CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY
B. An English oral survey
their English learning rather than on having good performances on tests (Principle 3).
Moreover, through interacting with classmates, they could possibly become more related to each other (Principle 6).
II. Advanced Exercises:
※You will gain extra points if you finish this section!
A. Sentence making practice.
Please use one of the given verbs to describe two things that you will do after school.
1.(want, need)_________________________________________________________
2.( plan, try)__________________________________________________________
Please write two sentences that describe two things you recently kept doing, practiced, finished or enjoyed.
1. (keep, practice)______________________________________________________
2. (finish, enjoy)_______________________________________________________
B. An English oral survey.
Please ask two of your classmates about what they will do after school today in English and write down their answers in the following table.
【Please use the verbs: want, need, plan or try.】
Example: A: _______________________________________________________________
B: _______________________________________________________________
Names I will … 1.
.
Later, the teacher corrected and commented this section with positive informative feedback. From the feedback, the participants would get to know more about their current competence and would thus become more confident in using the target language
(Principle 2).
The Student Self-evaluation Section
The student self-evaluation section was purposefully designed to promote the participants’ English learning motivation. There were two parts in this section. Part 1
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needed to be completed before a test whereas Part 2 after the test. Below illustrate the self-evaluation questions.
Part 1: Please answer the following question before the test.
Question : I anticipate getting ______ points because I have…
a. previewed the test questions.
Part 2: Please answer the following questions after the test.
Question 1: I got ______ points, and I feel satisfied with the test result because … a. I successfully achieved my goal with the effort I had made.
b. __________________________________________________________
even though I failed to reach my goal.
c. (other reasons)______________________________________________
Question 2: I got ______ points, but I’m not satisfied with the test result because … a. I carelessly left some of the test questions unanswered.
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Question 3: From this worksheet learning, I have learned ________________________
____________________________________________________________.
Question 4: I feel thankful to _______________________________________ because ____________________________________________________________.
In Part 1, there was only one guided question designed to encourage the participants to set goals and to determine the ways to prepare for the test section. It was purposefully
devised to motivate the participants to take responsibility for their learning (Principle 4).
On the other hand, Part 2 consisted of four guided questions (i.e. Questions 1 to 4).
After the test section was corrected and commented by the teacher, the participants chose either Question 1 or Question 2 to answer according to how satisfied they felt with their test results. Then they ticked or wrote down the reasons for their satisfaction or
dissatisfaction with their own performances. Moreover, they reflected on what they had learned from the worksheet in Question 3. The teacher’s corrections and comments in both the test section and the advanced exercise section could also assist them in
perceiving their competence (Principle 2). From Questions 1 to 3, the participants were led to self-evaluate their learning. This process perhaps helped develop their autonomy for learning English (Principle 4).
As for Question 4 in Part 2, it gave the participants a chance to think of the people they wanted to express gratitude to and the reasons for doing so. Through this reflection, the participants would probably find that their classmates and the teacher were very helpful when they encountered some difficulties or situations they couldn’t work out by themselves. Besides, their relatedness with their classmates and the teacher would
perhaps be strengthened by this realization and an opportunity to say thank you (Principle 6).
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To sum up, this section was for the participants to practice taking the initiative in learning, to evaluate their learning outcomes, to perceive their competence, and to cooperate with their classmates and the teacher in learning, all of which were assumed to provide support for competence perception, autonomy for learning English and
relatedness with classmates and the teacher.
In addition, the checklists offered in the question in Part 1 and Questions 1 and 2 in Part 2 could help the participants to answer the questions more completely. They also served as suggestions for how to study for the test section and what might need to be careful about so as to get a satisfying test result.
The Student/Teacher Feedback Section
The fourth section was designed for the participants and their teacher to exchange feedback. Thus, it contained two parts. One was for the participants to write down their feedback; the other was for their teacher to respond to it. The instruction of the section is illustrated as follows:
1. The words I want to say to my teacher:
(Suggested topics: (1) Advice for future instructions. (2) Learning difficulties.
