Week 13

Tuesday, 05 April 2011

            I felt the tension when I arrived at the class today. Everyone seemed very focus studying their notes for the last time. Obviously today was the day for our quiz! I have gone through all the notes for the lectures, but still I felt nervous to take the test.

            The class started off with some presentations on research proposal. I noticed that we listened to the presentations, but our minds were busy memorizing the notes for the test. Sorry, Dr. Izaham. We couldn’t focus our attention to the presentations anymore. While waiting for the last person to arrive and present, Dr. Izaham let us answer the test first. The first impression when I laid my eyes on the question paper – quite hard. But as I skimmed and scanned through the questions, it was not bad. My overall opinion about the test paper is it was quite okay - some of the questions were not too easy, and some were quite difficult. Some of the questions were quite confusing (or only me didn’t know the answers) and some of them can be answered if we paid full attention to the lectures before this.

            Frankly speaking, thank God that we had this test because this test had made me really read the notes and the book about research methodology. Although I might not score well, at least in my opinion, my knowledge on research methodology has increased and many things are clearer to me now. But still, I have some confusion to differentiate correlational and causal-comparative research – I tend to regard it as the same. I know I need to read a lot more on these, and thank you Dr. Izaham for sharing your knowledge and for your guidance for our research methodology.

Week 12

Tuesday, 29^th March 2011

            The research proposal presentation was scheduled to be today. All of my classmates were ready to present since Dr. Izaham said he would chose randomly. Before the class started, I heard some of my friends said that they were not very sure of their research; and so do I. The presentation today was like the second outline for us in doing our research proposal. We do hope that Dr. Izaham would correct our mistakes to improve the proposal.

            After several people had presented, I voluntarily went forward to present mine. I followed what Dr. Izaham advised me to do during the first consultation in class and had made necessary correction according to all the lectures given. Before I came up with the proposal, I looked back and read the lectures again to have a firm understanding of all the elements in a research proposal. My topic is Readiness of Part 8 TESL Undergraduates to the Teaching Profession: A Case Study. After I had presented, Dr. Izaham commented on my proposal on the sample I planned to do. Since the population was 200, he suggested that I took all population as the sample in my study, instead of taking only 50. Other than that, Dr. Izaham said it was okay.

            Based on all research proposal presented by my classmates, I could see that many of us made mistakes in writing problem statement and research questions. For the problem statement, Dr. Izaham has mentioned during his lecture that the problem investigated must have support from other research or newspaper reports. The problem would not be valid based on our own observation only. Many presenters forgot to do that. As for the research questions, I observed that the common mistake in writing research questions was they were not written specifically to what they want to investigate in the study. The questions did not reflect their purpose of the study and the questions were formulated in ineffective ways. However, I could understand because most of us in this class do not have any experience in writing and doing research. I am sure that with time and gradual guidance given to us, we will improve and gain knowledge in how to write research proposal.

Week 11

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

                Today’s class is about how to formulate effective research questions. I admit that most of the times, I also do not have the idea on how to write research questions. But thanks to Dr. Izaham, today’s lecture has kind of giving me new knowledge on formulating research questions. I understand that research questions must be based on the purposes and statement of the problem in the study, but the common problem is that I fail to really specify my research questions. I always end up being too general and had to rephrase the questions. Learning and seeing how to formulate research questions in the class today made me felt like it is not so difficult to come out with an effective research question. Doing some examples has given me a shed of light on how to formulate research questions for my proposal. I am interested with 4-column table mentioned by Dr. Izaham to aid and give clearer view of the direction in research questions. The four columns are for research questions, how do you want to collect data, what kind of data you want to collect and how do you want to analyze the data. I will surely utilize this table as I find it very helpful for me to see what am I going to do with each research question investigated.

            In literature review, I have been told since doing my degree that it is not just a summary of all the articles pertaining to the topic investigated. But at that time, I had no idea how am I going to synthesize all those information into an organized review of literature. Now that I am in master’s programme, reviewing articles is not an alien thing for us anymore. We need to read a lot and give critiques to the articles. On the good side of it, it is a practice for us to be familiar with research articles and know how to process and synthesize information gained from the articles. Before this, when I read articles, I would just agree with what the researchers had reported because I felt that they were more knowledgeable than me and knew what they were doing. However, I realize that not all research articles are carried out efficiently and there’s always something I want to ask when I read research articles. Nevertheless, there are many more things that I need to learn to enhance my research skills.

Week 10

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

            After the lecture on instrumentation last week, we proceeded to analysis of data. There are two types of quantitative data; which are descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Listening to all these terms made me find them difficult. But after Dr. Izaham explained with examples on the slides, it became clearer to differentiate between the two.

