CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the research methods, quantitative and qualitative, applied in the present study will be discussed. The first section describes the participants and their sampling criteria. In the second part, instruments including questionnaire and interview will be presented. The third section discusses the data collection procedures, and in the last part, methods adopted to analyze the data are explained.
3.1 Participants
In this section, the target population, the reasons for selecting it, and the sampling criteria will be explained.
3.1.1 Target population
As pointed out in the literature, the polarization of students’ English proficiency
is a common phenomenon in Taiwan. Such a problem can be found not only among
countries but also within a single class (Huang, 1999; Chang et al., 2003). As
aforementioned, schools in Taipei City advanced its English education from Grade 1
in 2002, and English teachers in this area might find students with very different prior
learning experiences and English ability in the same class (Chang, 2002). Therefore,
the present study confines its scope to the investigation of elementary school and
junior high school English teachers in Taipei City. It is for the purpose of
understanding the English teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding the
implementation of remedial instructions for underachievers in Taipei City, and
whether significant differences exist between the teachers at the two education levels.
3.1.2 Sampling criteria
According to the statistics released by the MOE’s Department of Statistics in September, 2003, there are 152 elementary schools and 84 junior high schools in Taipei City. In terms of the number of English teachers, there are 705 in elementary schools, according to the official of Taipei City’s Department of Education, and 918 in junior high schools
4. In all, the population for the present study was 1623 English teachers in both elementary schools and junior high schools in Taipei City.
Considering the limit of budget, time, and capability of the researcher, it might not be feasible to conduct a large scale survey. Therefore, it was decided to sample 20% of the target population for the questionnaire survey. This percentage, though arbitrary, was a manageable number to the researcher, while at the same time achieves a certain degree of representativeness. To more accurately reflect the whole picture of English teaching situation in Taipei City, the researcher adopted stratified sampling (Babbie,1990), with which the number of English teachers to be sampled was in accordance with the proportion of the number of English teachers in each district in Taipei City. That is, the number of teachers to be sampled in each district accounted for the 20% of the teachers in each district, as illustrated in Table 3.1. It was believed that the inclusion of elementary school and junior high school English teachers from the twelve districts of Taipei City served to improve the credibility of the results. In total, 141 in elementary schools and 184 in junior high schools were sampled.
4 The number of English teachers in junior high schools was in fact not available either from the MOE or from the Taipei City’s Department of Education. Therefore, the researcher in early February called each of the 84 junior high schools to ask for the number of English teachers in their schools, then adding them up to get the total number.
Table 3.1 Numbers of the teachers to be sampled in each district
District ESET JHSET
Sungshan Dist. (松山區) 8 14
Hsini Dist. (信義區) 9 14
Taan Dist. (大安區) 13 24
Chungshan Dist. (中山區) 9 10
Chungcheng Dist. (中正區) 7 14
Tatung Dist. (大同區) 9 13
Wanhua Dist. (萬華區) 12 9
Wenshan Dist. (文山區) 21 20
Nankang Dist. (南港區) 6 7
Neihu Dist. (內湖區) 11 20
Shihlin Dist. (士林區) 19 20
Peitou Dist. (北投區) 17 19
Total 141 184
Note:ESET= Elementary school English teachers; JHSET= Junior high school English teachers.
3.2 Data Collection
In order to gain a general picture of current situation regarding English education at elementary schools and junior high schools in Taipei City, and to identify English teachers’ perceptions of and needs in the implementation of remedial instruction, two kinds of data were collected, that is, questionnaire and interview.
3.2.1 Questionnaire construction
During the summer of 2003, the researcher developed a draft questionnaire on
“Elementary and Junior High School English Teachers’ Perceptions and
Implementation of Remedial Instruction for Underachievers” based on the related
literature. Throughout the process of questionnaire development, the researcher’s
advisors were frequently consulted for the appropriateness as well as the
comprehensiveness of the question items in response to the focus of the study. The
draft questionnaires were then distributed to three experienced elementary school English teachers in Taipei for the purpose of inquiring their opinions and suggestions.
