/she feels the need to improve his/her teaching
and learning experiences. This study also took advantage of the AR format which
allowed the researcher to take his/her role as a teacher in the classroom (Mills,
2007), enact a specific teaching methodology, and directly observe the effects of
the teaching methodology on student attitudes towards the teaching program. The
researcher was the teacher who directly taught the students and collaborated with
the students and the classroom teacher as the observer. By doing it
collaboratively, it was hoped that this can bring benefits to the teacher–researcher,
classroom teacher and the students by providing them with new understandings
that could help change the status quo from both a teaching and a learning
perspective (Creswell, 2002). The design of the AR implemented in this study is
Figure 3.1. Balanced Model of Action Research Design Adopted from Lim (2007: 9)
The CAR was conducted in two cycles (see Nunan and Bailey, 2009: 227)
each of which consisting of four-stage method in action research as proposed by
Kemmis and McTaggart (1988), i.e. planning (developing a plan of action or Identifying
Identifying a research problem
Sensitising
Understanding the problem through literature review and/or analysis of collected data (both quantitative and qualitative)
Strategising
Developing an action plan
Implementing
Carrying out the action plan
Validating
Investigating if the action plan has been successful in solving the research problem through analysis of collected data (both
quantitative and qualitative)
Reporting
intervention), action (putting the intervention in place), observation (documenting
and recording the effects of the intervention), and reflection(evaluating the
observations and using them as the basis for further action). The cycle is dynamic
in that these four stages are interlinked and iterative, so that the research typically
results in a spiral of cycles. The cycles are described in Figure 3.2 below.
Figure 3.2. Action Research Cycle Adopted from ProDAIT (2011)
In the planning stage, the lesson plans, the research instruments, and the
criteria of success were prepared by the researcher and the classroom teacher.
There were 12 lesson plans prepared, six for each cycle. The instruments used in
the teaching program were texts, realia, pictures, observation notes, and
observation checklists. In the action stage the researcher conducted what had been
designed in the lesson plans. In the observation stage, the researcher and the
observer observe the teaching and learning process during the action stage. In the
reflection stage, the researcher decided whether or not the results of the each cycle
Furthermore, this study also implemented two research phases in action
research–the pre-action phase and the post-action phase (see Lim, 2007: 8).
Overall, there were three phases in this study, the pre-action phase (preliminary
phase, the action phase, and the post-action phase. The implementation of these
three phases will be presented in Chapter V.
3.2 Research Site and Participants
The study was undertaken in a seventh grade classroom at a State Junior
High School in Kabanjahe. It is located in a small town in Karo Regency, North
Sumatra. This school has 15 classes which consist of five clasess of seventh
grade, five classes of eighth grade, and five classes of ninth grade. For this study,
the researcher chose Class VII 1 which the classroom teacher voluntarily
participated in this research as an observer.
There were several reasons for choosing this school as a site for this study.
First, implementing the Genre Based Approach was considered as a new thing in
this school. Second, the researcher had an easy access to this school since the
researcher is one of the English teachers at that school for more than 8 years.
Third, by having this access, it is hoped that the feasibility of this research was
increased (Emilia, 2005; Emilia et al., 2008).
The main participants of this research were the researcher as a participant-
observer, a classroom teacher as the observer and a class of 28 students in Class
VII 1, aged between 12 and 15, 13 boys and 15 girls. For the , nine students from
the class representing low, mid, and high achievers were selected and their texts
were analyzed. The three categories were identified by the teacher-researcher and
another after the students wrote their texts in writing pre-test.
3.3 Data Collection
The techniques of collecting data in this research were focused on the
purpose of the research. To fulfill the purpose of this study, the researcher used
both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The collection of both
Triangulation was used in the study in order to avoid information bias during the
research. Typically in action research, a wide variety of data were collected during
the study in order to achieve triangulation, which is highly recommended while
carrying out this type of research (Nunan, 1994; Cohen and Manion, 1994; Burns,
1999). The use of different data sources helps the researcher to “validate and crosscheck findings” (Patton, 1990: 244).
Overall, there were five sources of data in this CAR, three qualitative and
two quantitative. Qualitative data were collected through classroom observation,
samples of students’ texts and focus group interview. The quantitative data were gathered from students’ writing tests and questionnaire. In this way, data were triangulated to ensure validity. Different sources gathered different types of
information as shown in Table 3.1 and Table 3.2.
Table 3.1 Research Questions and Data Collecting Techniques
3. 3.1 Classroom Observation
Regarding the research questions, classroom observation was the main data
source in this study. It plays an important role in AR (Koshy, 2005; Burns, 2010).