(3) Learning reflection. )
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. The words my teacher wants to say to me:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
In the first part, the participants picked any of the suggested topics (i.e. advice for future instructions, learning difficulties and learning reflection) or set their own topic to express their comments, questions, experiences and perspectives about this period of learning.
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Their teacher responded to their feedback positively, supportively and informatively in the second part. From the feedback, the teacher would know what extra help or
complementary material was needed to assist the participants in learning English and how to adjust her instructions to meet their needs. On the other hand, the participants would find their problems, worries and leaning anxiety recognized and concerned by their teacher. Besides, they would receive some supportive informative responses that probably helped them become aware of their current competence and the possible directions of adjusting their ways of learning. Furthermore, their relatedness with their teacher could possibly increase through this channel of communication. In sum, this section was designed to help the participants perceive their competence (Principle 2), promote their autonomy for learning (Principles 4 and 5), and improve their relatedness with their teacher (Principle 6).
The last two sections, the student self-evaluation section and the student/teacher feedback section, were deliberately devised to promote the participants’ competence perception, autonomy for learning English and relatedness with their classmates and the teacher in the hope of increasing their intrinsic or more self-determined English learning motivation.
The Two Stages of Completing the Worksheet Learning
The test-question preview worksheets are unlike the worksheets normally used in English classes. They combine the functions of test preview and worksheets together. For the function of test preview, the test questions of an upcoming vocabulary and grammar in-class quiz3 were printed on the worksheets and distributed to the participants to preview and prepare for after the teacher finished teaching a lesson. The next day, the
3 The test questions of an upcoming vocabulary and grammar in-class quiz were different from those of the school-administered English achievement test which the participants would take after the worksheet treatment, but both sets of the test questions tested the same linguistic knowledge taught in English class.
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worksheets were used as test papers. The participants took a quiz right on them. Then the teacher collected the worksheets, checked the answers and gave comments.
For the function of worksheets, the worksheets contained several advanced exercises, including a sentence making practice and an English oral survey. They were given to the participants as assignments. It was expected that the participants would cooperate with each other to finish these exercises. In addition, several guided questions for the
participants to decide the ways to learn and set a goal before a test and to evaluate their own learning after the test were placed in the student self-evaluation section on the worksheets. The worksheets provided opportunities for the participants and the teacher to give feedback in the student/teacher feedback section.
There were two stages in the worksheet learning. In the first stage, the teacher gave the participants a vocabulary and grammar instruction and distributed a test-question preview worksheet to them. Then the participants completed Part 1 in the student self-evaluation section on the worksheet to set a goal for the upcoming test and to
determine their own favorite ways of preparing for the test section in advance. They could look for the answers in their textbooks or discuss the challenging questions with their classmates or the teacher. However, they were not allowed to write anything in the test section until the next day when the teacher asked them to take out the worksheet and finish the test questions right on the section as an in-class vocabulary and grammar test.
Then, all the worksheets were collected, corrected, commented and graded by the teacher.
In the second stage, the teacher returned the worksheets back and explained the test questions that the participants asked. Then she gave a clear instruction and several examples to get the participants ready for completing the advanced exercise section, the rest of the student self-evaluation section and the student/teacher feedback section. After they finished the worksheets, the teacher gathered the worksheets again to give comments on the advanced exercise section and to respond to the participants’ self-evaluation and
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feedback in the last two sections. In the end, the worksheets were distributed back to the participants.
