Open-ended Questionnaires

Open-ended questionnaires consist of items in which the question is not followed by any responses to choose from but rather by a blank space to be filled in by the respondent (Dörnyei, 2007). This type of questionnaire works very well especially in the case when they are not completely open but have some degree of guidance, such as: being of specific nature, including clarification questions, requiring some sentence completion or being a form of question which leads to a succinct short answer (ibid). I used open-ended questionnaires with the experimental group at the end of each phase of this study which aimed mainly at evaluating the effectiveness of the intervention from the participants‟ viewpoint. This is similar to the study by Vandergrift (2003a) in which students had to reflect by the end of the study on the usefulness of each of the two tasks he used. Goh and Taib (2006) also asked their participants to reflect on the process-based lessons by writing a response to the following probe “What I think about my listening ability at the end of the 8 sessions” (p.228). Graham (2007) also had students complete a questionnaire at the end of the project they were involved in. Among the aims of Graham‟s final questionnaire was to have students comment on how much they felt their listening had improved by the end of the project and how helpful strategy training had been to them. The two open-ended questionnaires I used in my study are discussed below.

a. End of Phase One Questionnaire

By the end of the metacognitive instruction phase, and before embarking on the deliberate practice phase, I wanted to know what listening practice the participants in the experimental group engage in outside the classroom and if they deliberately practise listening in English at all on their own or not. I also aimed, as mentioned above, to investigate the impact of phase one from their point of view (in response to research question 1). To find out answers to these queries, I gave out a brief survey of four questions and asked the participants to reply to the questions in writing and hand them back to me the next session. For this survey, I got a response rate of 90% (19 out of 21 participants). The questions were in Arabic and the students were given the freedom to answer in either of the two languages they felt comfortable with: Arabic or English. The four questions were as follows:

1. What forms of English listening practice do you do outside the class? 2. How many times per week do you deliberately sit down to practise

listening in English? And for how long?

3. How much have you benefitted from taking part in this study so far? 4. Did you find in this study what you were hoping to achieve in

improving your listening skill or not? And why?

I have in fact made use of some of the suggestions they made in response to questions 3 and 4, particularly comments they made on the level of the texts used and the type of tasks they were required to do. As a result of these two comments, I introduced texts at a higher level than those used in the first phase of the study. The lecture tasks were also changed from MCQs to either summarizing the lecture or writing an outline of it. Answers to questions 1 and 2 helped in answering research question 4; comparing between successful and less successful participants in terms of listening practice. A translated version of the student responses can be found in Appendix F.

b. End of Phase Two Questionnaire

By the end of the study, I wanted to know from the participants themselves how much they benefited from the intervention sessions and which of the two phases

they thought was more beneficial to them. Hence, I typed the following questions for the participants to answer and give back to me when completed:

1) The study has witnessed two phases: strategy phase and deliberate practice phase:

 What are the advantages and disadvantages of the strategy phase?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of the deliberate practice

phase?

2) Comparing between the two phases of the study, which one did you find more beneficial and why?

3) By the end of the study, do you notice any change in your listening ability in English?

These questions were also typed in Arabic and the students were again given the freedom to choose the language they prefer to respond in. I used the word strategy in this questionnaire to refer to phase one, though it was not particularly a strategy training phase, for reasons of simplification. The students‟ responses to these questions helped in answering research questions 1 and 2: investigating the impact of the two phases of the study. Towards the end of the study, three participants withdrew from the sessions. Hence, the number of participants in the experimental group decreased to 18 by the end of the study. I got a response rate of 14 out of 18 students on this final questionnaire: 78 % (see Appendix G for a translated summary of responses). The participants‟ answers to these questions will be presented in the following chapter.