Philippine Normal University

College of Graduate Studies and Teacher Research Education

FACULTY OF EDUCATION SCIENCES

Educ503 – Research and Scientific Writing

Summer 2015
M-F (1:00 – 3:00 PM)
CED306

Prof. Ma. Victoria C. Hermosisima

CONTENT ANALYSIS
I. What is content analysis?

A. Definitions

- It is a technique that enables researchers to study human behaviour in an indirect way, through an
analysis of their communications. It is an analysis of the usually, but not necessarily, written contents
of communication because it is believed that humans’ conscious and unconscious beliefs, attitudes,
values, and ideas often are revealed in their communications. (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2009)

- It is a research tool used to determine the presence of certain words or concepts within texts or sets
of texts. Researchers quantify and analyze the presence, meanings and relationships of such words
and concepts, then make inferences about the messages within the texts, the writer(s), the audience,
and even the culture and time of which these are a part. (umsl.edu)

ACTIVITY 1

If content analysis is the study of human attitudes, beliefs, values, and ideas through their communications, what
types of materials can be used for this kind method? Fill in the gaps to complete the words.

1. A __ __ __ R __ __ __ __ M __ N T S 5. N __ V __ __ __
2. __ S S __ __ S 6. P __ __ T __ __ E __
3. __ __ L ___ S 7. P __ L I __ I __ __ L __ P __ __ C H __ S
4. __ __W __ P __ __ __ __ S 8. __ __ N G __

B. What are the procedures involved in content analysis?

1. Determine research objectives

- to obtain descriptive information about a topic
- to formulate themes
- to check other research findings
- to test hypothesis
- to obtain information useful in dealing with educational problems

2. Specify the units of analysis

Activtiy 2

What are the meaningful units of a language? List down some subcategories for each unit.

______________ → ________________________________________________________________
______________ → ________________________________________________________________
______________ →
________________________________________________________________
______________ → ________________________________________________________________

What are the elements of fiction? List down some categories/units under each element.

_________________________ → __________________________________________________
_________________________ → __________________________________________________

_________________________ → __________________________________________________

_________________________ → __________________________________________________
_________________________ → __________________________________________________
3. Locate relevant data

Activity 3

In your field of specialization or research interest, list down possible sources of data for content analysis:

____________________ ____________________ ____________________

4. Develop a sampling plan

Activity 4

Determine what kind of sampling method should be used for each study.

cluster purposive random

a. In order to develop a module for writing, a researcher wants to find out the common
grammatical mistakes that freshman students commit in writing academic essays in the
university his working at. He has decided to make use of the essays of his two classes as
sample.

b. A researcher wants to find out how Filipino applicants present themselves during job
interviews. For his data gathering, he has decided to record the interview of every fifth
applicant that comes to his office.

c. A group literary scholars want to find out the common themes of American young adult
novels published from 2000-2010. So for this, they will be analyzing all young adult novels
published during those years.

5. Formulate coding strategies.

Activity 5

These are swear words gathered from American sitcoms. Categorize them according to their semantic categories
proposed by Anderson (1985).

asshole dickhead idiot shithead

bastard dirty dog jerk snot
bitch fag monster son of a bitch
butthead fatso nuts swine
clown freak old fart whore
cow fuck pervert wierdo
creep gorilla pig witch

Category Swear Words Literal Meaning

Sexual organs

Sexual relations

Religion

Excrement

Death
 Physically or mentally disabled

Prostitution

Narcotics and crime

6. Interpret and report your findings.

Manifest content- refers to obvious, surface content such as words, pictures, images, and so on
directly accessible to the naked eye.

Latent content- refers to the meaning underlying what is said or shown.

C. What are the advantages and disadvantages of content analysis?

Advantages

- It quantifies qualitative data.

- It is unobtrusive.
- It is extremely useful as a means of analyzing interview and observational data.
- The logistics of content analysis are often relatively simple and economical.
- Because the data are readily available and almost always can be returned to if necessary or desired,
content analysis permits replication of a study by other researchers.