English Learning Motivation Questionnaire
The English learning motivation questionnaire (See Appendix B) was a four-point Likert scale questionnaire in which each item contained four options ranging from
―Strongly Agree‖ to ―Strongly Disagree.‖ It was used before and after the treatment to discover whether the participants’ English learning motivation was enhanced through the use of the test-question preview worksheets. Three groups of questions were designed to respectively probe into the change of the participants’ competence perception, autonomy for learning English and relatedness with their classmates and the teacher before and after the experiment. The first group consisted of two questions, and the second and the third groups contained five questions respectively. The following paragraphs describe the twelve questions and their correspondence with the principles (i.e. Principles 1 to 6) used to design the questionnaire. The participants were given the Chinese version of the questionnaire during the experiment (See Appendix B).
Questions 1 and 2 were composed based on Principles 1 and 2 about the support for competence perception (i.e. providing optimal challenges and positive informative feedback). They were used to evaluate the effect of the worksheet learning on the promotion of the participants’ competence perception. Question 1 was to assess if the participants had built up a sense of achievement by overcoming the optimal challenges offered by the school English class (Principle 1). As for Question 2, it aimed to examine whether the teacher’s positive informative feedback enhanced the participants’ confidence in their own competence in learning English (Principle 2).
The next five questions (Questions 3 to 7) were produced according to Principles 3 to 5 about autonomy support (i.e. removing or lessening test pressure and control, giving
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chances to take responsibility for learning, and responding to students’ problems).
Question 3 aimed to find out whether the participants were active in learning English or mostly triggered by their test pressure to learn (Principle 3). Questions 4 to 6 investigated if the participants showed any autonomous learners’ traits in their English learning
(Principle 4). The traits included setting goals (Question 4), determining the ways to learn (Question 5), and ascribing their success and failure to effort (Question 6). At last,
Question 7 evaluated whether the participants autonomously learned from their mistakes picked out by their teacher in the test section (Principle 5).
The last five questions (Questions 8 to 12) in the questionnaire were to examine the participants’ relatedness with their classmates and the teacher in English learning. They were produced based on Principle 6 about relatedness support (i.e. creating the
opportunities to interact with classmates and the teacher). Questions 8 to 11 evaluated the relatedness between the participants and their classmates. The focuses included acquiring the tips for English learning from their classmates (Question 8), sharing their favorite ways of English learning with their classmates (Question 9), encouraging each other to learn English better (Question 10), and enjoying discussing English problems with their classmates (Question 11). Question 12, on the other hand, inquired into the participants’
relatedness with their teacher. It was to find out if the participants felt enjoyable in discussing their English problems with their teacher.
The face validity of the questionnaire was ensured by inviting an export, a professor mastering testing and statistics of social science and serving in a university of education in northern Taiwan, to examine whether the questionnaire items truly reflected the objectives of the study or not. Also, a pilot study was conducted to see if any necessary modifications were needed to secure the reliability of the questionnaire.
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A School-administered English Achievement Test
A school-administered achievement test is a formal periodical exam held three times a semester in public junior high schools in Taiwan. In other words, the Taiwanese junior high school students have to take one every five or six weeks to evaluate their learning outcome of the subjects, including English, taught in school. Besides, the scores the students gain from these achievement tests may influence their chances of entering their ideal senior high schools; therefore, they value these tests very much.
In school-administered English achievement tests, the knowledge of vocabulary and grammar is usually an emphasis and often tested in various forms, such as gape filling and multiple-choice questions. Under such circumstance, the worksheets were designed with a focus on these two areas so as to meet the participants’ immediate needs. The reason to involve one of the English achievement tests (See Appendix C) into this research was that the researcher wished to know whether or not the participants with the aid of the worksheets could outperform those not using the worksheets on the English achievement tests.
Data Analysis Methods
The data gathered from the three instruments were analyzed with qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the two research questions: (1) Is students’ English learning motivation promoted after the use of the test-question preview worksheets in the test-oriented learning environment? (2) Do the students using the test-question preview worksheets outperform those not using the worksheets on a school-administered English achievement test? To answer Research Question 1, the data from the test-question preview worksheets and the English learning motivation questionnaire were respectively analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative method adopted in the study was to count the number of the participants in each of the experimental subgroups (i.e. high,
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middle and low groups) who at least once gave similar responses to the guided questions in the student self-evaluation section and the student/feedback section on the worksheets.
