1. Approach and Type of Research a. Approach
This research is a descriptive qualitative approach. The researcher tries to analyze the students’ interest in learning English. Qualitative research refers to the study of things in a natural setting, attempting to make sense of some phenomena in terms of meaning in which the researcher is the main instrument41. Furthermore, the descriptive qualitative method was used by the researcher. According to Sutopo, in the descriptive method, the analysis of the data is done naturally objective, and factual42.
According to Schreiber, descriptive studies describe some phenomena using numbers to create a picture of a group or individual43. It means that descriptive studies are the method to explain the phenomena of a group and the data were collected in the form of words. On the other hand, the descriptive method can be interpreted as a problem-solving procedure that can be investigated by describing the study of the form of people, institutions, communities, and others current based on the fact.
The big reason this study using the descriptive method is because this study was explored the students’ interest in learning English. Furthermore, the
41James Schreiber and Kimberly Asner-Self, “Educational research”, (New York: John Willey & sons, Inc), 2001, p. 10.
42 H. B. Sutopo, Metodologi Penelitian Kualitatif; Dasar Teori dan Terapannya Dalam Penelitian, (Surakarta: UNS Press, 2002), pp. 33.
43Ibid
researcher can also get the data by questionnaire and interview to get the authentic and valid data.
b. Type of Research
The researcher conducted a survey study. According to Borg and Gall in Sari, a survey study is applied to gather information to know the relationship between variables.44Scheuren in Sari also explained that a survey is used to collecting information from a sample.45 Furthermore, Check and Schutt defined a survey as gathering information about samples’ responses towards questions.46 Based on those explanations, the researcher concludes that a survey study is a study that is used to take any information about the sample through some questions.
2. The presence of the researcher
The presence of the researcher in this study means the researcher is a key instrument in planning the research, collecting the data, analyzing the data, and reporting the data. In this research, the researcher goes directly to collect the required data. In this study, the researcher participates as a participant interviewer.
3. Setting of Research
44Riski Aninda Sari, “Students’..., p. 27.
45Ibid.
46Joseph Check and Russell K. Schutt, Reseach Method in Education, (London: Sage Publication, 2012), p. 297.
This research was conducted at MTs Miftahul Ma’arif Pelambik. In this research, the researcher investigated VII A and VII B classes in academic year 2020/2021. The researcher took 30 students from each class as the subject of this research so that the total of all the students taken by the researcher was 60 students.
4. Source of Data
In qualitative research, two sources of data were used by the researcher. Those are primary data and secondary data. Ajayi defined primary data sources are included a personal interview, observations, surveys, questionnaires, and experiments47.While Secondary data is utilized to support primary data.
Data source in this study was the seven grade students of MTs Miftahul Ma’arif Pelambik, the researcher take 60 students from 30 VII A classes and 30 VII B classes. Then, the data obtained from questionnaires and interviews about the students’ interest in learning English.
5. The procedure of Data Collection
The technique of collecting data is a technique that is used by the researcher to get the data. In this research, the researcher was used two techniques to collect the data: questionnaire and interview.
47 Oluwatosin Victor Ajayi, “Distinguish Between Primary Sources of Data and Secondary Sources of Data,”(Paper,Faculty of Education, Benue State University, Makurdi 2017), page 2.
a. Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a number of questions used to get the information from respondents within the meaning of the private or about known things48. The questionnaire is designed in the form of closed-ended statements to ease the researcher in collecting the data. According to McLeod, the closed-ended statement is a statement which allows only answer which fits into categories that have been decided by the researcher.49 Then, the questionnaire’s instruction is to choose one of those degrees of agreement based on the students’ opinion.
In this study, the questionnaire is adopted from a similar previous study by Syariffudin.50 The questionnaire consists of 15 closed-ended statements using four degrees of agreement namely strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. Next, it was delivered by the researcher in the class. After being filled out and the required number of responses have been reached, the researcher was analyzed the answers from the students.