Based on their suggestions, the draft questionnaire was substantially modified in terms of both its content and format.
Afterward, in November, 2003, a pilot study was conducted for the purpose of evaluating whether the test items and options are effective in obtaining English teachers’ perceptions and practices of remedial instruction. Twenty-six English teachers in Taipei City participated in the pilot study, among whom eighteen were from three different elementary schools and eight were from one junior high school.
The draft questionnaire consisted of 38 items asking the English teacher’s background information, his/her situation of teaching during the school year of 2002, and his/her perceptions and implementation of remedial instruction for underachieving students.
The preliminary analysis of the pilot study showed that all of the 26 teachers have encountered the problem of teaching students with a great diversity of English ability.
Moreover, nearly 90% of the teachers agreed that it is necessary to implement remedial education to accommodate the academic needs of underachievers.
Based on the data analysis of the draft questionnaire as well as the comments given by the teachers involved in this pilot study, the researcher undertook the revision of the questionnaire. In the meantime, the advisor, the researcher’s classmates, and some other professors of TESOL and Social Science were consulted during the process of questionnaire modification. The formal questionnaire for this research was finalized in January, 2004 after several revisions in both its format and content.
3.2.2 Format and content of the questionnaire
Due to the lack of ready-made teacher questionnaires on investigating English
teachers’ perceptions and implementation of remedial instruction, the researcher thus
develop a questionnaire based on the relevant literature. After the pilot study aforementioned and several times of revision, the finalized version is a questionnaire with forty-three questions. In terms of the format, in order to raise the return rate of the questionnaire, all the forty-three questions are multiple choices. However, to amend the incomprehensiveness of the given options, the choice of “other” and blanks were provided so that the subjects would not feel forced to choose among the limited options.
Considering its content, the questionnaire consisted of three sections. The first section (questions 1~10) elicited the background information of the subjects, including their gender, district of school, level of school, highest education, major, teacher training program, years of teaching, position in the school, professional development, numbers of classes and students currently teaching.
Section two (questions 11~17) investigated the school-wide English teaching policy, including the ability grouping policy, textbook selection, implementation of remedial instruction, its model, target students, teaching materials and effects.
The last and the most important section (questions 18~43) aimed at investigating English teachers’ perceptions and implementation of remedial instruction, the difficulties encountered and the support they need. Questions in this section can be further categorized into five dimensions.
1. Current situation of multilevel classes and the teachers’ techniques in dealing with this problem (18~22).
2. The teachers’ perceptions and knowledge of remedial instruction (23~27).
3. Whether the teachers implement remedial instruction. Why or why not (29~34)?
4. The teachers’ practices of remedial instruction and the effects (35~41).
5. Difficulties encountered by the teachers and support they need (28, 42).
The last question (question 43) asked about the subject’s willingness to be interviewed.
From among the teachers who answer “yes,” the researcher then selected five from elementary schools and another five from junior high schools
5to conduct interviews.
3.2.3 Interview
Limited by the space of a printed page, the questions listed on the questionnaire would never be inclusive and deep enough for the researcher to gain an in-depth understanding of the relative issues of remedial instruction (Kumar, 1999). To achieve a realistic and more comprehensive view of the teachers’ perceptions, implementation, and concerns in remedial instruction, it is necessary to collect data not only from the questionnaires but also from teacher interviews to check the credibility and reliability of the teachers’ questionnaires and to survey the teachers’ opinions that are not revealed from the questionnaires (LeCompte, Preissle, & Tesch, 1993). The followings are questions developed based on the focus of the questionnaire.
1. How do you perceive the issue of students’ mixed abilities in English learning in the classes you are teaching?
2. How do you identify a student as an “underachiever?” About how many underachievers do you observe in your classes, and how do you interpret the different numbers of underachievers at different grade levels?
3. According to your teaching experience, how do you sense the need of paying special attention to those minority students with underachievement?