The classroom observation was chosen as it allows information to be recorded as
it occurs in a particular setting and enables the actual behaviour of the teachers
and the students. Mills (2007) asserts that “observation is considered a valid and true representation of the action”. Observation can be an effective means of identifying and reflecting on the classroom since it can take a number of forms.
The classroom observations were carried out in this present research with
the objectives to identify how GBA is implemented in the teaching and learning
process. Apart from that, it also provided an insight on knowing how the students
react or behave, specifically their attitude towards the implementation of GBA in
teaching writing performed by the teacher. The classroom observations in this
study comprised twelve observations over four weeks. The classroom
observations were done in the second week of November to mid-December 2013.
Each observation lasted for 80 minutes (2 x 40 minutes).
The data from the classroom observations were collected by using
observation notes and observation checklists by looking at the implementation of GBA in teaching and learning writing process and students’ attitude towards the implementation of the GBA. The researcher made the observation notes as soon
as after each session of the observations finished when the memory of the
observations was still fresh as proposed by van Lier (1988). While the observation
checklists were filled in by the classroom teacher as the observer who observed
the teacher-researcher activities during the implementation of GBA in the
teaching process.
In conducting the observation, a video camera was used to gain a record of
the teaching and learning process. The reason for this activity was to avoid
reactivity. Reactivity is when the participants do not behave normally because of
the presence of the researcher (Alwasilah, 2009). The video camera was also used
to capture the pictures of the physical environment of the classroom. One of the
afterwards by watching the video, without the disruptions of the classroom or time
constraints. All activities in the classroom observations were discussed in detail in
Chapter V.
3.3.2 Students’ Writing Tests
Quantitative data of this study were obtained by looking at the results of
pre-test, post-test of first cycle (post-test 1) and post-test of second cycle (post-test
2) conducted in the classroom. The pre-test was designed to collect the data about
students’ baseline status of writing achievements while the two post-tests were
planned to explore the impact of the implementation of GBA on the students’
writing achievements, which were given at the end of each cycle.
The test required the students to produce a piece of descriptive text writing
about a topic. The scoring of the test is based on a analytic scoring rubric adapted
from Widodo (2006). According to Hyland (2003), rubric is a form of
commentary usually used on the final product as an assessment. One of the
advantages of using rubric is that they indicate more explicitely what aspects of
the assignment are being assessed. The scoring rubric was developed based on the
need of scoring descriptive text writing. The consideration of using scoring rubric
for writing test is because it provides simple and clear criteria of each aspect.
3.3.3 Samples of Students’ Texts
The samples of students’ texts were one of qualitative data collection techniques used in this study. This technique was done by choosing nine students’
descriptive texts from twenty eight texts collected from pre-test, post-test cycle 1,
and post- test cycle 2. These nine students represented different levels of achievement: low, middle, and high. The samples of students’ texts provided evidence of the types of writing produced in the observed meetings, the level of
competence demonstrated and the type of assessment teacher used to grade the
3.3.4 Questionnaire
At the end of the teaching program, an attitude questionnaire was administered to 28 students who enrolled in the class. The purpose of the students’ questionnaire was to elicit each individual student’s attitude towards the implementation of GBA in teaching descriptive text writing. The questionnaire
was originally generated in English but translated into Indonesian at the time of
administration in order to prevent a language barrier of the students. Responses
were given in a five point Likert scale format ranging from strongly disagree (1)
to strongly agree (5) to examine the students’ attitudes. The questionnaire was
anonymous.
On the whole, there were 25 items concerning language attitudes in terms of
affective, behavioral, and cognitive aspects of attitude (Oskamp and Schultz,
2005). The questionnaire was divided into three themes. The first themes of the
questionnaire was used to find out the students' attitude towards writing. The
second theme was conducted to notice students’ attitude toward teaching writing.
Finally, the last theme was used to explore students’attitude towards the
implementation of the GBA in the teaching descriptive text writing based on the
stages of the GBA. The map of the statements in the questionnaire is displayed in
Table 3.3 below.