Disadvantages

- It is limited to recorded information

- Establishing validity
- With respect to historical research, the researcher normally has records only of what has survived or
what someone thought was of sufficient importance to write down.
- There is a temptation among researchers to consider that the interpretations gleaned from a particular
content analysis indicate the causes of a phenomenon rather than being a reflection of it.

D. What are the applications of content analysis?

In social sciences

- Content analysis is widely usedn in disciplines such as social sciences, communications, psychology,
political science, history, and langauge studies.
- Its most important applications has been to study social phenomenon such as prejudice, discrimination
or changing cultural symbols in the communication content.

In education

- Describe trends in schooling over time

- Understanding organizational patterns
- Show how different schools handle the same phenomena differently
- Infer attitudes, values, and cultural patterns in different countries
- Compare the myths that people hold about schools with what actually occurs withing them
- Gain a sense of how teachers feel about their work
- Gain some idea of how schools are perceived

References

Fraenkel, J.R. and Wallen, N. E. (2009). How to design and evaluate research in education. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Berg, Bruce L. (2007). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Prepared by:
Bernard M. Paderes
MA in Linguistics
[email protected]
 An Investigation on the Relationship between the Language Exposures and Errors
in English Essays of High School students

Elaine M. Masangya and Louella Lozada.

Introduction
A few studies have shown if common errors committed on essays by learners are related to their language
exposure. This central issue has a great importance because not only that writing is perhaps the most difficult to teach but it
is also often a neglected skill in second language education (Taylor, 1976). As Sperling (1996) notes, writing is imperative
because it has a critical link to speaking abilities. La Brant (1946) states that written skills encompasses internal speech. He
further adds that standard of satisfaction among language educators on the written works of language learners are good
grammatical structures, appropriate punctuation marks, verbs in their right tenses, pronouns in the right case and correct
spelling of words.

