Implementation and Procedure for Conducting the Study

My study was conducted in two stages; 1) making preparations and gaining permission for data collection, and 2) the actual data collection stage. I will now discuss the steps and procedures involved in organising and conducting this research.

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4.5.1 Preparations and Permission for Collecting the Data

In order to conduct the research at Tripoli University, I met the head of the English department to present and discuss the research and asked for all the schedules of the lecturers who were teaching writing, conversation, comprehension and composition for fourth year student classes. Having discussed my research with the writing professor and showed him the writing task, he allowed me to take a lecture period in order to conduct my study. In addition, I asked him whether the task was appropriate for the level of participants and obtained a positive answer. However, the professor cautioned that in general the writing level of fourth year students was not high enough to suit this stage of education (final year English students) due to many reasons. One reason was that the students in general do not do extensive reading and this can affect their background knowledge. Also students are not given the opportunity to develop their writing skills through long essay assignments, as they are only tested through exams. Finally, the recent political situation in the country has obviously had a negative effect on the continuity of the learning process (El-Aswad, 2014; personal communication).

4.5.2 Data Collection Procedure: The Actual Data Collection Stage

The data were collected during the first semester of the academic year 2013-2014 at Tripoli University, Libya.

The first set of data was collected on 17th December 2013 from a written task. Both I and a lecturer were present at the time of conducting the study. The participants were informed of the purpose behind the written tasks, that they would be part of my ongoing PhD research and that their participation carried no risk to their academic aspirations. The participants were also

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informed that an information participant sheet would be distributed after they had finished (see appendix 6). After asking the participants to sign a consent form to show approval of their agreement (see appendix 5), they were told that they had the right to withdraw at any time. They were then instructed to write an essay of 250 words within 45 minutes (see appendix 7). The participants had no prior preparation time to perform the writing task. Each student was given instructions to write the essay individually, without any further discussion and without dictionaries. They were also asked to retain anonymity by not writing their names on the task sheets. Instead they were asked to write the allocated codes that were already prepared on individual desks. While the students were performing the writing task, I checked whether they were sitting at the desk with the right code, with 1 being the code for males and 2 for females. The whole code set was, for example, 1.055, in which 1 refers to male participant and 055 refers to the number of the participant. Furthermore, I explained the topic to the students in both English and Arabic as some students were not clear on how carry out the task.

The second set of data was taken from the students‟ questionnaires. The questionnaire was administered on the same day as the writing task due to time restrictions. The participants were asked to complete the questionnaire in class following the end of the writing task. They were given ten minutes to rest while I distributed the questionnaires. They were informed that the time allowed to fill in the questionnaire was 15 minutes and that they had to do it individually. In addition, they were asked to complete the questionnaire anonymously as it was felt that they would be honest in their answers if they did not have to divulge their names. The participants were asked to reflect on their own experiences and give their opinions without fear or

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embarrassment clouding their response. It is important to indicate that of the 186 participants only 155 completed the questionnaires. Additionally, although the consent forms, information participant sheet and questionnaires were not presented to informants in an Arabic version, I made sure that I explained them in Arabic after the participants had an opportunity to read them. Also, before the students started filling in the questionnaires I explained what is meant by collocations and gave them some examples. I asked them in Arabic to look at the questions and if they did not understand, I could answer their queries in order to consolidate their understanding.

The third set of data was from the lecturers‟ questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to 20 lecturers in the English department at Tripoli University. They were asked to answer the questionnaires in their spare time and return it the following day. Of the 20 lecturers given a questionnaire only 12 responded.

The final set of data was from the survey administered to 100 native speakers of English. The first step in conducting the survey was to obtain permission from the lecturers to perform the study during their lectures and schedule the times with them. The survey was conducted on 23rd and 25th February and 5th March, 2015 in the participants‟ regular scheduled classrooms during lecture times. The first data collection was conducted with first year university students, the second collection with second years, and the third with third years. Each group was divided into two groups randomly13: the first group was assigned to the survey that required them to indicate their ratings according to the demands of academic writing, while the second group was given the

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same survey but without the instructions concerning academic writing. This two-version survey was conducted to discover whether academic writing has an influence over native speakers‟ judgment. The survey was administered at the beginning of the participants‟ lectures in the presence of their lecturers. They were asked for their consent to take part in the study. Similar instructions and information were given to them regarding their anonymity, purpose of the survey, the right to withdraw, timing and instructions for rating (for details, please see section 4.10.2 piloting the survey). Since the classes were a mix of native and non-native students, it was explained that the survey was only aimed at native speakers and was not discriminatory. In addition, the last collection was conducted with MMU students in the library on 6th March 2015. I followed the same procedure and explained the above when conducting the study.