Table 3.3 Map of the Statements in the Questionnaire
Aspects Themes Statement
Numbers
1. Affective 1.1 Writing 1
1.2 Teaching Writing 2
1.3 Implementation of GBA in teaching writing
1.3.1 Building Knowledge 3, 4
1.3 Implementation of GBA in teaching writing
1.3.1 Building Knowledge 12
1.3.2 MoT 13, 14
1.3.4 ICoT 16
3. Cognitive 1.1 Writing 17
1.2 Teaching Writing 18
1.3 Implementation of GBA in teaching writing
1.3.1 Building Knowledge 19
1.3.2 MoT 20
1.3.3 JCoT 21, 22, 23
1.3.4 ICoT 24, 25
As described in Table 3.3, all the statements in the questionnaire divided
into three sections based on the aspects of the attitude: affective, behavioral, and
cognitive. First, the statements of the affective aspect related to like and dislike of
the object, for example: I like writing various types of texts (Statement 1); I like
learning learning descriptive text writing (Statement 2); I am happy when the
descriptive text I wrote is evaluated/corrected by the teacher or friend (Statement
9).
Second, behavioral statements connected with how the students behaved
when they experience the emotions they feel towards the object are marked. This
aspect is marked by statements like Writing is a very important way for me to
express my feeling (Statement 10); My English teacher always teaches us how to
write descriptive text (Statement 11); Writing a descriptive text individually grows
my self confidence (Statement 16).
Finally, cognitive statements which related to the belief that has led to the
underlying reason for the emotion towards the object or event can be seen in the
statements such as I understand how to arrange a good descriptive text after I had learnt and analyzed others’ texts (Statement 20); I understand that writing a text should be done in several stages and need several times of revision (Statement
22); After learning descriptive text writing by using texts and writing activities in
this research, I think writing is important for me to be learned (Statement 24).
The complete map of the statements in the questionnaire and the form of the
3.3.5 Focus Group Interview
The last source of the data in this study was interview. Interview is as a set
of questions directly pointed to participants to get the required information
(Alwasilah, 2009). According to Mills (2007), the interview is a useful tool to
collect data about the participants from their perspective. The interview is also
said as a classic way in research to conduct a conversation that explores the focus
area (Burns, 2004).
In this research, the researcher used a focus group interview. The main
purpose of conducting focus group interview is to gather responses which are
richer and more informative than questionnaire data (Koshy, 2005). It was
employed to elaborate those data from classroom observation and questionnaire.
This is because when a researcher conducts an interview, the researcher will have
a chance to paraphrase the questions that might be not comprehensible. Moreover,
a researcher is able to propose follow-up questions.
In conducting the focus group interview, the researcher used guided or
semi-structured interview as suggested by Burns (2004). Regarding this, Merriam
(1998) says that the use of semi-structured interview is more flexible since it has a
big possibility to get deep information by using less structured questions. The
guided or semi structured interview was conducted by the researcher at the end of
the study. Ten semi-structured questions designed to evaluate the implementation of GBA in teaching writing and students’ attitudes toward the implementation of GBA to the teaching descriptive text writing. The interview questions were
somewhat similar to the questions in the questionnaire in terms of the topics, i.e.
writing, teaching writing and implementation of GBA.
The interview with the students lasted 20 minutes. In this case, nine students
were selected for the focus group interview based on their writing results, three
high achievers, three middle achievers, and three low achievers. They were
interviewed together. This was done to reduce students’ nervousness and to promote the students’ expression (Alwasilah, 2002). The interview was conducted in Indonesian language to allow participants express their ideas in a more
agreement of the students to avoid the loss of the data and enable the researcher to
transcribe it later. Tape-recording also makes it possible for the researcher to give
full attention to the context of the interview (Koshy, 2005). Thus, it was enabled
the researcher to analyze the data in depth (Silverman, 2005).
3.4 Data Analysis
Data analysis in this study was conducted during (on-going) and after the
teaching program of the study. The on-going data analysis and interpretation were based on data mainly from observation notes, observation checklists, students’ writing tests and samples of students’ texts. After the completion of classroom observations, the data collected from questionnaire and focus group interview
were analyzed. The analysis of the above data were drawn on three major
approaches: content analysis, statistical analysis and linguistic analysis. The
analysis of each data source will be presented in a form of descriptive explanation
in Chapter V. The procedure of each data analysis is discussed below.
Table 3.4 Data and Analysis Approaches
Data Analysis Approaches
Classroom Observations Focus Group Interview
Content Analysis
Students’ Writing Tests Questionnaires
Statistical Analysis
Sample of Students’ Texts Linguistic Analysis
3.4.1 Data from Classroom Observation
In analyzing the data from the classroom observation, the researcher
conducted it based on observation notes, observer checklists and video records.