English Writing Errors

In an investigation conducted by Chen (2002) sampled freshmen and sophomore Taiwanese students’ recounted
vocabulary (60.7%) and grammar (50%) as problem areas in writing. Meanwhile, Al-Hazmi and Scholfield (2007) study on
Saudi university students’ enforced revision with checklist and peer feedback in EFL writing indicated that the difficulties
their samples experienced in ESL writing were basic English language problems as well as discourse organisation,
paragraphing and cohesion. Salem’s (2007) research on student errors lexico-grammatical continuum on the other hand,
categorized written difficulties made by Hebrew-speaking EFL learner respondents as word dependent, lexical and
grammatical.
Reviewing the above mentioned researches, Chen’s (2002) study maybe too generalized for both levels. English
lessons may vary across stages of learning. Expectations of skills may differ from the samples’ degree of knowledge of the
language. Al-Hazmi and Scholfield (2007) though did not fully explain the “basic English language problems” as stated from
their work for comparison on future papers.
It can be noted that most errors as stated from the studies discussed, highlighted grammar as a main concern in
writing competency. However, in a study on teaching low – level ESL students’ composition, Taylor (1976) claims that
writing abilities does not only include paragraphs that are well defined, brief, sensible and persuasive or may contain good
grammatical sentences. Learners should also be informed of standard English rhetoric. He justifies that writing good
sentences is not an assurance of a well written work but requires intertwining of these sentences in one cohesive thought.
Surprisingly enough, such writing problems are not only confined to second language learners. Thomas (1963)
observed that American educators in their thrust towards science education, seems to have overlooked some average
senior students that cannot correctly spell, put the right punctuation marks and generally shows vague line of though in
sentence construction. Taylor (1976) even suggested that practice and training in English sentence writing are not only
limited to ESL students but to native speakers as well.
Language Exposure
It seems that language education may require expansive approach. Tools and techniques beyond classroom
teachings perhaps are a possibility. Educators may have an option of tapping viable outputs such as language exposure on
good linguistic models at home, media and other forms of literature. This insight may infer to the social – interactionist
theory that suggests the importance of social environment interaction in language acquisition and development (Lucas,
2008).
Al – Ansari (2001) on his case study of undergraduate students’ types of exposure as predictor of their success,
affirms that competency in a new language is achieved thru constant exposure of the intended language. Fathman (1976)
seems to be in agreement stating that learning a second language is shaped by many elements that include the learning
environment and the student’s attitude. This also supported by Tomasello (2001) in his presentation of the usage – based
model of language, wherein he said that language acquisition for children is thru imitation of linguistic expressions that they
hear around them.
Lilu and Yanlong (2005) assess for example that news style on newspapers, television, magazines and radios are
good writing models for it encompasses narration, exposition and argumentation. They also attest that media in the form of
news presentation and gathering observed the standard rules in English grammar. Therefore exposure to these medium
allow students inputs on good writing techniques. They also add that constant reading of newspapers and magazines
expands learners’ vocabulary.
However, Harper and de Jong (2004) argue that language exposure is not enough to attain language competency
and thinks it maybe a strategy considered lacking. They cite that older students require a good grasp of abstract ideas and
complex lexical structures that maybe best learned thru textbooks and traditional classroom discussions. Steinberg, Nagata
and Aline (2001) certifies children that are left to the confines of a television or by just hearing conversation made by adults
as a form of language learning did not progress into language acquisition. In fact alternative forms of language exposure
such as music, movies and leisure reading materials may contain grammatically incorrect sentences and wrong usage of
words. This may disrupt or perhaps confuse the student on the standard lexical format and basic grammar rules.
There may be contrasting views on the merits of language exposure. Though, it seems that one cannot debunk the
related literatures affirmation to the effectiveness of exposure on language competency. Language learners as well are
besieged with writing problems as reviewed by previous studies. This then lead to speculate if increased exposure of the
intended language will result to fewer mistakes on written works of the language learners. This research is informed by
Mojica’s (2007) paper on the self–reported writing problems and actual writing deficiencies of EFL learners in the beginner’s
level and of Magno, de Carvalho, Lajom, Bunagan, and Regodon’s (2009) study on the level of English language exposure of
Taiwanese students. In the mentioned study, Mojica (2007) administered a questionnaire that required the 26 EFL
participants to write two or three paragraphs on the subject of witting difficulties. Rating the data collected from the
samples, she identified frequency of errors on vocabulary (61.4%) and grammar (69.2%). Grammar, in the paper was
collectively coded errors on articles, determiners, number verb tense and prepositions.
Magno, de Carvalho, Lajom, Bunagan, and Regodon’s (2009) study on the level of English language exposure of
Taiwanese students, suggest that the more the learners are exposed to English, enables them to facilitate the language
better. This was concluded after the findings showed that Taiwanese student participants in the Philippines have higher
level of English exposure than the Taiwanese respondents in Taiwan. These samples were administered with a checklist for
English language exposure to gauge the frequency of the samples contact with the targeted language.
These studies will then be the framework where the researchers will derive their investigation. This paper will
employ Mojica’s (2007) collection and analysis errors of data from the student respondents. Although instead of using
Ashwell’s (2000) list as the basis of coding, the investigators will use a proofreaders’ mark as guide. Ashwell’s (2000) list
were categories of errors done by his students on their written works. The researchers will also duplicate the language
exposure survey administered by Magno de Carvalho, Lajom, Bunagan, and Regodon’s (2009). Though, the investigators
reduced it to 21 questions applicable to the samples.
In this paper the researchers hypothesize that students with high exposure in the English language commit less
grammatical errors in their written essays. Following are the questions that the study would like to address: (1) What are
the common errors committed by the students on their essays? (2) Do students with high language exposure commit less
grammatical errors in their written essays?

Method

Participants
Participants were 160 second year high school students from a private school in southern Luzon. At this year level,
they are expected to develop their writing skills. Writing essays is part of the macro-skill that learners should develop. The
participants represent a broad range of their understanding in essay writing and English language exposure. There are equal
number of participants between male (n=80) and female (n=80). The participants average age is 13.44 (SD= 0.58). All
participants received credit for participation and were informed that the result of their responses will be dealt with highest
confidentiality.

