This chapter elaborates the description and account of the steps that
have been taken to conduct the study.
3.1 The Site and Participant
The research was conducted in a private vocational school in South of Bandung.
This site was chosen for several reasons, at first, the researcher is a
teaching staff in the site. Secondly, it would accommodate the research since the students, the teachers and the
personnel of the school are familiar with the researcher. It was also expected
that the result of the study will be natural.
A vocational school was chosen as the site of the research since the researcher has high interest to explore
the implementation of SBC in the vocational school which is based on the fact
that vocational education has recently
got a great concern from the government
and the society around. In addition, some studies that the researcher has been
read (see Hallawa,2008; Hasbullah,2007; Dasep,2008; Zainurahman,2007; among
others) dealing with SBC were conducted at Junior and Senior high school, so
this research would be a pioneer of the implementation of SBC at a vocational
school and it is hopefully to give a
slight difference.
The participants of the study were four English teachers as the curriculum
developers, and the students in the first, the second and the third grade at
the site. There are two majoring departments in the school – automotive and mechanical
Engineering departments. Those students in all grades in these two departments
who were at school were involved in the research. However, some students who
were having a field practice (PKL) in some workshops throughout West Java were
not included in the study.
3.2 The Design of The Research
The researcher conducted
descriptive and qualitative research (Sugiyono,2007; Hatch and Lazaration,1991;
Hatch and Farhady , 1982; Emilia, 2008) as
it is suitable for gathering
an in-depth understanding of human
behavior. Qualitative
researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the
reasons that govern such behavior. In the study, the teachers’ and the
students’ responses including their behavior, their opinion and attitude were
investigated to find answers to the research questions. The qualitative method
investigates the why and how of decision
making, not just what, where, when as applied
in the study. A case study was conducted in this study as it is an
intensive study of a specific individual or specific context (Thomas: 2003). Qualitative methods produce information only
on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only
hypotheses (informative guesses).
3.3 The Data Collection Techniques
In research, there were some techniques used in collecting the data :
3.3.1
Observation
The
researcher observed how the
teachers taught in the class, in terms of how the teachers delivered the
assessment during the process of teaching and learning and after the teaching instruction had been
ended. This instrument was intended to answer the first research question.
The researcher acts as a non
participant observer. The researcher sat at the back and took notes about “what
was said and done “(Van Lier: 1998) by the students and the teacher in the
classroom. A handy camera was used to help a clear recording of what was going
on in the class. The observations were
conducted in 6 classes for 6 times lasting for 2 - 4 teaching periods. The
observations were conducted in order to observe closely how the teachers did
the evaluation system during the process of teaching instruction by employing
the note takings. There were some points to take into account when observing
other teacher (Brown, 2001:432-434) and some categories of a good
language-teaching characteristics (Brown, 2001: 430; Harmer, 2001:38). Those
principles were applied in observation.
Moreover, in term of procedures of language assessment and evaluation,
the points stated by Lynch (2003), Lynch (2005), BSNP (2006) were also
employed. After the sessions had been
over, the researcher also analyzed how
the teachers carried out the assessment in the form of homework, assignments or
project work. Those collected data were then transcribed and organized into
some groups for further description and analysis. After classifying all the
observation data- an empirical generalization was then formulated.
3.3.2
Interview
The researcher conducted a one-on-one interview to the English teachers, the
students, and the headmaster in which in the interview process, the researcher
asked some questions to and recorded the answers from only one participant in
the study at a time (Cresswell, 2008). The participants were given
opportunities to speak up their ideas or opinions frankly. The interview was
conducted to enhance the validity of the data. The interview was recorded by a
recording tool and then the data were transcribed. The research used a semi
structured life word interview (Dawson, 2009:28-29), that is an interview which
purpose is to know specific information which can be compared and contrasted
with information gained in other interviews. The same questions were asked in
each interview which were prepared
beforehand.
3.3.2.1The Teachers’ Interview
The open-ended question was delivered in the interview. The interviewee were
4 English teachers who teach the first, the second and the third grade students
at the school. They were involved in the study, meanwhile one of the English
teachers was not included because he did not want to get involved in the study.
The question was about how the implementation of SBC at the school and the
evaluation system in English teaching. There were about 42 guiding questions to
answer in the interview, to obtain the data as much as possible. The question
of the interview and the transcribed of the interview can be found in the Appendix
2 and 3 (see “Guiding questions on the Interview and The Transcribed Data of The Teachers’ Interview”).
The interview was conducted in a certain place at school (teacher’s room
and a library) in which all respondents felt comfortable to speak and had a
more private situation. Therefore, it was expected that there would be a valid
data gained from the teachers to answer the first and the second research
questions.
3.3.2.2
The Students’ Interview
There were 4 students who were interviewed voluntarily. The open ended
question was delivered. The question was similar to the question on the
questionnaire. The interview was taken outside the class, as the interviewees
wanted. There were 25 guiding questions to answer. All questions relating to
learning English and its problems.
The researcher took into consideration the students’ responses as the
answer to the third research question. The data was recorded and transcribed.
The question and the transcribed data can be seen in the Appendix 5.
3.3.2.3
The
Head Master’s Interview
The interview of the Headmaster was carried out to find out some policies
relating to the implementation of SBC from the decision maker’s view. There was 10 guiding questions to
answer, and the Headmaster attentively responded the question. There were a lot
of data obtained from the interview relating to teaching English at the school.
