(triangulation), used as the methodology to investigate the effectiveness of the study, followed by a pilot study, and the Instruments in this study.

Chapter Three Methodology

The chapter presents a triangular approach

(triangulation), used as the methodology to investigate the effectiveness of the study, followed by a pilot study, and the Instruments in this study.

3.1 Subjects

Eighty-six students from National Hsin Tien Senior High School helped complete this study. The Experimental Group (Class 302) and the Control Group (Class 308) are almost of the same size but their experiences in writing were quite different.

Students of class 302 started writing in March 2001, whereas those in class 308 did not receive any well-organized writing training until September 2001. Two English teachers taught the two survey groups respectively when they were in the second year.

And it was until their third year they were taught by the same teacher (the researcher).

Therefore, the two groups have difference in their background in terms of the training teaching.

Table 3.1 Learning Experience of the Survey Groups

Class Process writing Free writing

302 Yes. From March to July

2001.

Yes. From Sep. to Nov.

2001

308 No. Yes. From Sep. 2001

6

A variety of procedures can be used in conducting analysis and the kind of information obtained is

often dependant on the type of procedure selected. Since any source of information is likely to be

incomplete or partial; therefore, various instruments are advisable in a study (Richards, 2001). (i.e.,

Although National Hsin Tien Senior High School offers English writing classes to the second year students, most teachers do not follow the curriculum strictly. Most of the writing classes are actually to reinforce students’ reading ability, as in regular English classes. As a result, in the procedure of the survey, Class 302 and Class 308 had difference in the time of their initial writing as well as different style of writing instruction from different teachers in their second year in senior high and encountered different problems regarding their training in writing on the differences in Chapter Five (see p. 100 below). Even though students understood perfectly that practice was

necessary and essential if they were going to pass the JCEE’s DEPT, have good careers or communicate with others and so on, most students, however, did not favor writing instruction by the researcher in the initial stage.

3.2 Pilot Study

The pilot study was conducted before the main study and involved 8 students from

different senior highs around Taipei. The researcher designed a writing syllabus

during the summer vacation in 2001 and experimented with it on a small group (six

students from three different senior high schools—Municipal Chin Mea Girls’ Senior

High, Municipal Yuan Zen Senior High, and National Hsin Tien Senior High) three

hours a week from June 9 to August 28. Afterwards, on September 1, she began her

pilot study at Technology College of National Taiwan Normal University (the pilot

study group attended writing class there). Its purpose was, first, to examine the

viability of the research questions, secondly, to identify potential pitfalls in the

proposed research methodology. To this end, the influence of a number of relevant

variables was explored. These included: the choice of teaching materials, the

strategies of teaching, the arrangement of teaching activities and improvement of

teaching skills. Although the variables were not tightly controlled, the findings

suggested that the interaction and cooperative learning between students and students, both the teacher and students had an important impact on writing text and proficiency.

The main study is therefore designed to explore this further. And it was on September 16; she actually began her study at National Hsin Tien Senior High. In the pilot study, the researcher has examined the questions as follows:

(1) Are the researcher’s teaching activities effective?

(2) How do students look at themselves in the process of learning to write?

(3) How do they think about those practices?

(4) What changes their attitude toward writing?

(5) What are the changes before and after the writing instruction among the learners between the Control Group and the Experimental group?

3.3 Procedure

In the study, multiple tasks were used to investigate which was more effective in promoting students’ positive attitude in writing and in the meantime, the pretest questionnaire is for balancing and equalizing different learning experience between two groups. The researcher constructed the writing attitude questionnaire in June, 2001(see Appendix III), started her pilot test of on August 12 and finalized the writing attitude questionnaire in the beginning of September 10. The questionnaire data showed the social and affective variables and the interview data revealed the contextual and process variables. The final performance data were used for comparison purpose in order to understand learners’ achievement as well as cognitive development in learning to write in the target language.

3.3.1 Pretest

The pretest contained two parts. One is a questionnaire about the subjects’ writing

attitude (see Appendix IV), and the other is a free writing proficiency test (see Appendix VI). Both groups, Class 302 and Class 308, took the same pretest on September 10, 2001.