            If we had more time, it would be best if Dr. Izaham can teach us how to actually analyze the data using SPSS. It will be more meaningful to have some data analyzed in the class. Based on this lecture, it has helped to decide and determine which type of data that I am going to collect and analyze in my research. For the case study, I will be analyzing using descriptive statistics where means and percentages will be calculated. Standard deviation will also be included in my research.

Week 9

Tuesday, March 8^th, 2011

            Today’s lecture was about instrumentation. It is the procedure of creating and giving the instrument to the respondents. Instrument is the device that we use to measure what we want to measure. Instrument can be in the form of questionnaire, checklist, attitude scales and so on. Reflecting on my research proposal topic, the instrument that I want to use to measure readiness is questionnaire. As mentioned by Dr. Izaham, it is advisable for us to just adapt from other research’s questionnaire rather than developing our own questionnaire. I agree with him because in order to develop our own questionnaire, many precaution steps need to be taken into account before we can use it for our research. We need to check for the validity and reliability of the items tested in the questionnaire by conducting one or even some subsequent pilot studies.

            The terms validity and reliability are common terms used in research methodology, but I did not really understand what the terms meant. Today’s lecture was very helpful for me to grasp more understanding of these terms. Based on my understanding, validity is concerned with the rationality of the items tested in the instrument. Rationality here means that the items are able to measure what it is supposed to measure. I always stumbled across the term Cronbach Alpha in research articles that I have read, but I just ignored it because I did not know what it stands for. During this lecture, I now know that Cronbach Alpha is used to measure validity of the items. The higher the Alpha is, the more reliable the test is. As for the reliability, it is to make sure that the instrument used will produce consistent results whenever it is administered. If the instrument does not yield consistent results when administered for the second time, it has a possibility to be an unreliable instrument.

            After the lecture, there was a session of consultation with Dr. Izaham for our research proposal outline. The consultation was done individually, where Dr. Izaham went through our proposal to approve for our topics. As for my turn, I need to change my three specific areas that I want to measure in my research. At first, I wanted to measure readiness in terms of subject competence, classroom management and administrative work. When I wrote the proposal, I also felt that the term ‘administrative work’ was not suitable, but I could not find other term for it. Dr. Izaham advised me to change the term with other area that I can research on. The consultation was very helpful because I got to correct the mistakes done in my proposal. I want to measure readiness of recent TESL graduates who have just begun their teaching profession; however, the term ‘readiness’ can only be measured to those who haven’t started to teach. It looks like I have misinterpreted the term readiness J. Therefore, I have changed my respondents to Part 8 TESL undergraduates who are finishing their degree – I am going to measure their readiness to teach before they are sent to teach in schools later on. I hope that more guidance and consultation will be given to guide our direction in writing our research proposal. Some of us are really lost in doing it and by pointing out our mistakes, we will realize whether we are on the right track or not.

Week 8

Tuesday, 1/3/2011

            Another two groups presented today. They were the last two groups to present. Hazura and Faridatul presented on historical method, where we study histories as in to see how it was like in the past and how it has evolved in the present. Since it is going to take much time and quite difficult to conduct, I don’t think I would employ historical research in my research proposal. Having the knowledge of what historical method is very useful to differentiate it with ethnographic research. The last group, Ateff, Ezham, and Rahim explained about case study; which is also popular among educational researchers. Case study is an in-depth study of a particular situation rather than a sweeping statistical survey. This method can be used to narrow down a very broad field of research into one easily researchable topic. I think case study is to study more specific topic of a particular people – it answers the questions of why and how. This is what I have planned to do with my research proposal. I plan to do a case study on the readiness of TESL undergraduates to teach – I found that some of them are not ready to teach; and I even experience the same thing. Therefore, I want to study on how ready they are after graduating from their TESL degree. I am planning to investigate on three areas – subject matter knowledge, classroom management skills, and excessive workloads. More readings need to be done to have an in-depth knowledge in these areas.

            After the presentations, Dr. Izaham lectured on sampling methods. The lecture was very helpful for me because I managed to understand random and non-random sampling methods. From the lecture, I intended to do random purposive sampling for my research. I have target group respondents who fulfill the characteristics that I want and I will randomly select from the population. Population and sample are important aspects for the research as choosing the wrong population and sample will obviously affect the findings collected from the study.

Week 7

Tuesday, 22/2/2011

            Today, there were 3 groups presenting on research methodologies. The first group was Aminah’s and Dixie’s group. They presented about ethnographic research. The word ‘ethnographic’ itself implies that it is a study of the cultural and patterns and perspectives of respondents in their natural settings. In my understanding, ethnographic research requires the researcher to be immersed in the respondents’ setting that he wants to observe. It is a time-consuming research and an exploratory research. As compared to other quantitative research, its purpose is to find relationship or explain theories, but for ethnographic, it is finding new knowledge or information about the cultures or way of life of particular respondents.