This data is very useful as the additional data which presents the description
of how SBC is implemented based on the Head master opinion. The interview was
conducted in the Head master’s office and it was lasted for about 30 minutes.
The question and the transcribed data can be seen in the Appendix 4.
3.3.3
Questionnaires
The researcher also administered open and closed questionnaires to the
participants, the students, in this case, to support the data collection and
made the research much more valid. There were two types of questionnaires in
the way that is a closed-ended questionnaire, it was hopefully to make the
students easier to answer as there will be several options. As Dawson (2009)
points out that in open questions, respondents use their own words to answer a
question, whereas in closed questions, prewritten response categories are
provided. Thus, the students just selected the appropriate answer by crossing it.
If the options did not cover all the students’ choice, there was a space
available to provide the other responses based on the students own choices.
There were also 2 questions in the open ended form to get the students’ opinion
about the evaluation and their suggestion for the future. They had the
opportunity to tell deliberately what their opinion. The questionnaire was conducted after the
teaching session has been over. The questions were 21 questions closed ended
and 2 open ended. The questionnaire was done in order to obtain detail
information and to crosscheck the information gained from the interview. The
total amount of respondents were 243 students but 4 papers were discarded
because of technical errors. The obtained data was then organized and analyzed.
The result is expected to answer the third research question. The questions and
the students’ responses to the questionnaire can be found in the appendix 6.
3.3.4
Document Analysis
The documents to be analyzed in this research were English Syllabus of
each teachers, MMC or mastery criteria, sample tests, the students’ score
lists and the Curriculum of SMK Merdeka document, as the supporting data of the research. The analysis looked at closely
on the assessment system that had been planned in the syllabus, the SBC document, MMC, sample test and the description of score lists.
3.4
Data
Analysis
The
obtained data from the observation,
questionnaire, interview, and document analysis were analyzed in the study
through some stages.
Firstly, the researcher videotaped the activities in class. The
researcher took a role as a non participant observation. Then, a questionnaire
was distributed to the students after
the teaching session had been ended. This was expected to gain more accurate data
and the students still had fresh memory about the activities.
Secondly, having obtained the data from observation, the researcher transcribed them. While transcribing, the
researcher observed closely and designed some questions to be given to the
students in the interview about the problems faced by the teachers and the
students’ response toward the evaluation. The questions for the interview were
more or less similar to those in the
questionnaire. The interview was conducted in order to gain more accurate data
in answering the second and the third research questions. The researcher also
interviewed the headmaster to get additional data about the implementation of
SBC based on the decision maker side. While the research was still in progress,
the researcher also analyzed the school Curriculum documents such as English
syllabus, lesson plans and many others, to give a supporting data from the
observation.
The gained data from observation, questionnaire, interview, and document
analysis were then categorized based on their relevance to the research
questions on how the teaching of English is implemented based on SBC
specifically in the evaluation system of English for the students in the
research site, also what the problems are faced by the teachers in
administering the evaluation/assessment and what the students’ response toward
evaluation system. Therefore, the collected data was then analyzed whether they
had answered all the research questions or not.
The overall analysis after the data
had been gained, followed some steps which can be elaborated as follows:
1. Coding the obtained data as shown in table 3.1 below (Cresswell,2008):
Table 3.1 Coding process of the obtained data
|
Initially read Divide the text Label the segments Reduce overlap Collapse codes through into segments of information with and redundancy into themes many pages many segments 30-40 codes codes reduced codes reduces |
2. Data
Interpretation
Interpretation involves making sense of the data. Interpretation in
qualitative research means that the researcher steps back and forms some larger
meaning about the phenomenon based on personal views, comparisons with past
studies, or both (Cresswell,2008). The interpretation involved a review of the
major findings and how research questions were answered, personal reflections
of the researcher about the meaning of
the data, and personal views compared or contrasted with the literature. The
result of the findings can support, modify, or reject the underlying theory.
3.5
Validating
the Findings
It is necessary to make sure that the findings and interpretation are
accurate. Qualitative researchers do not typically use the word bias in research; they will say that all research is interpretive
and that the researcher should be
self-reflective about his or her
role in the research, how he or she is interpreting the findings, and
his or her personal and political
history that shapes his or her
interpretation (Cresswell,2008). Thus, accuracy or credibility of the findings
is of upmost importance.
The strategies to determine the accuracy of the findings in the study are
as follows:
a.
Triangulation
Triangulation is the process of corroborating evidence from different individuals (the
teachers and the students), types of data (observational field notes and
interview) or methods of data collection (documents and interviews) in descriptions in the
qualitative study (Cresswell,2008). In
the study, the researcher examined each information source and found evidence
to support a theme. This ensures that the study will be accurate because the
information draws on multiple sources of information, individuals and processes
b.
Member Checking
Member checking is a process in which the researcher asks one or more
participants in the study to check the accuracy of the account (Cresswell,2008). The check
involved taking the findings back to the participants and asking them in an
interview about the accuracy of the report. The questions to the participants
were about many aspects of the study, such as whether the description was
complete, or the interpretation was fair and representative. Moreover, some of
the researcher’s best friend took a part as the editors at the end of the
study. They gave some comments,
corrections and suggestions to the research paper.
3.6 Synthesis
In this chapter,
it has treated the design of the study, some techniques employed in collecting
the data, the data analysis, the instruments used and the site of the study. The
chapter has also stated strategies of validating the findings based on the
outlined principles. The data presentation and findings will be discussed in
the next chapter.
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