Essay: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY – how some Madrasah Tsanawiyah implement their school English curriculum

This chapter describes the methodology used to conduct this study. This chapter contains five sub chapters namely the setting of place and time of the research, the methods of the research, the source of the data, the techniques of collecting data, the techniques of analyzing the data and the research procedure.
A. The Place and Time of the Research
This research was held at some Madrasah Tsanawiyah located in Parungpanjang district, the classrooms in these schools are physically characterized as standard classrooms that represent a range of class size around forty students.
The research was carried out in September until November 2015. The observation of the classrooms and the interviews in order to take the data needed were conducted in November 2015.
B. The Method of the Research
In doing the research, the researcher should provide certain science that is called “methodology”. Nawawi stated that that research methodology is the science of method used in doing research to explore and to explain the natural phenomena in social human life using the systematic procedure, regularly, and can be explained scientifically. It means that the research methodology is a method study for doing research in order to explain natural and social phenomena using systematic and regular procedure.
In this study, the type of this research is descriptive qualitative method. It means that this research employs the called descriptive and qualitative method of analysis. Qualitative research can be defined as a research relying primarily on the collection of qualitative data (Christensen & Johnson, 2000: 17). This is an umbrella term covering an array of interpretive techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate and otherwise come to term with the meaning … of certain more or less naturally occurring phenomena …” (Van Maanen, 1983: 9 in Bramble and Mason, 1997: 38). It is a study that is aimed to draw meaning from observation taken in natural context (1997: 334). Shortly, qualitative research is a study that relies primarily on the collection of qualitative data with the purpose to describe, to decode, and to draw meaning from naturally occurring phenomena happened.
Moreover, Arikunto stated that descriptive method can be divided into two namely, explorative descriptive and developmental descriptive. Explorative descriptive is to describe and to explain a phenomena status and fact. Related to the research, in this study, the writer takes a descriptive qualitative method as the proper method to describe the implementation of KTSP in teaching English. Specifically, the writer uses explorative descriptive method because she needs to describe the implementation of KTSP through the learning process, the teaching materials and the system of evaluation used in the school system.
C. The Source of Data
Christensen & Johnson (2000) argued that qualitative research is a research relying primarily on the collection on qualitative data (i.e. non-numerical data such as words and pictures). Thus, the data materials are in the form of word because the data taken can be description of information about the phenomena being studied. The information itself can be taken from four sources, namely, events, participants, setting and documents or artifacts (Spradley, 1980: 39- 41; Sutopo, 1996: 49- 51).
In obtaining the data, the researcher derives the source of data. They are the field notes of the classroom observation through teaching-learning process, the transcript of English teacher‘s interview, the transcript of vice principle, and some transcript of students, and official‘s documents dealing with the implementation of English school curriculum in these Madrasah.
D. The Technique of Data Collection
The researcher uses three techniques of data collection. They are observation, interview and document analysis.
1. Observation
Observation is the observing and taking notes systematically based on certain phenomena (Sutrisno Hadi, 1984: 136). Observation is one of the instruments used in collecting the data. The researcher observed the student‘s activities while teaching and learning process occurred. The result of the observation was recorded on her observation sheets as the data. Two parts of field notes observation are descriptive and reflective. Descriptive is a part of field notes consisting of the explanation related to the natural phenomena caught in setting, which is about activity, persons, and documents. While in reflective, it contains the researcher‘s understanding, analysis, evaluations, interpretation and speculation, related to the descriptive. This part is just subjective because it is made based on the researcher‘s interpretations.
In collecting the data, the writer spelt out the data into field notes. The observation was focused on the implementation of English Curriculum in some private Madrasah Tsanawiyah in parungpanjang district. It could be seen at teaching learning process during the instruction. It was made through the observation of some classes in these schools while teaching learning activity occurred.
2. Interview
Lexy J Moleong quoted that interview is a conversation with their certain purposes, which is done by the side as the interviewer and interviewee (2002: p.135). In line with this definition, Massom and Bramble in Research in Education and the Behavioral Science, interview defines as a verbal discussion conducted by one person with another for obtaining the information (1997: p. 314)
Transcript is also the major sources in collecting data. It is derived from the interview taken by the researcher. The data taken was written in the form of transcript as similar as the field notes. It consists of the identity of the interviewer and the interviewee, the setting of the interview consisting of the time, place and activity happened.
E. The Validity and the Reliability in the Research
According to Fraenkel and Wallen (2002), the concept of validity refers to the appropriateness and usefulness of the inferences the researcher made based on the data collected, while reliability refers to the consistency of these inferences over time. The validity and the reliability use to get the conviction that the data could be trusted based on the reality.
1. Member Checking
As Quoted in Nurkamto in Metodology Penelitian Kualitatif (2003), there are some techniques in the checking of data validity, one of them is member checking. It is used to clarify some information by asking directly to the informants or respondents.
2. Key Informant Review
The researcher confirmed the displayed data, which have been arranged (especially the result of the interview) to the informant. It is used to clarify whether the statement written in the description was agreeable or not. As stated by Frankel and Wallen (2000), interviewing individuals more than once is extremely important in qualitative study in order to be consistent in giving the information.
F. The Techniques of Analyzing the Data
The data analysis in qualitative research involves three things namely the data reduction, the data presentation/display and the conclusion drawing/verification (Sutopo, 2006: 113). In this study, the process of analyzing the data is aimed to describe the quality of the implementation of KTSP in Teaching English.
1. The Data reduction
It includes the process of taking and selecting the right data based on needed criteria. In this phase, the researcher should do the process of selecting, focusing, simplifying and abstracting. In short, the data reduction is part of data analyses, which emphasizes, makes the data shorter, makes the theme focused, and arranges the data in appropriate order.
2. Data Representation
This second step of data analysis is the data representation. In this stage, the researcher wishes to present the correlation of organization information. In qualitative research, the data taken are in the form of words. The data are presented in the narration form of word.
3. Drawing conclusion and verification.
After describing and interpreting the data, the data were drawn continuously and thoroughly in the study as the result of interpretation. The researcher takes conclusion after interpreting the data taken.
G. Research Procedures
The research procedures conducted in knowing how some Madrasah Tsanawiyah in Parungpanjang District implement their school English curriculum are as follow:
1. Collecting information dealing with KTSP curriculum from many sources like from books and internet.
2. Collecting the data or information dealing with the English curriculum conducted in the school.
3. Preparing instruments for collecting the data namely questions for interview, tape recorder, book, and ballpoint.
4. Conducting observation in the class while making observation field notes.
5. Interviewing some English language teachers, the headmaster, students of each Madrasah Tsanawiyah while making transcript of those interview.
6. Collecting the documents or information dealing with the needed data completion.
7. Analyzing the data collected systematically, logically and continuously
8. Making conclusion and suggestion dealing with the research.