Writing Methodology Section

(Qualitative Research)

COMPONENTS• Context of the Study• Research Design• Participants• Instruments• Data Analysis• Procedure of the Study• Trustworthiness

Context of the Study• Write where the study took place

• Give as many details as possible about the setting

• This is not the participants section, so while giving info, focus on the whole population in this setting, not your participants

Context of the Study: A sampletaken from Çınar, G. (2014). The eEfect of Peer Feedback on EFL Students’ Writing Anxiety and their Perceptions about the Use of Peer Feedback in Writing Classes. (Unpublished M.A. Thesis). Çağ University, Mersin.

• The study was carried out at the School of Foreign Languages, Zirve University. The School of Foreign Languages has four levels ranging from A to D and levels A, B, C, and D as elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, and upper-intermediate in order. In each level, 5 hours is spared to teach writing skills in English to students because the school gives importance to writing. There are at least 17 students in a writing class, and these students have to write a paragraph or essay depending on their levels. They prepare the first draft of their paragraphs or essays, get feedback from their writing teachers, and write the second (final) draft of their paragraphs or essays. In addition, a writing teacher is assigned to teach two writing classes and is supposed to check their students’ first drafts, give feedback to them, re-check and evaluate the second drafts of their students’ writings. In accordance with the teaching context, the researcher observed that this process leads to work overload for teachers and to dependence on teachers’ feedback for students in writing classes, which causes some students to display fear in writing classes.

Research Design• Identify the strategy of inquiry you have used:• Ethnography (studying others in their own culture)• case study (in-depth understanding of a single case)• Phenomenology (understanding a unique aspect of human

phenomena)• Biography (understanding a person in his/her context)

• Describe the characteristic of the design, citing sources when needed.

Research Design: A sampletaken from Onwuegbuzie, A. J. and Leech, N. L. (2010). Generalization practices in qualitative research: a mixed methods case study. Qual Quant, 44, 881-892.

• Using Leech and Onwuegbuzie’s (2005) framework, the mixed methods research design represented a fully mixed sequential dominant status design….

• The qualitative phase involved a case study. Specifically, a two-level case study was utilized. The first level, involving choice of the journal represented an instrumental case design. According to Stake (2005), in instrumental case designs, a particular case is examined primarily to provide insights into an issue such that the case is of secondary interest, playing supportive role. In this investigation, it was expected that the case would facilitate understanding of the generalization practices of some qualitative researchers. The second level, invoving the selected empirical articles represented a multiple or collective case design, which is an intstrumental case design that is extended to several cases (Stake, 2005) and which facilitates cross-case analyses.

Participants

• Write who your participants are• Give info about the sampling method that you used, giving

details about sampling procedures (purposive, opportunistic, volunteer, …)

• Give demographic information such as age, gender, …• Write how you got permission from the participants and/or

the aministration: mention the consent form here and attach it at the end as attachment

Participants: A sampletaken from Çınar,, G. (2014). The eEfect of Peer Feedback on EFL Students’ Writing Anxiety and their Perceptions about the Use of Peer Feedback in Writing Classes. (Unpublished M.A. Thesis). Çağ University, Mersin.

• Although the number of the participants in this study was expected to be 18, two of them did not want to participate in the study. Thus, the total number of the participants was decreased to 16, eleven of whom were female students and five of whom were male students. The participants were students at one of the English preparatory department of a university in Turkey. Their level of English was intermediate, which was determined by a placement and proficiency exam organized and done by the Testing Office of the department. These students were in their first term and took courses such as Reading and Writing, Listening and Speaking, Expansive Reading, Applied Linguistic Skills in which group work is expected to apply excessively, and lab classes. The students were selected by taking into account the fact that they were the-would-be doctors who are going to need English throughout their career pathway.

Consent form sampleConsent Form I confirm that I have been informed about the nature of the study and I have had the opportunity to ask questions about the research. I voluntarily agree to participate in the project. I understand I can withdraw at any time without giving reasons and without negative consequences. I, along with the Researcher, agree to sign and date this consent form. Participant: ________________________ ___________________________ ________________ Name of Participant Signature Date Researcher: ________________________ ___________________________ ________________ Name of Researcher Signature Date

Instruments• Give detailed information about each instrument you have

used:• If you have used an already existing instrument, write where you

got it from and why you used it• If you have adapted an already existing instrument, write where

you got it from and why you have adapted it. Give your justification for adaptation and present credibility

• If you have developed your own instrument, give all the details of the process of development and present its credibility

• In all situations, give the instrument in the Appendix section

Instruments: A sampletaken from Çınar,, G. (2014). The eEfect of Peer Feedback on EFL Students’ Writing Anxiety and their Perceptions about the Use of Peer Feedback in Writing Classes. (Unpublished M.A. Thesis). Çağ University, Mersin.

• 3.3. Data Collection Instruments • In order to collect data, qualitative and quantitative data

collection tools were used. For qualitative data collection, two interviews and teacher diary were used. For quantitative data collection, Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) was used. They were explained in detail in this section.

• 3.3.2. Interview• In order to supplement the results of SLWAI, interviews were

made before and after conducting study (see Appendix 3). The interview had four questions dealing with what students thought about the effects of peer feedback on their writing anxiety, whether peer feedback increased their self-confidence in writing, whether they liked it or not, and what they felt about giving and taking peer feedback.

