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BAB III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter covers five sections. The first section is Method of the
Research, the second is Place and Time of Research, the third is Object of
Research, the fourth is Technique of Collecting Data, and the last category is
Technique of Analyzing Data.
A. Method of the Research
Research is an effort to find, develop, and examine the truth of knowledge
using scientific method. While method is a way of doing something, so, research
method is a way to find, develop, and examine the truth of knowledge
scientifically.
The method was used in this study is descriptive method. Descriptive
method is the research non hypothesis, so in the step of the research do not make
hypothesis. It means that this study applies a set of procedures used for solving
problems under investigation by describing the subject of research in the present
time based on factual data. (Arikunto, 1998 : 245).
B. Place and Time of Research
The research of study was conducted on October 2009 of the First Semester
students of English Department of Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto in
Academic Year 2009/2010.
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The table showed below discussed about the schedules in doing the
research:

C. Object of Research
1. Population
The first step in selecting the sample is by determining the population.
Based on Arikunto (1998 : 115) population is all of subject research live in an
area. In the Encyclopedia of Education Evaluation, it is written that a population
means a set (or collection) of all elements processing one more attributes of
interest.
The population of this research was conducted for First Semesters of
English Department of Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto in Academic
Year 2009/2010. The total number of population is 182 students from 4 classes
Activity
October November December January February
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Pre-Observation X
Making Proposal X X X X X X X X X X
Making Instrument X X
Seminar of Proposal X
Collecting Data X
Analyzing Data X
Making report X
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(class A, class B, class C, and class D). They are classified until 8 groups (class
A1, class A2, class B1, class B2, class C1, class C2, class D1, and class D2).
2. Sample
Having determined the population, the writer selected sample which will be
a very important step in conducting a research. Sample is a part of population,
Arikunto (1998 : 120) states in his book entitled Prosedur Penelitian If the total
number of population is less than 100 people or subject, it would be better that the
whole population is taken as a total sample. If the number of population is more
than 100 people / object, we can take the sample 10-15 % or 20-25 % or more
depending on the situation.
In this case the writer taken 20% of the first semester as the sample to be
assessed and analyzed. Thus, the number of the sample is 36 students of 182
students.
3. Technique of Sampling
Sampling technique is a technique used by researcher to take the sample of
the research. Sampling means a technique to get the sample (Hadi, 1987:71). The
writer will use random sampling technique to take sample from the total number
of population. It means that the sample is collected by lottery base on students
NIM (Students List Number). In collecting data by using random sampling, the
researcher mixes subjects into population because all of the subjects are
considered same. In other words, the researcher takes sample of subjects by using
lottery is represented sufficiently. Thus the taking of representative sample from
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every student in population is done randomly. The writer will choose 20 percents
from the population, randomly. The writer hopes that sample would sufficiently
representative.
D. Technique of Collecting Data
1. Instrument
An instrument plays important to collect the data needed. According to Ali
(1987:96) one of the methods of collecting data in educational research is
using test.
This research used a test as a method of collecting the data. A test is any
series of questions or exercises or other means of measuring the skill,
knowledge, intelligence, capacities, of aptitudes, or an individual or group
(Websters collage quoted by Arikunto,1997:29).
The test was used to measure the students competence in gerund and
present participle that consist of 30 items. They were divided 3 exercises,
the first exercise is identifying sentences which is consist of 24 knowledge
items, the second and last are making sentences which is consist of 3
application items. The scoring of the test is as follows: the right answer of
each item is one, and the wrong answer is zero. Then score total of the
right answer is divided by the total number of items, after that the result is
multiplied by a hundred. Here is the formula:

Score =
right answer
number of items
x 100
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The maximum score for the test will be 30 and the errors made by the
students will be analyzed.
Before applying the instrument of the test to collect the data, firstly the
writer will perform the try out test. Try out test is used to know whether
the instrument of the research is good or not. If the instrument is not good,
it has to be revised to get a reliable instrument (Arikunto, 2005: 164).
The purposes of performing the try out test is as the following: the first
purpose knows if the instrument is understandable or not, the second gets
experience in getting the data, the third classifies the problem this may be
found, the last knows the time allocation that is needed by the students or
respondents, to do the instrument or test.

2. Instrument analysis
To get the data that support this research, an instrument should have its
validity, reliability, and item difficult.
a. Validity of the Instrument
A good test should possess validity. Test can be said valid if it measures
what purpose to measure is (Arikunto,1991:63). The formula which was
used is:
r
XY
=
NXY-( X)( Y)
_| Nx
2
- ( X)
2
| | NY
2
- ( Y)
2
|

r
XY
= validity of test items.
N = the sum of item.
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X = the sum of score in xy distribution.
X = the sum of score in x distribution.
= the sum of score in y distribution.
X
2
= the sum of square score in x distribution.