The reason for only analyzing the data from these two sections was that those data could represent the participants’ learning behaviors and attitudes toward the worksheet learning.
The analytical results would reveal whether the participants gained support for competence perception, autonomy for learning English and relatedness with their classmates and the teacher from the worksheet learning. The other two sections, the test section and the advanced exercise section, only providing a variety of exercises for the participants to practice and get familiar with the newly-learned English material, couldn’t offer directly-relevant data that helped answer Research Question 1.
In the student self-evaluation section, there were two parts for the participants to answer before and after a test. Part 1 contained one guided question about the goals the participants set and the learning strategies they selected to prepare for the test questions.
These data could reveal information about the participants’ competence perception and degree of autonomy. As for Part 2, it comprised four guided questions. The first two questions were for the participants to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their test results and the reasons for feeling in that way. Their responses to the questions
provided the information about whether their competence perception increased or decreased after the test, and whether their success or failure was attributed to effort. The third question inquired what was learned from the worksheet, which offered the
information about whether the participants recognized their English competence or/and autonomy for learning English was/were improving through the worksheet learning. The data gathered from these three guided questions would indicate if the worksheet learning provided support for the participants’ competence perception and autonomy for learning English. The last question gave the participants a chance to express their gratitude toward their helpers. They not only wrote down their helpers’ names but also described the
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reasons why they felt thankful. These data would manifest the degrees of the participants’
relatedness with their classmates and the teacher in terms of English learning and would also indicate whether they gained relatedness support from the worksheet learning.
The student/teacher feedback section, on the other hand, contained two open
questions collecting the data about the participants’ general reflections on and suggestions for the worksheet learning. These data would also reveal some information about whether or not the participants’ three motivational components were improved after the use of the worksheets.
The data from the English learning motivation questionnaire were analyzed through three quantitative methods. First, the independent-samples t-test was used to compare the experimental and control groups’ three motivational components. Second, the paired-samples t-test was employed to compare the questionnaire scores within the experimental and control groups as well as the experimental subgroups (i.e. high, middle and low groups). The quantitative data would indicate if the participants’ competence perception, autonomy for English learning and relatedness with their classmates and the teacher changed after the experiment. Third, the mean scores of every questionnaire item gained by the experimental subgroups before and after the experiment were further compared in order to obtain the details of the changes in the three motivational components. The statistical results from both quantitative methods would reveal the influence of the test-question preview worksheets on the participants’ English learning motivation.
To answer Research Question 2, the scores of the school-administered English achievement test gained by the experimental and control groups as well as their subgroups were compared by means of the independent-samples t-test. The statistical results would indicate whether or not the experimental group’s English academic performance was better than the control group’s after the experiment.
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Procedure
The procedure of the whole study included a pilot study and a formal study. The purpose of conducting a pilot study was to test the workability of the English learning motivation questionnaire and the test-question preview worksheets. The formal study subsequently proceeded after the necessary modifications found in the pilot study were made.
Pilot Study
In this research, a pilot study was carried out to ensure the reliability of the English learning motivation questionnaire and the practicability and effectiveness of the
test-question preview worksheets. The procedure and the results of the pilot study as well as the modifications of the two instruments are described in the following sections.
The Procedure of the Pilot Study
The participants in the pilot study were 30 students (16 boys and 14 girls) from an eighth-grade class, other than the participants in the formal study but with the similar social and learning background. The instruments included the English learning motivation questionnaire and three test-question preview worksheets. The participants firstly
answered the English learning motivation questionnaire and then accepted a vocabulary and grammar instruction based on the content of their school English textbook. After the
answered the English learning motivation questionnaire and then accepted a vocabulary and grammar instruction based on the content of their school English textbook. After the