4. How do you or your school help the underachievers? And how are the measures effective?
5. In your view, what are the crucial elements that need to be taken into
5 The number of the teachers that the researcher planned to interview was ten originally. However, due to the time limit, the number of teacher interviewed was four at the end.
consideration if remedial instruction is to be implemented effectively? Why?
6. To improve the quality of remedial instruction, and for the establishment of a more comprehensive remedial education system, what specific actions do you think should be taken? And what are your suggestions for and expectations of the practicing teachers, school administrations, educational authorities, etc.?
3.3 Data Collection Procedures
The present study investigated the English teachers’ perceptions and implementation of remedial instruction with two major data collection methods—
questionnaires and interviews. In the following sections, the administration of questionnaires and the procedure of teacher interviews are described.
3.3.1 Questionnaire administration
As soon as the formal questionnaire for this research was finalized, the
researcher embarked on the questionnaire administration in February, 2004. Based on
the sampling criteria aforementioned, the researcher called the director of educational
affairs, the chief of curriculum section, or the coordinator of English curriculum in
elementary schools and junior high schools in Taipei City, explaining the purpose of
the present study and asking for their permission to be the school representatives in
helping the administration of questionnaires to at least half of the English teachers in
their schools. Most of the representatives agreed to help. The researcher totally found
representatives in 26 elementary schools and 19 junior high schools. The number of
English teachers who could be accessed to answer the questionnaire was 422 (145 on
the part of elementary school level and 277 on the junior high school level), which
exceeded the standard of 20% of the total English teachers (325) that the researcher
had set in the beginning. In this way, it was hoped that the number of returned questionnaire would be as close to the estimated number of subjects as possible so that the results could more truthfully reflect the current situation of English teaching in both elementary schools and junior high schools.
After receiving positive responses from the school representatives, the questionnaires were distributed by mail, attached with return envelopes and a letter to the school representatives which explained the purpose of the present study and the time and way to return the questionnaire. Additionally, in order to thank the individual teachers’ help in completing the questionnaire, each questionnaire was attached with a small gift. After around one week, the researchers called to thank the school representatives and ask them to mail the completed questionnaires to the researcher.
As aforementioned, in total 422 questionnaires were distributed, with 145 to elementary school English teachers and 277 to junior high school English teachers.
By the end of April, a total of 243 questionnaires were received. Removing four invalid ones, a number of questionnaire used for the analysis of the present study was 239, with a return rate of 56.6%, which is considered acceptable for statistical analysis (Babbie, 1990). Among the 239 questionnaires, 92 were from elementary schools and 147 from junior high schools.
3.3.2 Teacher interviews
In order to gain a more in-depth understanding of the issue of remedial instruction, the researcher further conducted teacher interviews to elicit the teacher’
opinions that might not be revealed in the questionnaire. Among the 239 subjects,
those who were willing to receive interviews include 13 elementary school teachers
and 22 junior high school teachers. However, due to the time limit, only four were
selected for teacher interviews. In spite the small number of the interviewees, these
four teachers were all considered to be key informants in the field of English teaching.
6Each interview was around one hour, during which the researcher both tape-recorded the content and took notes at the same time. The contents of the interview were later transcribed for data analysis.
3.4 Data Analysis
SPSS for Windows 11.0 was used to process the data of the questionnaires, with which frequency and percentage distributions of the subjects’ responses to all the close-ended question items were computed. Besides, the Chi-square test was carried out in most of the close-ended questions to see if significant differences existed between groups of teachers divided by their school levels, educational background, major, teacher training programs, years of teaching, positions in school, etc. The Chi-square test is to examine the “homogeneity of proportions;” that is, it can show if the percentages of people in two or more groups, divided by such variables, are significantly different in terms of their choices of options in the close-ended questions.
The interviews were audio-taped, transcribed and analyzed in order to support and further interpret the findings of the questionnaires.
6 The background information of the four interviewees is described in section 4.8.1.