            The second group presented on survey research, which is my favourite J. It is a method that is used to ask people to tell about themselves – usually attitudes, perceptions and checklists. But one common problem exists in survey research is in terms of its threats – external factors, internal factors and characteristics of data collector. These threats should be minimized as much as possible to ensure validity and reliability of the findings obtained.

            The third group was my group. Marina and I presented on phenomenology research. Phenomenology research is conducted to know the meaning, structure or essence of the lived experience of a particular person/group of people regarding a particular phenomenon. It describes how the respondent would feel when experiencing a particular phenomenon by conducting in-depth interview to gain access to individual’s life. One example of a phenomenon that can be used in phenomenology research is reflected in the lived experience of online educators – they are to describe their experiences being online educators; their challenges, the advantages and so on. Doing this presentation made me to read further and understand what phenomenology is. Finding a suitable example of the research methodology is a practice for us to identify what is the type of research the researchers employ in their studies.

Week 5

Tuesday, 8/2/2011

            Dr. Izaham continued presenting on qualitative methods and then proceeded to explain about qualitative methods. Qualitative methods include case studies, ethnographic research, historical and phenomenology research. Frankly, I do not really prefer to do qualitative research because I do not know how to categorize the data into specific themes. I do not know how to synthesize a bulk of information into smaller parts. However, I still do interviews to triangulate the statistical data that I gathered from questionnaires. In the future, I hope that I can do qualitative research to gain knowledge on dividing the verbal information.

Today there was only one group presenting on the topic causal comparative, which is the continuation from the last class. It is a complex method for me because I always have difficulties to differentiate between correlational, experimental and causal comparative research. Based on their presentation, what I understand that as the name causal comparative suggests, it is to find cause-and-effect relationship. Compared to correlation, it is just to find any relationship exists between the variables. In causal comparative study, the researcher cannot manipulate the independent variable as it will harm the respondents if we manipulate their diet. It is a useful thing to me because I get to hear about one thing twice as the presenters today presented the same thing as Dr. Izaham did.

Week 4

Tuesday, 25/1/2011

            Two groups presented on the quantitative methodologies today. The first group presented on Correlational Research. I always had the perception that correlational research can also prove one variable causes the other. After listening to them, I realize that correlational research only proves the degree of relationship that exists between the variables, and we cannot say that one causes the other. The entire scatter plot thing helps to understand whether there is a correlation or no correlation exists. We use correlation coefficient to find the relationships. It was just that the example of research that they provided was not up-to-date as it is in the 1960s. Although the topic was interesting, but the findings and the methods employed might not be relevant to our situation now.

            The second group presented on the experimental research. Experimental research is best used to test cause-and-effect relationships. Usually in experimental research, we conduct pre- and post-test to gather the results. In experimental research, we can have independent and dependent variables and manipulate the variable to know whether the result is caused by the variable/intervention or not.

            After the presentations, Dr. Izaham continued his lecture on quantitative methods. This time, he also covered on the topic of survey method, which is the one that I am interested to do. Survey is also called a descriptive research, where it is common in education field. Survey can be longitudinal or cross-sectional. As it is concerned in finding the answer to the question ‘what is’, it is the most favourable method to be employed in education. The survey can be conducted by distributing questionnaires, having checklists or scales. Since it is quite easy to do, I am planning to use survey for my research.

Week 3

Tuesday, 18/1/2011

            Last week, Dr. Izaham cancelled the class because he had to attend to something. For this week, we continued to the most initial and basic part of research – the research methodologies. This is important because every researcher needs to know what type of research they want to do and what kind of methodology they want to employ.

            There are two types of research methodology – quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research concerns with analytical analysis from verbal data or document analysis. Both methods are reliable, but it is dependent on the researcher what type of research is suitable to investigate the topic the researcher wants to cover. When Dr. Izaham lectured about quantitative methodology, it has somehow refreshed my memory about what I had learned before. The way Dr. Izaham put it was more comprehensible and easier for me to understand as he gave examples to illustrate what he said. The lecture was presented in a way that compared quantitative and qualitative research that enables me to differentiate both of them.

            Quantitative research methodologies can be done through 5 ways – experimental, correlational, causal-comparative, single subject, and survey. These methodologies are great to test theories or relationship, as they are very rich in numbers. For my research proposal, I would like to do quantitative research, but so far, I am still not confident to employ experimental, correlational or causal-comparative because I am not quite sure how to analyze the data. I have the perception that these methodologies are very difficult to do and very complex. Therefore, to be on safer side, I think I would go for survey research which is not that complex. But still, it is still too early to decide on the methodologies because we have not discussed about data analysis yet. Maybe after I have understood how to analyze the data, I will be interested to do research using those methodologies.