Action research procedure

The framework in Table 3.2 was developed to guide me through the whole process of my data collection, based on the research objectives and on the adapted action research model described in the earlier section (see Section 3.2.2). The following described the phases involved for the action research project.

a. Phase 1 (Pre-intervention): Data collection

Mills (2009) has structured data collection techniques under the action research paradigm into three dimensions: the ‘enquiring’ dimension which refers to ‘asking people for information;’ the ‘experiencing’ dimension which refers to ‘observing and taking field notes; and the ‘examining’ dimension which refers to ‘using and making records. This study was guided by these three components of action research data collection.

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In Phase 1, data were gathered from documents and interviews that fall under examining and enquiring dimensions as categorized by Mills (2009).

Documents

One way of assessing pedagogical and assessment practices is by analysing the documentary data. According to Burns (2003), documents gathered during the inquiry processes can describe various aspects of practice. She further suggests that:

…examining documents can help researchers to complement other observations by building a richer profile of the classroom or institutional context for the research. They can also give insights into how theoretical and practical values connect and the degree of ‘fit’ between organisational and curricular concerns. (p. 140)

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Table 3.2: A framework for the action research procedure and data collection

Phase Stage Objective Research Question

1  Understand &

 To identify issues/ aspect for improvement in ESL writing

 To explore, from a sociocultural perspective, the changes and

 To evaluate the immediate impact of the intervention on the teachers and

 To identify the extent sociocultural perspective could contribute to

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For the first phase of this collaborative action research project, I obtained the course pro forma and the writing assessment materials from the ESL Writing Course Coordinator. I developed and used a document analysis protocol (see Appendix A) for these documents to gain an overview of the requirements for this ESL Writing Course and to further understand the pedagogical and evaluation processes involved. A document analysis protocol – also known as a ‘document summary form’ (Miles & Huberman, 1994) - serves the same basic purpose as an interview schedule. It guides a researcher to collect the appropriate and useful information from the selected documents, and to summarize, clarify, and determine the significance of the data gathered from the documents.

Interviews

Interviews are widely used for collecting qualitative data (Burns, 2003; Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007a; Creswell, 2005). I chose semi-structured interviews as the inquiring technique to gather the two collaborating teachers’ views on assessment and to explore the existing/current practices of teaching and assessing ESL writing. A semi-structured interview format was used due to its flexibility in allowing the researcher to have a series of general questions related to the research objectives and to vary the sequence of the interview questions (Bryman, 2008).

The advantage of using semi-structured interview is that it allows participants to

“…voice their experiences and create the options for responding” (Creswell, 2005, p. 214) and gives room for the researcher to anticipate logical gaps in the data (Cohen et al., 2007a). The use of a semi-structured interview also allowed me to construct new questions based on, and in relation to, the interviewees’

responses.

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Interviews with the teachers were conducted in the first phase of the study. For this purpose, I developed an interview schedule, which consisted of 16 open-ended guided questions and was used as my instrument (see Appendix B:

Interview schedule). The guided questions focused on the teachers’ perceptions and personal experiences in the teaching and assessing of writing to ESL learners.

Questions were designed to gather relevant data to answer the research questions outlined in Table 3.2 above.

At the initial stage of this research, a web blog was used as a platform to interview my ESL teacher participants. According to Hasim, De Luca, and Bell (2011), a web blog is a platform that allows users to upload journal entries that can be shared with anyone or any specified group of readers and is considered as a collaborative platform. Firstly, the interviews with Salmah and Mazlina were initially conducted through web blogs because, among other reasons, the researcher and the ESL teacher participants were geographically separated and it would have been prohibitively expensive to conduct the two face-to-face interviews. Additionally, the web blogs allowed a less formal setting to reduce the level of anxiety and rigidity, and, through web blogs the interviewees and I could privately discuss and share related ideas more freely. Another reason for choosing the web blog as the platform for interviews and discussions was to develop flexible collaborative ways of working in which the ESL teacher participants and I could respond to, view and reflect on the ideas given by everyone involved in the interview sessions and discussions could occur at any time and for any duration. In addition, the use of web blog had the advantage of having written interview responses from the interviewees. This would eliminate the transcribing process and avoid having researcher’s views and interpretation

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while transcribing the interview data. Hence, the use of the web blog was seen as the most suitable medium of communication for the purpose of this research.