3.4.2 Posttest

The posttest contained three parts: two questionnaires and one writing proficiency test. The first questionnaire was about the subjects’ attitude toward writing (The Writing Attitude Questionnaire; see Appendix IV), and the other was concerned with their feelings about the different activities they experienced in the writing class (The Viewpoints on Writing Tasks Questionnaire; see Appendix V). Due to the different learning background of the Experimental Group and the Control Group, Class 302 took the Post Writing Proficiency Test (see Appendix VII) on November 21, 2001, whereas 308 took it on March 15, 2002.

3.5 Instruments

Three types of instruments were used in this study:

1. Questionnaires

2. Semi-structured group interviews

3. Performance data—pre and post writing proficiency test

(1) “Pretest” is for writing background check before writing instruction

(2) “Posttest” is for comparison and contrast after writing instruction

The research belongs to a strong version of action research. The research sample

is very limited and also the main focus emphasizes in students’ writing quality and

attitude change in the process of writing instruction. Therefore, questionnaires are

used only for supportive data; the researcher hoped that it could offer some inner

voice of students’ learning from her interview and observation in the process of

writing instruction.

3.5.1 Questionnaires

Two Reaction Questionnaires (The Writing Attitude Questionnaire and The Viewpoints on Writing Task Questionnaire) were administrated to the subjects, each addressing a different set of variables.

3.5.1.1 The Writing Attitude Questionnaire (WQA)

Below is the English version of the WAQ and the questions categorized in terms of four factors: Confidence, Anxiety, Usefulness and Preference.

The Writing Attitude Questionnaire Factor I：Confidence

5. I feel confident when writing a self-introduction in English.

6. Writing is a lot of fun .

7. I like to have my classmates read what I have written.

14. I enjoy actively taking part in writing activities.

15. I love to discuss the issues related to writing.

16. I would like to spend more time practicing writing outside the classroom.

18. I feel comfortable when writing compositions.

19. I think I am gifted in English writing.

26. I enjoy interacting with the teacher in the writing class.

27. Learning English writing increases my motivation in English language learning.

Factor II: Anxiety

32. I will not take English writing classes if there is another choice.

33. I have terrible time organizing my ideas in a composition course.

34. I am afraid of sharing my compositions with my classmates.

35. My brain goes blank when it comes to English writing.

36. In an English test, I am not so confident of the writing part.

10. In my impression, English writing classes are boring 13. I am afraid of being flunked in English writing course.

20. I am afraid of making sentence in English.

Factor III: Usefulness

1. To further study, I have to be good at English writing.

2. English is one of the important qualifications in many careers.

3. English writing skill can help me make friends with more foreign students.

4. English writing skill offers us another way to communicate others.

8. English writing is not very useful in my daily life.

11. If not for examinations, I would not learn English writing.

12. I force myself to learn English writing to please the teacher and my parents.

23. It is worthwhile learning English writing.

24. English writing skill is helpful for my English learning.

Factor IV：Preference

9. I love chatting on the Internet in English.

17. I often send English E-mail to my friends.

21. I love to write a get-well card and other cards in English to my friends.

22. I will grab any chance to learn how to write compositions.

25. I will collect a variety of reference tools for English writings.

28. I will try to take notes in English.

29. I will try to keep a diary in English.

30. I will post my writing on a BBS in English.

31. If I have the chance, I will participate in an English writing competition.

The Writing Attitude Questionnaire is about the learners’ attitude to writing. We intended to observe learners from the psychological views in order to understand whether the program in our writing curriculum led learners to have an enjoyable writing experience.

The researcher and Ted Tasi, a senior in the Department of Industrial Education at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), developed the Writing Attitude Questionnaire. At the initial stage of constructing the questionnaire, we consulted with Professor Ying-Chi Ho, currently chairperson of the Educational Psychology Counseling Department at NTNU. We also interviewed some senior high school teachers and we also consulted some psychological tests related to motivation and attitude developed by Person (1980), Roger (1981), Gardner (1985) as well.