Instruments
Instruments used for the investigation are a checklist and an essay test. The checklist includes the profile of the
student respondent’s gender and age. It identifies their English language exposure in home (H), peers (P), school(S), and
media, literature and others (MLO). This form was adapted from Magno’s et al, (2009) checklist form that has been used in
the assessment of the level of English language exposure of Taiwanese college students in Taiwan and the Philippines. The
twenty-one situations from the checklist described the different language exposure and were reviewed by experts for its
significance on the targeted respondents. Responses were coded accordingly to the frequency of the sample’s exposure.
The codes were five for Always, four for Often, three for Sometimes, Two for Rarely, and One for Never. The students’
response were tallied and validated on its computed mean. Thus, computed mean will identify whether the students has
low or high exposure on the English language. Cronbach's alpha and discriminant validit of the English exposure scale used
for the participant’s reliability has a value of .91 as similarly shown in Magno, de Carvalho, Lajom, Bunagan and Regodon’s
(2009) study.
The second is an essay type of test lifted from their lesson in English. Checking of written works of the participants
has three stages. The revising stage checks on the ideas presented and it’s supporting details. Second is editing stage which
looks for faulty sentences, misspellings, misused punctuation and capitalization. The last stage is proofreading using a
proofreaders’ mark which checks the careless errors, missing words, erroneously repeated letters or words.
The researchers limited the number of marks to be developed and used on this research to sixteen. These marks
were based from the works of Briones (2008), Jennett (1967), Lee (1979) and The Chicago Manual of Style (2003). Bear
(n.d.) reiterated that the use of a proofreaders mark lessens miscommunication and presents accuracy.

Procedure
The survey on the English language exposure and essay test was administered by one of the researchers.
Instructions were carefully read and explained. Students have to check the frequency of the language exposure situations
listed. They may choose from the frequency choices Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, or Never that they had experienced
the language exposure situations.
The essay test was given during their English class. Students were provided with a topic on world peace which was
in line with their English lesson. Students were given a standard answer sheet for their essay. The essay test was answered
in almost 30 to 40 minutes.

Data Analysis
The two-way chi-square was used to identify the relationship of the students’ English language exposure and
errors on their essay. Obtained chi-square was compared to its critical value to identify if the hypothesis is significant or not.
Each committed errors were tabulated together with the students’ exposure. The overall mean of the English
language exposure was computed by adding the total coded responses of all samples divided by the number of respondents
(N=160). Individual mean scores of the samples on the other hand were computed as total responses divided by the 21
checklists. Individual mean lower than the average mean of the total sample were classified as low exposure while
individual mean higher that the average mean were coded as high exposure.

Results
 It was hypothesized in the study that students with high exposure in the English language commit less grammatical
errors in their written essays. This hypothesis was supported by the results of the study using the chi-square test for
independence. It was found that students high in exposure had significantly less frequency in their errors in wrong case
(f=3), fragmentation (f=2), parallelism (f=4), punctuation (f=4) and verb tense (4) with χ2 (15, 319) = 26.3, p<.05. Although
some errors are higher for students with high English exposure such as wrong verb form (f=16), preposition (f=18) and
spelling (f=18), it still shows significant relationship between the errors committed and language exposure of the students
because the obtained Chi value 26.3 is greater than critical value 25.
The language exposure survey had a mean of (M=3.59). The obtained result was taken from the sum of 21
checklists divided by the number of student respondents (Appendix). Eighty seven out of the 160 students were classified as
learners with high exposure. Highest frequency of exposure from the checklist came from the MLO (media, literature and
others) category (M=41.6). The big frequency from the MLO (media, literature and others) category indicates that English is
made available in all forms of media for the respondents. Websites and web pages for instance use the language as its
medium. ALEXA rankings, the portal for top websites around the world listed ten English websites as popular sites for
Filipinos. English music pervades as well in the Filipino lifestyle.

