research methodology (3)

8/6/2019 Research Methodology (3)

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CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

This section covers research instruments, participants and respondents of the

study, instrumentation, research procedures, data collection, data analysis and rationale.

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3.1 Research Design

Since the main purpose of the research is to identify the importance of possessing

communication skills in English among new graduates, the current study hopes to assess

and evaluate the needs of mastering communication skills in written and oral. A number

of private sectors of top management officers situated in Malaysia were chosen. Data of

the research were collected through questionnaires and observation.

3.2 Research Instruments

This investigation was based on the work of Hutchinson and Waters (1996), and

Dudley-Evans and John (1998) in which they define needs in terms of target needs

and learning needs. The main concern of this investigation was an analysis on the

target needs of English oral communication at the workplace. To understand the

undergraduates preferred ways of learning, it is highly recommended that such

investigation is conducted among private top management officers. The target needs are

further broken down into two main categories

i) Requirements of English in workplace

ii) The important of applying English in workplace.

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For clearer clarification of these two elements, this study identified the needs of

top management officers in the usage of English in general and English for specific

purposes in particular.

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1996), and Dudley-Evans and John

(1998), the best methods for studying the target needs of any particular group of workers

or students is to use questionnaires, follow-up interviews, collection of authentic

workplace texts and visits to the workplace. Therefore, this study applied both the

quantitative and qualitative research methodology. The instruments used to collect the

data were open-ended questionnaire sent through email, individual face-to-face

interviews and observations. A set of email questionnaire containing 10 questions which

were divided into 4 sections, were adopted from Waters and Dudley and Johns (1996).

The types of question included in the questionnaire were listing and open-ended

questions. The different sections of the questionnaire were i) the frequency of the use of

English oral communication skills in the workplace, ii) extensions of English language

used, iii) the importance of English oral communication in recruitment, job success and

promotion, iv) forms of oral communication, and the ability of using English language

with supervisors, in meetings and group work. The questionnaire was piloted to a

selected number of top management officers from various professional background such

as assurance, law, computer analysis, financial, management and marketing with the aim

to assess its validity before it was actually distributed to the actual respondents.

The qualitative data for the research comes from interviews and observations.

The interviews were utilized to confirm the findings from the questionnaire as well as to

triangulate the data. Four respondents were selected for the interview. Ten questions

were prepared after consultation with several experts in the topic area. The interviews

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further explored the phenomenon of the new graduates lack of English communication

skills at the workplace.

On the other hand, observation which was another method of collecting

qualitative data was used for the purpose of obtaining the frequency in using English in

workplace and the extensions of English language being used in the workplace. An

observation checklist was developed before hand to assist the data collection during

observations.

3.3 Rationale for the Study

According to Al-Khatib (2004), ESP practitioners have often conjured up

varied approaches to teaching ESP without deeper investigation on the underlying

purposes for the approaches to be taught. Recently, many publications on ESP in

several parts of the world generally accepted the views drawn by empirical studies on

learners needs and their attitudes toward the language learned. Furthermore, some

specific issues involved with ESP approach often reveal a much complicated view of the

process of the skills of speaking and the teaching materials to students of English for

specific purposes. Specifically, the issues are developed from the concern to revise their

findings plans continuously, which is based on the results of other studies on ESP along

with an authentic analysis of learners' perceptions of needs, wants and lacks in the

workplace.

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According to Kavaliauskiene and Daiva (2003), the success of ESP learning

should involve the incorporation of learners future needs, or what is known as real

world needs, the development of learner ability to transfer their previous languageknowledge to novel situations and the usage of acquired generic skills such as, speaking

in real life communication, which is considered to be one of the important parts of ESP

syllabus. There are many graduates who are competent in the field of management

and marketing and capable of working in a variety of places such as banks,

assurance, mass media, and secretarial works among others however a genuine

empirical investigation of the communication is still needed. (What do you mean

by this? Clarify the relation between many graduates who are competent..and

the need of genuine empirical investigation.)Therefore, for a better understanding of

the daily routine activities and the real world needs of these workers, an empirical

investigation was carried out to identify whether English oral communication is still

important to certain extents in the workplace of different professionals.

3.4 Respondents of the Study

The research was based on data collected from fifteen respondents in leading

positions in five different areas such as assurance, computer analysis, financial, law and

land survey. The respondents in the survey were professionals who hold important and

influential positions, all of whom are Malay-English balanced bilinguals capable of

using English for different purposes in their workplace. The sample comprised twelve

males and three females. All respondents are supposed to have studied English as a

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second language for eight to ten years and earned a B.A of an M.Sc. A total of 50 open-

ended questionnaires were distributed to top management officers through email and

only 15 responded.

3.5 Research Procedure

Before the actual data collection was carried out, a preliminary investigation

was conducted in order to assess the problem of English oral communication

among new graduates from top management officers point of view. A total of

fifteen top management officers were involved in the preliminary investigation;

chosen randomly from various professional areas.

During the second stage of the actual study, more specific questionnaires were

emailed to a selected group of officers. The purpose is to find out the primary data and

secondary data. Thus, appointments were set for interview and observations. Agreement

from the respondents were sought to enable researcher to carry out the respondentsuse of English language as the main medium to conduct daily work. (What do you

mean by the word shadow? I think you should change the word shadow to

another more suitable word. Suggestion: to carry out the study on the respondents

use)

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3.6 Data Analysis

To analyze the data, two variables were identified and taken out for

consideration, namely types of communication skills in English of top management

officers and factors thatcontribute to the success of communication at workplace. Data

were collected through questionnaire, interview and observation which were then

tabulated and supported through percentages in graphs. Interview data is another source

that validates the data of questionnaire. The data were transcribed and the results were

entered using concordance to identify the main type of English used in the workplace.

Furthermore, the observation data were analyzed and converted in tables. Following is

the summary of the method of data analysis to answer each research question shown intable 3.1.

Table 3.1: Summary of method of data analysis

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Chart 3.5: Research Procedure

Statement of ProblemsObjectives of Study

Research Questions

Scope of Study

Preliminary Investigation

Actual Study

Data Analysis

Conclusion


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Research Question Data collection

method

Data

analysis

1 ) What are the communication skills in

English possessed by top management

officers in private sectors?

Participant

observation

Open-ended

Questionnaire

Descriptive

and

qualitative

2) What are the factors that contribute to the

success of communications in the

workplace?

Content analysis

Reports

Company

profiles

Product and

services

Booklets/ flyers/

brochures

Feedbacks from

customers in

writings or

email/ verbal

Descriptive

and

qualitative

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