In this study, the research instrument was written in Chinese. A 40-item 5 points Likert-scale questionnaire was designed (see Appendix I) for standardizing the measurement, and the statements were classified into the following four categories:

confidence, anxiety, usefulness and preference. They were arranged randomly to measures their responses more accurately. For each item in the questionnaire, the students chose one of the five points of the Likert-scale; namely “strongly agree”,

“agree”, “no comment”, “disagree” and “strongly disagree”, respectively. Among of the statements, Q11、Q12、Q20、Q33、Q34、Q35、Q36、Q37、Q38、Q39、Q40 are negative statements so their rating is in direct opposition to that of the other positive statements.

After completing the items writing, the researcher discussed them with Ted Tsai, and had five students in their first year at Hsin Tien Senior High respond to the item as pilot subjects. Afterwards, the researcher consulted with her advisor Professor Vincent Chang at the Department English, NTNU, and committee member Professor Maosung Lin at the Department of Applied Foreign Language at National Taiwan Science and Technology.

The Writing Attitude Questionnaire was administered to the subjects on Aug 14

,

2001 and the analysis of the results was completed within two weeks. Students from

nine senior high schools (Taipei Municipal Da Tong, An Kang Senior High in Taipei

County, Chung Li and Yang Ming Senior High in Tao Yuan County, The First Senior

High in Taichung, Chang Hau Girls’ Senior High, The Second Senior High in Tainan,

and Kaohsiung Municipal Middle School) served as our sample subjects. The total

number of the sample subjects was 650. A total of 576 questionnaires were in return,

on Aug. 28, 2001, among which 545 effective and 31 invalid. Following the standard

procedure, that is, building sample statements and performing item analysis, factor

analysis, the measurement of validity and reliability, we finalized writing attitude

questionnaire on September 10, 2002. The performance of item analysis, factor analysis, the measurement of validity and reliability will be descried in Chapter Five (see pp. 88-99 below).

3.5.1.2 The Viewpoints to Writing Tasks Questionnaire

The Viewpoints to Writing Tasks Questionnaire tasks used in the study consisted of two parts (process paragraph writing tasks & free writing tasks). The Experimental Group took both parts yet there was only one part (Free writing tasks) for the Control Group. With “The Viewpoints to Writing Tasks Questionnaire”, this study attempted to see if the participants behaved differently based on the nature of the tasks. As a result, after the experiment was completed, the participants took the questionnaire to evaluate how much the tasks matched their need. Below is part of the English version on free writing of the VOWT. (See Chinese version on Appendix V).

Part I Process Writing---

1. What are you opinion regarding the teaching activities on Unit 1: Topic Sentences

& Paragraphs?

□ 1.Strongly like □2.like □3.O.K. □4.Dislike □5.Strongly dislike Reasons：□6.very/not very practical

□7.very helpful/not very helpful □8.able/unable to promote creativity □9.easy/difficult

3.5.1.3 Semi-structured Group Interviews

After the post-test for writing attitude, the viewpoints on writing tasks and free

writing proficiency, the researcher conducted semi-structured group interviews

regarding Unit 12: Process Writing and Think Aloud, on November 28, 2001 (for

Class 302) and March 28, 2002 (for Class 308). The interviewees were selected

randomly from students who scored levels 2-4 in the writing proficiency pre-test. The

questions for the semi-constructed interview are listed in Appendix VI.

Below is the English version of the guidelines for semi-structured group interview.

Questions for Semi-structured Interview

1. Does interactive task-based approach reduce your anxiety in writing?

2. What is your toughest problem while writing?

3. What achievements do you attain in the writing course?

4. Give your opinion or suggestion to the writing course.

5. Which piece of you works is most marvelous? (Why?) 6. Which unit of the writing course troubled you most?

3.5.1.4 Performance Data—Pre and Post Writing Proficiency Test

Each group was tested for proficiency twice, once before and once after the instruction. These 4 tests were scored according to the standard set up by LTTC (see Appendix I). The data was analyzed later for comparison and discussion (see Chapter Five, pp. 121-124 below).

3.5.2 Graders

Three graders (Windy Liu, Chin-Hsiou Chang and Pearl Chang) participated in this study specifically on the part of performance data. (All the three graders attended grader-training sessions for evaluating Intermediate Writing English Proficiency Test on August 11, 2001 held by LTTC.) Windy Liu is now teaching at An Kang Senior High and both Chin-Hsiou Chang and Pearl Chang are English teachers at National Hsin Tien Senior High.