However, due to constraints, additional methods for interviews such as Yahoo Messenger Chat Room and Telephone were also used (see Section 3.4.2 (a) for further details about these constraints).

b. Phase 2 (While -intervention): Data collection

Phase 2 of the action research project focused on the processes of planning, administering, implementing, reviewing, and planning ways forward.

Specifically, Phase 2 involved the process of implementing and trying out a plan of action; monitoring, evaluating and reflecting the implemented plan of action;

modifying the plan of action; and repeating the cycle to achieve particular goals (see Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2: Diagram for Phase 2 of action research

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The processes in Phase 2 are represented by the three segmented pie-chart in Figure 3.2. These processes are a continuation from Phase 1. However, Phase 2 was cyclical where, ideally, researchers could repeat the cycles as frequently as possible till they reached a satisfactory level, as indicated by the arrows at the outer circle of the pie-chart. I conducted only two cycles of Phase 2 to develop, implement, and evaluate the intervention for ESL writing that focused on integrating process writing (see Section 2.3.1.2) and formative writing assessment (see Section 2.4.2) into the existing ESL writing course. The intervention aimed at refining the pedagogical approach through introducing elements of formative assessment and process writing tools to develop students’ writing. In this phase, multiple data were collected. The data for this phase of the research were gathered through documents, briefing sessions, discussion sessions, and observations.

Documents

Documents gathered in the phase 2 of the study were students’ learning outcomes, which comprised 48 sets of students’ written work based on the writing tasks given (researcher-developed intervention for Cycle 1 and researcher/teachers collaboratively-developed intervention for Cycle 2). The writing tasks included in Cycle 1 were: researcher-developed worksheets for brainstorming, selecting and organizing ideas; the compare and contrast essay outlines; the peer-review checklist; and the essay writing (essay 1). The writing tasks in Cycle 2 were: the compare and contrast essay outlines; and peer-review checklist, which was collaboratively revised and the essay writing (essay 2). Table 3.3 below summarizes the types of documents collected from the student participants.

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Table 3.3: A summary of documents collected in phase 2 of the action research study

Documents Group 1 Group 2 Total

Worksheets on brainstorming 23 25 48

Worksheets on Organizing Ideas 23 25 48

Essay Outlines: Essay 1 23 25 48

Essay Outlines: Essay 2 23 25 48

Peer Review Checklist: Essay 1 23 25 48

Peer Review Checklist: Essay 2 23 25 48

First Draft: Essay 1 23 25 48

First Draft: Essay 2 23 25 48

Second Draft: Essay 1 23 25 48

Second Draft: Essay 2 23 25 48

Total 230 250 480

Briefing and Discussion/Feedback Sessions

I conducted face-to-face briefing and discussion/feedback sessions with the two teacher participants to explain the procedures of the writing tasks which I developed (for Cycle 1) as part of this action research project for the target group.

In briefing sessions, I informed the teachers about the learning objectives and then introduced the writing tasks. I explained to the teachers how to go about the tasks. I used a general briefing/discussion guide to facilitate my discussions with both teachers (see Appendix C: Briefing & Discussion Guide). The data gathered from the briefing and discussion/feedback sessions were used to evaluate, modify and improve the intervention to be used in Cycle 2 of the action research project and for the collaborative reflection on the intervention. This source of data allowed me to gain immediate feedback and suggestions for improvement. It also helped to validate relevant research claims by giving evidence and support from the data findings (McNiff, 1988).

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Observations

Observational data allow the researcher to gather real data from actual situations or events (Cohen et al., 2007). According to Gibson and Brown (2009), observation usually is conducted due to the interest in understanding a practice and the rationale for that practice. Sometimes an observation is conducted to see what is happening in a classroom, merely to describe a classroom event, without any particular interest in understanding the meaning associated to the event (Gibson & Brown, 2009). For this research, observations were carried out to gather the teachers’ and students’ reactions to the pedagogical change in the classrooms and to evaluate the practicality of the formative writing assessment tasks.

