CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

This chapter presents six topics dealing with the research method.

Those are: research design, population and sample, data collection method,

research instrument, validity and reliability testing, and data analysis.

A.ResearchDesign

Research has important role in educative process, which is to know or

to solve the certain problem that happens in the teaching and learning process.

Besides, Research is a process or steps used to collect and analyze

information in order to increase our understanding of a topic or issue.

Educational research is the application of the scientific approach to the study

of educational problem. Educational research is the way in which people

acquire dependable and useful information about the educative process.

Educators usually conduct research to find solution to some problem or gain

insight into an issue they do not understand (Ary, 2010: 19).

Ary (2010, 22) also states that educational research is typically

classified into two broad categories: quantitative and qualitative research.

Quantitative research uses objective measurement to gather numeric data that

are used to answer question or test predetermine in this study, while

Qualitative, in contrast, focuses on understanding social phenomena from the

perspective of the human participant in natural setting. In this study, the

writer used quantitative research and the data form is numeric data that are to

test hypothesis. Quantitative research may be further classified as either

experimental or non-experimental design. Experimental research involves a

study the effect of the systematic manipulation of one variable (s) on another

variable. The manipulated variable is called the experimental treatment or the

independent variable. The observed measured variable is called the dependent

variable. Non-experimental the researcher identifies variables and may look

for relationship among them but does not manipulate the variable (Ary, 2010: 26).

Based on the explanation above, the independent variable in this study

concerning about the effectiveness of Think-Pair-Share strategy to improve

students reading comprehension is Think-Pair-Share strategy. Meanwhile,

the dependent variable of this study is students reading comprehension. The

writer conducted research by using an experimental research because this

study is about to know the effectiveness of using Think-Pair-Share strategy to

improve students reading comprehension. The experimental research

conducted in this study is pre- experimental design which is one group pretest and post-test,

because it has little or no control of extraneous variable.

According to Ary ((2010, 303) this experimental design used preexperimental research, this

design classified as pre-experimental research

design because it has little or no control of extraneous variable, and the preexperimental design is

one-group pretest-posttest which usually involves

three steps, as follows:

1. Administering a pretest measuring the dependent variable

2. Applying the experimental treatment X to subjects

3. Administering posttest, again measuring the dependent variable.

Differences attributed to application of the experimental treatment are

then evaluated by comparing the pretest and posttest scores.

Table the design of One-Group-Pretest-Posttest Design

Pre-test Independent variable Posttest

Y1 X Y2

This research is intended to investigate the effectiveness of using thinkpair-share strategy to

improve students reading comprehension at MAN 1 BARRU in academic year of 2022/2023.

By applying the treatment, it is expected to know whether the scores are increasing or not. So,

the effectiveness of TPS strategy knows by the writer after get score both pretest and posttest.

B. Population and Sample

1. Population

According to Gay (1992: 124) population is the group of interest to the researcher, the group

which she or he would like the result of the study to generalizable. In encyclopedia of

educational evaluation, written “a population is a set (or collection) of all elements processing

one or more attributes of interest”. Based on explanation above a population are the entire

subjects who have some interest for researcher. The population of this study is all students of the

first grade of MAN 1 BARRU in academic year 2022/2023

2. Sample

Selection of sample is very important steps in conducting a research study. The goodness of the

sample determines the generalizability of the result. According to Gay (1992: 126) a good
sample is one that is representative of the population from which it was selected. From those

explanations, the sample selected was first – gradeclass F that consists of 30 students at MAN 1

BARRU inacademic year 2022/2023. Technique to take sample is called sampling and in this

study the writer used purposive sampling. This school was chosen purposively because to apply

the experimental research, the samples must not be too “good” and too “bad” in their English

achievement, especially reading comprehension. Its intended to reduce the extraneous variable

may appears since the design is pre-experimental research without control group, while in MAN

1 BARRU the classes divided into two groups; the best class and general class. The best classes

can be called smart class where places in class A and B and the general class places in class C

until class I. VII C until VII I are relatively better in English achievement but the difficulty of

reading comprehension often appears in VII F rather than in other general class. So, the writer

decided VII F as recommendation by the teacher who handle English lesson in MAN 1 BARRU

and hopes VII F is the most representative ones. Based on Ashley (2014) states a purposive

sample, also commonly called judgmental sample, is one that selected based on the knowledge of

a population and the purpose of the study.

C. Data Collecting method

Data collection method is a systematical and standard procedure used to collect data (Tanzeh

2011:57). In this research, the data collecting method is administering test that consists of pre-

test and post-test. The procedure of administering test was clarified as follows:

1. Pre-test

At the first meeting, the writer gave a pre-test to the students. There 15 question; 10 questions

are in the form of short answer and the other questions in the form of True/False. It was

conducted to know the scores of the students reading before being taught the treatment.
2. Post-test

The post-test is given to the students after conducting the treatment of using think-pair-strategy

to improve the students‟ reading comprehension. Similar to pre-test, the writer ask students to

answer the twenty question in the form of short answer and true or false. The post-test was

D. Research Instrument

Instrument is tool of collecting data. According to Arikunto (2006: 126) Instrument is the device

the researcher uses to collect data is called instrument. The instrument in this research is test.