2
= the sum of square score in y distribution.
To measure the validity of instrument, the writer went to use the
Guilfords measurement:
0,8 < rxy < 1,00
0,6 < rxy < 0,8
0,4 < rxy < 0,6
0,2 < rxy < 0,4
0,0 < rxy < 0,2
Very good validity
Good validity
Enough validity
Low validity
Very low validity
b. Reliability of the Instrument
Reliability refers to the stability or consistency of the test score or other
evaluation result from one measurement to another. Test is called reliable,
when a students score on it compared to scores of his classmates is
similar to another test in the same information. The reliability of the test
scores is typically reported by means of reliability test exactly through
statistic procedure. To compute the reliability the writer used the following
formula:
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r
11
= [
k
k-1
[
Vt- pq
Vt

r
11
= the instrument reliability.
k = the total item.
pq = the sum of multiplication between the number of subject
who get score 1 (answer correctly) and the number who get
score 0 (answer incorrectly).
The writer will use some steps as follows:
Determining the total variants (Vt)
To determine the total variants of the students score, the writer used the
formula as follows:
Vt

=
Y
2
-
( Y)
2
N

N

r
11
= [
k
k-1
[
Vt- pq
Vt

According to J.P Guilford the reliability level of instrument can be
classified as follows:
< r11 < 0,20
0,20 < r11 < 0,40
0,40 < r11 < 0,60
0,60 < r11 < 0,80
0,80 < r11 < 1,40
Lowest reliability
Low reliability
Enough reliability
High reliability
Highest reliability

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c. Item Difficulty of the Instrument
Item difficulty shows how easy or difficult the item proved in the test. It is
used to know the proper of each item in the instrument especially the test,
which uses essay by the proportion of the class who answered the items
correctly. It can be calculated by using the formula as follows:
FV =
R
N

FV = difficulty indexs.
R = number of the right answer of each item.
N = total number in upper group plus number in lower group.
Heaton (1979: 172)
Then, the writer classified into the grade of item difficulty. The
item difficulty was as follow:
Difficult = 0,00 0,30
So-so = 0,31 0,70
Easy = 0,71 1,00
E. Technique of Analyzing Data
In analyzing the data, the writer went to compute students answer by the
following steps; computing the score of each respondent and using percentage.
1. Finding Out Students Competence
a. Students Competence
In analyzing students individual competence, the writer went to use the
formula as follow (Arikunto, 1997 : 67):
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P =
F
N
100%
P = the percentage of the correct answer.
F = the frequency of the correct answer.
N = total number of item.
The table was used in measuring the students individual ability was as
follows:
Students F N P% Category


According to Arikunto (1999: 67), students competence can be
recognized into:
Very good = 81 100%
Good = 61 80%
Fair = 41 60%
Bad = 21 40%
Very bad = 0 20%
b. Measuring the Mean of the Students Ability.
To find out the mean of the students ability, it is necessary to find interval
class first. The following formula was used in this research:
C =
X
n
- X
i

K

C = class interval.
X
n
= the highest score.
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X
i
= the lowest score.
K = the number of class
(Supranto, 1995:91)
In measuring the interval class, it is necessary to know the number of
classes. Supranto (1995:61) states that it is better to take 7 to 15 numbers;
maximally 20 numbers can be taken.
The formula that was used to measure the number of class is as follows:
K = 1 + 3,33 log (n)
K = the number of class
n = the number of respondents.
Having found the value of the interval class, the mean of the students
ability was measured by using the following formula:
X =
mifi
fi

X = the mean
mifi = the number of multiplication median and frequency.
Fi = the number of frequency.
(Supranto, 1995:87)
2. Finding Out Students Error
To analyze the errors made by students, the writer went to use the
following formula by Arikunto (1999:134):
P =
F
N
x 100%
P = the percentage of the error.
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F = the frequency of the incorrect answer for each item (how
many respondents do a certain item incorrect).
N = total number of respondents.
The table was used in measuring the students individual ability wes
as follows:
Number of item
Variants
(any incorrect answer)
F N P%


The criterion of error can be classified as follows:
Low = 0 30%
Medium = 31 70%
High = 71 100%
To find out the degrees of ability of the large number of students that are
homogenous in their English mastery for remedial teaching the writer used
the following guiding principle:
a. If the majority of the students tested (around 70% or more) fail in
doing a certain problem, it is necessary to teach the material related to the
problem tested to the whole class.
b. If it is less then 70% repetition of the material related to the problem
tested has to be done by the unsuccessful students individually.
(Depdikbud in Sri Ningsih, 1975:9)