The data were analyzed based on content analysis. Based on the research
problems, there are two central themes analyzed in this study. The first theme is
the implementation of the GBA in the teaching of writing and the second theme is
the students’ attitude towards the implementation of the GBA in the teaching of
writing. In addition, the analysis was also based on the theory and principles of
In analyzing the data from the classroom observations, the following
activities were carried out. First, the observation notes from each meeting were
coded and categorized based on the themes. Second, the observation checklists
from each meeting were summarized. Third, the both the researcher and the
observer watched the video records for several times. It was aimed at getting more
information and clear picture to complete the data from the observation notes and
the observation checklists.
3.4.2 Data from Students’ Writing Tests
The results of the three writing tests were marked tests by the researcher
herself and another rater by using a rubric adopted from Widodo (2006). The
results of the tests are displayed in Appendix 6. The students’ writings were rated
in terms of their content, organization, language use, mechanic and style by the
researcher and another rater. The writing pretest and post-test scores were then
analyzed by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows
version 20.0. The SPSS was used to analyze the data quantitatively. Then, the data
collected from tests in two different sections were analyzed by paired t-test.
A paired samples t-test is a test that is useful when two interval/ratio
variables from the same people (student) in a sample are measured exactly in the
same way. A paired samples t-test can be used to compare the scores on the two
variables. The most common use of this test is for pre- and post-test scores for a
sample when they are exposed to some intervention in between the pre- and
post-tests. The reason a paired samples t-test is used instead of an independent samples
t-test is because the scores are for the same people, which suggests there is an
underlying relationship between the scores.
The scores were compared to find out whether there were significant
improvement or not. In the statistical analysis used in the research, the level of
significance was accepted to be 0.05. The descriptive statistic and the paired
sample t-tests of all the students’ writing tests will be presented and discussed in
The paired-samples t test (sometimes referred to as the correlated-samples t
test or matched-samples t test) is similar to the independent-samples test in that
both procedures involve comparing two samples of observations, and determining
whether or not the mean of one sample significantly differs from the mean of
another (O'Rourke et al., 2005). With the independent-samples procedure, the
mean scores are completely independent (i.e., an observation in one sample is not
related to any observation in the other)
3.4.3 Data from Sample of Students’ Texts
The analysis of students’ descriptive texts was conducted in three steps. First, the texts were analyzed of the schematic structure. Second, the texts were
analyzed of linguistic features. Finally, the texts were analyzed whether it have
reached the social purpose of descriptive text. The students’ names were removed
before scanning the texts. The scanned texts were displayed in Appendix 3. The
analysis of the samples of students’ texts was presented in Chapter V. Thus, the
work on genre analysis is to identify how text type (schematic/rhetorical structures
of texts) and its linguistic features used to realize the communicative purpose of
that genre.
3.4.4 Data from Questionnaire
The main aim of administering the questionnaire was to obtain students’
attitude towards the implementation of GBA in teaching descriptive writing. The
data from the questionnaire were examined using quantitative analysis technique,
specifically statistical analysis. The responses given by the respondents were
counted for frequency per question items and converted into percentages. The
responses were then summarized. All analyzed responses were then used for reporting the students’ attitude and for providing support to the research findings. The collected data were analyzed by the SPSS Program aiming to answer
the research questions quantitatively. The students’ responses to the
questionnaires were coded and keyed into the SPSS program 20.0 for statistical
calculated. In the statistical analysis used in the research, the level of significance
was accepted to be 0.05.
3.4.5 Data from Focus Group Interview
The data from focus group interview were focused on content analysis. The
data from focus group interview were transcribed and categorized and then
interpreted to answer the research questions. During the transcription stage, students’ names were replaced with a pseudonym (Silverman, 1993). The next step, the transcripts were given back to the participants to confirm that it was
reflected exactly what the students said and meant. Furthermore, the students’
responses for each question were translated from Indonesian to English and then
the data were analysed to identify recurring themes.
The transcripts were then condensed into briefer statements in which the
main sense of what is said paraphrase into a few words (Kvale, 1996). Finally the
data were coded and categorized by using thematic data analysis. In this sense, the researcher categorized students’ comments into problems that had become the focus of the study, i.e. the implementation of GBA in teaching descriptive writing and students’ attitude towards the implementation.
3.5 Criteria of Success
The treatments of this research were terminated when these criteria of
success were achieved. The criteria of success in this study were:
The mean score of students’ writing texts reach 70 as the Minimum
Mastery Criterion (Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimum) score in this school.
There are significant improvements in students’ writing achievements in
each cycle which is measured statistically.
There are improvements in students’ writing texts based on the analysis of schematic structure and linguistic features of the texts in each cycle.
3.6 Conclusion
This chapter has provided of the methodology used in this study. This
included the research design, the research site, the participants, the criteria of
success, the data collection and the data analysis. The next chapter will concern