Test is a means of measuring knowledge, skill, feeling, intelligences, or aptitude of an

individual group (Gay, 1992: 154). The test of this study is the writer made by adapted the

material module book at MAN 1 BARRU. The tests were in the form of objective test that are

short answer and true or false. The writer requires 10 questions which is 5 question of short

answer and 10 true or false. To score the objective tests the writer treats them without any

difference. Means, there was only one correct answer for each items. The scoring guide is as the

formula follow:

Score = number of correct items x 100

20

The forms of short answer and true false an effective technique to test a reading comprehension.

The technique that might be used to test reading skill are multiple choice, true/false, completion,

short answer, guided answer, summary cloze, information transfer and so on (Isnawati, 40).

The test form of short answer was not giving choice so the learner can not only guess the answer,

besides they did not confuse to answer like learners do in form of multiple choices test; the

learners just give the fix answer, based on their comprehending of the text. While, true false give

students the exact statement, they have choosing whether it is true or false. It means, when the
learners have understood the text, they did not hesitate to choose the best statement. According

to Alderson (2000: 227) short answer is test takers are simply asked question which requires a

brief response, in a few words, as in the example below (not just Yes/No or true /false). The

justification for this technique is that it is possible to interpret students‟ response to see if they

have really understood, whereas on multiple choice items students give no justification for the

answer they have selected and may they have chosen by eliminating others. The writer used

achievement test, Isnawati (2012: 14) states in contrast to proficiency test, achievement test are

directly related to language course. The purpose of this kind of test is to establish how

successful individual students, group of students, or the courses themselves have been in

achieving objectives. Its means that, achievement test that is used to measure the process that

students making after learn something in achieving objectives. This test used to measure the

students achievement in reading comprehension before and after they taught by

using Think-Pair-Share strategy in MAN 1 BARRU.

E. Validity and Reliability Testing

As mentioned above, the writer’s instrument is test. The good instrument should be valid and

reliable; the more explanation about it will be discussed as follows:

1) Validity

The most simplistic definition of validity is that is the degree to which a test measures what is

supposed to measure (Gay, 1992: 155). To measure whether the test has good validity, the

researcher analyzed the test from content validity, face validity and construct validity.

a. Content validity

Content validity is the degree to which a test measures an intended content area (Gay, 1992:

156). In this study, the test had content validity because the content of the test had been adjusted
with the material. The test adapted from the guide book “module of English lesson of first

grade”. Besides, the writer deal with the curriculum of the first grade English teacher of MAN 1

BARRU Based on the curriculum and the syllabus, there are two kind genres of text taught and

learned on the first grade, those are descriptive text and procedural text. Because of when the

writer conducted the study in MAN 1 BARRU and the learners was study about the genre text of

descriptive text. So, the writer decided to focus on the descriptive text.

b. face validity

A test is said to have validity if it looks as if it measure what is supposed to measure. Face

validity is hardly a scientific concept, yet it is very important (Isnawati, 2012: 29). In this study,

the item of the tests was in the form of objective tests consists of short answer test and true/false

test. The writer ensured face validity by consulting to English teacher of MAN 1 BARRU.

c. Construct validity

A test is said to have construct validity if it can be demonstrated that it measures just the ability

which is supposed to measure (Isnawati, 2012:29). Construct validity is one kind of validity that

is measures the ability which is supposed to measure. The word “construct” refers to any

underlying ability which is hypothesized in a teory of language ability. As mention by Brown in

Isnawati (2012:30) mentioned that construct is any theory, hypothesis or model that attempts to

explain observed phenomena in our universe of perception. In addition, as what Isnawati

(2012:40) states, the sub skills being tested in reading assessment are classified in to two. The

first is reading macro sub skills. It includes scanning text to locate specific information,

skimming text to obtain general idea, identifying stages of argument, and identifying examples

presented in support of an argument. While the micro-subs kill underlying reading skills are

identifying referents of pronouns, using context to guess meaning of unfamiliar words, and
understanding relations between parts of text.

2) Reliability

The next way to know a good test is by reliability. A Reliable test is consistent and dependable.

If the students are given the same test on two different occasions, the test should produce similar

results. The word “similar” is used here because it is almost impossible for the test-takers to get

exactly the same scores when the test is repeated the following day. This is because of the fact

that human beings do not simply behave in exactly the same way on every occasion, even when

the circumstances seem identical (Isnawati, 2012:18). In this case, for reliability the writer took

test from teachers test so that is assumed that the test is reliable.

F. Data Analysis

In quantitative research to analyze the data is by using statistical data analysis. The data should

in the form of number. Data analysis is a technique to analyze data in order to know the

result of a research. In this study, the writer provides some formula based on Arikunto

(2010:349) as follows:

t=
√∑

Where:

Md : means of different pre-test and post-test

Xd : deviation in every subject (d – Md)

∑x2d : total of quadrate deviation

N : subject of sample