Discussion
It can be noted that students’ top four errors committed on essay are in preposition (prep), spelling (sp)
punctuation (punc) and verb form (vf). Total of forty-six errors were committed in the use of prepositions. It supports
Blake’s (1906) study that Filipino writers find difficulty in the use of English prepositions because there is only the Tagalog
preposition sa in the Filipino language; Thus the confusion of the students to the number of prepositions available in the
English language. This then limits acquisition thru language exposure due to something cultural.
Thirty-two is the total error in spelling. It is not unusual that a writer commits error in spelling. Spelling is one of
the most sensitive aspects of language development because the students need more exposure to the language before
decoding the correct spelling (Head-Taylor, 1998). It suggests that the students who got high errors need to be more
exposed and familiar with more words adding to their vocabulary.
In addition, Adelstein & Pival (1984) argues that spelling started to become conventionalized over the years. Since
then all languages undergo changes, especially in pronunciation, these conventions do not always reflect in present-day
pronunciation (p.105). As a result, mispronounce word will lead to misspelling. Incorrect uses in both punctuation and
forms of verb have been committed twenty-seven times. The former, suggests that students do not emphasize the use of
punctuation because they fail to differentiate its uses.
Using more than one kind of punctuation in a sentence is hard to discern since punctuation is used in a particular
situation according to Adelsein and Pival (1984). The later, focus on the subject and verb agreement particularly in its forms,
like in punctuation it’s also troublesome in which subject and verb agreement rule has to be followed. Fromkin and Rodman
(1998) states that in English and in every language, every sentence is a sequence words, but not in every sequence of the
words is a sentence. Thus, one has to follow such agreement as syntax to form grammatical sentence.
Identified error supports the differences in the use of oral and written English Adelstein and Pival (1984)
emphasized that one of the reasons they committed errors in writing sentences is that students employ the same
grammatical structure both written and oral. Grammatical structures differs, oral language or spoken language is
characterized by short sentences, fragments, and often single words and sometimes omits structural clues such as
prepositions and other subject parts. On the other hand writing needs to be formal and should follow more sophisticated
grammar structure. Students’ error in their composition implies the required facility of the syntax rule in writing
compositions.
It can be noted that the results from this paper is different from Mojica’s (2007) findings. In her paper, the EFL
student respondents reported difficulties on vocabulary and grammar. However, the same research participants recounted
verb tense and punctuation as least of their writing problems which is similar to the result of this paper’ exposed high
school respondents.
Overall students who have more exposure in the language committed fewer mistakes in their essays. This outcome
is perhaps parallel to Magno, de Carvalho, Lajom, Bunagan and Regodon’s (2009) findings that acquisition is further
intensified thru language exposure. Lilu and Yanlong (2005) cites that media types such as the news styles seen on
newspaper, magazines, radios, TVs and Internet, etc. follow the accepted rules of English and exposure of students to these
forms allows students to pick up grammar and sentence structure. Such mediums observe punctuations and continuity
which manifested on the results of the student participants.
Another consideration is the use of the language at school and at home will help students to brush up on their
vocabulary words and make them conscious of their grammatical lapses. Teachers, parents and even peers may correct
them on their mistakes. This maybe observed on the few mistakes that the highly exposed students made on verb tenses.
The information that encompasses the medium of exposure such as internet, movies, television programs
etc.exhibit parallel construction. Parallelism on sentence construction refers to balance in the syntactical structure.
Respondents that were exposed are likewise to have achieved fewer mistakes from this area.
The results have indicated that the English language often possesses difficulties for many people especially for the
young learners. Mastery of the basic rules in writing takes time. Despite of the resources made available for exposure of the
language intended, errors or mistakes are still bound to happen. However such instances are not a clear indication of failure
to language acquisition but learning should be constant and must seek other tools for improvement.

Conclusion
There is much to be regarded with the writing skills of secondary learners. The errors that were acquired by the
respondents on their essays show how this skill at times maybe overlooked. English grammar often possesses difficulties for
many people especially for the young learners. Mastery of the grammar rule takes time. However, little did we disregard
that acquisition maybe exhibited in other forms beyond classroom instructions. The results manifested that as language
learners expose themselves on other mediums of language (media, literature and technology) and active participation from
teachers, parents as well as peers will help them in sentence formation and standard structure thus lessening errors on
their written works.