During observations, I adopted a non-participant observer’s role; there was a complete detachment between participation and observation, and in this way I did not interrupt the interactional flow in the ESL writing classrooms. The main focus of this observation was to answer the basic general question: What happened to the teaching and learning of writing when sets of formative tasks of writing intervention were used? There were altogether sixteen observations: eight for each writing group. Table 3.4 below summarizes the distribution of observations made for the study. To be more focused during the observations, observation checklists were used as an instrument (see Appendix D: Observation Checklist). Though it was planned from the beginning to video-record the observations, the teacher participants personally requested not to be recorded.

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Table 3.4: A summary of observations made according to writing group and research cycles

ESL Writing Group Number of Observations according to Research Cycles

Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Total

Group 1 4 4 8

Group 2 4 4 8

Total 8 8 16

c. Phase 3 (Post-intervention)

Survey

Immediately after the intervention, questionnaires were given to a total of forty-eight students from both ESL writing groups to gather the students’ perceptions of the researcher-developed intervention for formative writing assessment and to identify the immediate impact it had on the students. Questionnaires were used because they are viable to administer to a large group of students (Bryman, 2008;

Dawson, 2009). A pilot study of the questionnaires was conducted on five students, who were doing the same writing course, but coming from a different writing group. The survey instrument was piloted to ensure that the instructions and questions were clear and could be understood by the students. Containing both closed- and open-ended questions, the questionnaires were divided into six sections (see Appendix E: Survey questionnaire). Section 1 sought to gather the students’ demographic data. Section 2 was designed to gather information on the use of English language among students, and Section 3 focused on the students’

attitudes and interest in learning English language. Questions in Section 4 were intended to discover the students’ experience of and opinions on the current ESL writing classes which were conducted under the action research project in which

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the newly created intervention tasks were included in the curriculum. In Section 5, students were asked about their previous learning experiences, specifically in the ESL writing classrooms. Finally, Section 6 focused on the students’

perceptions of the intervention used as formative writing assessment tasks.

To complete the questionnaires, all the students were gathered in a lecture hall and sat in their respective ESL writing groups, but were given individual seats, similar to exam-like conditions. Both Salmah and Mazlina were present to help the researcher in distributing the questionnaires to the students. Prior to the distribution of questionnaires, I explained to the students the different sections included in the questionnaires so that they understood what they were supposed to do. The student respondents were given an hour to complete the questionnaire and they were not allowed to talk to the person sitting next to them. This was to ensure that the responses given on the questionnaires were only from individual respondents. The respondents were allowed to ask questions at any time while completing the questionnaires if they need further clarification regarding questions or statements in each section of the questionnaires.

Post-intervention interviews

Post-intervention interviews (I2) with individual ESL teachers were carried out immediately after the completion of the second action research cycle. The ESL teachers were separately interviewed to gather the immediate impact of the intervention on their perspectives of the process writing and the formative writing assessment in the form of peer-review activity. The findings from these interviews were used to add further information to the feedback received from the teacher participants on the researcher’s intervention.

114 Follow-up interviews

Two follow-up interviews (I3A and I3B) were conducted in 2012. The first follow-up interviews (I3A) with individual teachers gathered information about the development in the teachers’ pedagogical practice, over time. The second follow-up interview was a paired interview to revisit the teachers’ perspectives on peer review. The main purpose of these follow-up interviews was to discover any long-term effects of this collaborative action research on the ESL writing pedagogical practice and curriculum development. While it was difficult to see vast changes or development occurring within a semester when the action research was conducted, revisiting the teacher participants was used to explore their subsequent teaching practices, specifically on the teaching of writing to ESL learners. For these follow-up interviews, an interview guide (see Appendix F) was also developed to ensure that appropriate questions were asked to encourage these teachers to disclose the situations currently in place. The various data sources, gathered for this collaborative action research, are summarized in Table 3.5.

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Table 3.5: A summary of data collection sources relevant to each research objective

PHAS

E OBJECTIVE RESEARCH QUESTION DATA SOURCE

1  To gain a description of the

116 3.4 Research and Data Collection Procedures

This section describes the data collection procedures involved in conducting my collaborative action research project and the data analysis approach.