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.