Data Analysis

• Be careful! This is not the section where you present the findings of your analysis

• Write how you analyzed your data; what techniques you used, and how you used them

Data Analysis: A sampletaken from Çınar,, G. (2014). The eEfect of Peer Feedback on EFL Students’ Writing Anxiety and their Perceptions about the Use of Peer Feedback in Writing Classes. (Unpublished M.A. Thesis). Çağ University, Mersin

• The interviews were made with all students at the beginning and the end of the study to find out the attitudes of the students towards peer feedback. Also, teacher diary was kept to discover what worked and what did not work and to share and reflect the researcher’s experience with the research based on her observations and talks with the students. The interviews were content analyzed while teacher diary was narrated. The recorded data from each interviewee in the form of sentences were transformed into findings by identifying, coding, and categorizing by the researcher herself and another researcher who carries out quantitative studies in the field and is familiar with content analysis (Patton, 2002; Creswell, 2007). Besides this, teacher dairy was re-storied chronologically because restorying is used to frame a story according to time, scene, place or plot in a chronological order in order to make narrative analysis of the story (Creswell, 2007). In order to validate the qualitative results of the research, triangulation and the participation of another researcher into data analysis process were used (Creswell, 2007).

Procedure of the Stuy

• Write all your steps one by one (like a recipe book)

• If someone else wants to replicate your study, s/he shoud do it reading this section without asking any further questions to you

Procedure of the Study: A sampletaken from Çınar,, G. (2014). The eEfect of Peer Feedback on EFL Students’ Writing Anxiety and their Perceptions about the Use of Peer Feedback in Writing Classes. (Unpublished M.A. Thesis). Çağ University, Mersin

• 3.4. Procedure of the Study • This study was carried out at the English Preparation Department of the

School of Foreign Languages, Zirve University in Turkey. It lasted 7 weeks. A training session about peer feedback was organized in the first two weeks. During the following weeks, the students studied peer feedback with 5 writing assignments in class. Therefore, the data collection procedure was organized as the training period and the implementation procedure.

• 3.4.1. The Training Period• Prior to starting the study, the advantages of peer feedback based on the

literature were explained to the students and they were encouraged to attend the study. The researcher also encouraged students to work in collaboration. The researcher gave the students training along with some guidelines like identifying content, organization, grammar, and so on for two weeks to help them deal with these during the process of peer feedback. By doing this, the researcher guided the students on how to give and receive feedback on their writing…

Trustworthiness• Qualitative research is subjective, so the most important thing

is to respond to the concerns of outsiders.

• Think of these questions:• To what extent can we place confidence in the outcomes of the

study? • Do the readers believe what we have reported?

• How can we achieve trustworthiness in qualitative studies?

• Guba’s (1981) four criteria:

A) Credibility (instead of internal validity)B) Transferability (instead of external validity / generalizability)C) Dependability (instead of reliability)D) Confirmability (instead of objectivity)

1- CREDIBILITY• Ensuring that the study is measuring or testing what is actually

intended (as in internal validity)

• How can we ensure this?

• 1. Well-established adoption of research methods:

• Derive the specific procedures employed (data gathering and the methods of data analysis) from those that have been successfully utilised in previous comparable projects.

• 2. Triangulation• Mainly 4 types of triangulation (Denzin, 1984)

• a. Data source triangulation: observing data in different context (time, space, persons)

• b. Investigator triangulation: multiple researchers in an investigation

• c. Theory triangulation: using more than one theory in the interpretation of the data (e.g. having investigators with different points of views interpret the same data)

• d. Methodological triangulation: using more than one method to gather data (e.g. interviews, observations, questionnaires, documents)

• 3. Co-operation

• Create opportunities for scrutiny of the project by colleagues, peers and academics

• get feedback at presentations (e.g. at conferences) that are given over the duration of the project.

• 4. member check (Lincoln and Guba, 1985)• The process of asking research participants to tell you

whether you have accurately described their experience.• Checks may take place “on the spot” in the course, and at the

end of the data collection dialogues. • Participants may also be asked to read any transcripts of

dialogues in which they have participated to check whether the participants consider that their words match with what they actually intended.

• Another element of member checking should involve verification of the researcher’s emerging theories and inferences .

• Where appropriate, participants may be asked if they can offer reasons for particular patterns observed by the researcher.

2-TRANSFERABILITY (Generalizability) • The extent to which the findings of one study can be applied

to other situations (as in external validity)

• Qualitative studies do not aim to generalize the findings,

• Transferability is important: If other researchers believe their situations to be similar to that described in the study, they may relate the findings to their own positions, so give the ‘Context of the Study’ in detail.

3-DEPENDABILITY (Reliability)• Reliability: to show if the work were repeated in the same

context, with the same methods and with the same participants, similar results would be obtained.

• For Lincoln and Guba there is a close tie between credibility and dependability: a demonstration of the credibility demonstrates its reliability

• Thus, give clear and detailed info about the study (thick description)

• The purpose of the study• The sampling and setting (context of the study)• Data collection and analysis procedure• Findings/outcomes

4- CONFIRMABILITY (Objectivity)

• Ensuring as far as possible that the work’s findings are the result of the experiences and ideas of the participants, rather than the characteristics and preferences of the researcher.

• Thus, detailed methodological description is needed