Then, the responses to the questionnaire in this research used as the data analysis of the research that can be seen in the appendix.
b. Interview
Merriam argued that “qualitative data consist of direct questions from
respondents about their experiences, opinions, feelings, and knowledge
48 Ibid., pp. 151.
49 Riski Aninda Sari, “Students’..., p.29.
50Syarifuddin, “The Use…, P.29.
through interviews”.51 The interview is a process of interaction or conversation in giving some question between two or more people. Another data collection used in this study is the interview. It was used to source the data about the students’ interest in learning English and also used to enrich the data collected from the questionnaires.
This research uses a semi-structured interview to find out basic details about the person being examined. According to Fraenkel and Wallen, a semi- structured interview is a verbal questionnaire that is more formal than the other types of interviews and contains a series of questions designed to provide a specific answer from the respondents.52 In addition, ten selected students were interviewed by the researcher. The students were selected by the questionnaire answers, which provided the teacher with a 'strongly agreed' checklist on the level of interest in learning English. The reason for choosing only ten students is that they need to make time more efficient and that amount is sufficient to reinforce the results of the questionnaire. The researcher also assumed that ten students could represent all the class members.
The interview consists of some questions related to the title. Similarly, the questions in the interview were delivered in the Indonesian language to
51Ibid.
52Nia Setia Hidyatiet. al., “A Transity Analysis of Male and Female Students Final Draft Critical Response Paragraph to Literature”, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literacy. Vol.2, No.2, 2012, pp. 451.
make it the students easy to respond the questions and also to avoid misunderstanding of students to understand the questions. This interview was adopted from Mitchell and used as the data analysis of the research that can be seen in the appendix.
6. The technique of Data Analysis
Analyzing the data is a process of compiling or organizing the data from interviews and questionnaires. In this research, the researcher used descriptive qualitative research. The researcher collected the data, arrange and present the data. To analyze the data of students’ interest in learning English at Miftahul Ma’arif Pelambik, there are three steps used as follow:
a. Data Reduction
Data reduction can be defined as the process of selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the data transcribed from interview recordings.53 The main purpose of the qualitative research is in the final findings.
The data was be collected from the interview and questionnaire. In this case, the researcher selects data obtained at the time of research regarding the students’
perception, and then the data classifies and choose simply.
53 Sandra Manthison, “Cross-Case Analysis”, Encyclopedia of Evaluation, 2005.
b. Data Display
According to Miles and Huberman, the most frequent form of display data for qualitative research data in the past has been narrative text.54 By displaying the data it will make the researcher easier to understand the situation, planning the next step based on the data. Looking at displays helping us to understand what is happening and to doing something further analysis or caution on that understanding.
In this research, the researcher was display the data that has been reduced by using a diagram. Then, the researcher was make the percentage of the data to investigating students’ interest in learning English then conclusions were presented in narrative text form. It analyzed and described the data qualitatively.
Here is the formula of percentage:
Note:
P= Percentage (%)
P = 𝐹𝑜 × 100%
𝑁
Fo = Total respondents who answer an item N = Total respondents
54Sugiyono, Metode Penelitian Pendidikan: Pendekatan Kuantitatif, Kualitatif, dan R&D,Bandung: Alfabeta,, pp. 95.
c. Conclusion Drawing
The third step in analyzing the qualitative data is concluding and verifying. A presented preliminary conclusion is still tentative and will change if not found evidence that supports strong data collection on the next stage.
After displaying the data in the form of a diagram, the researcher will interpret it and give a conclusion and verification of the data. From the result on the data that are taken from the diagram, the next step is taken by the researcher that is to consider and interpret the data so that the conclusions and verifications of students’ interest in learning English can be drawn easily.
7. Trustworthiness
The validity of the data is conducted to attest whether the conducted research is scientific research as well as to test the data obtained. In this research, the triangulation technique is used for this study to enhance the validity of the research. Triangulation is a technique to check the validity of data that utilizes something else.55 In this study, the researcher was used the triangulation of theory to check the validity of the data.
The type of triangulation chosen in this research is instruments triangulation which the researcher will re-check all of the data that has been gained from a different instrument. Thus, by reviewing all data obtained, it can be seen whether the data are valid or not.
55 Lexy J. Moleong, Metode Penelitian Kualitatif, (Bandung: PT Remaja Rosdakarya, 2013), pp. 330.