Qualitative Methods

The qualitative methods employed were: semi-structured observation, document analysis of essays/ compositions, and semi-structured interviews as discussed in this section.

4.12.1.1 Document Analysis of Compositions (sample of students’ writing)

Sample of students’ writings were collected at the beginning of the study, during the course and at the end of the study. Document analyses of first drafts and second drafts of selected essays were carried out to find out how students reacted to face to face feedback. The essays, in this study, were studied to provide extra detailed information on how students revised their work based on the feedback they got during the course. They were used as support for the assessment of their improvement. Giving of a pre-test and a post-test assesses students once whereas with a collection of essays, I could find out more about their exact problems with writing and how it was improved accordingly. It was therefore worth looking at the suggestions and comments the students received and how they tried to act on them. The purpose of this instrument was to get an idea about the students’ way of writing and to inform the researcher about the problems faced by students in their written essays. “A number of research papers in the Arab world have spotlighted students’ coherence problems in English writing. For example, Arab students’ written texts revealed that repetition, parallelism, sentence length, lack of variation and misuse of certain cohesive devices are major sources of incoherence and textual deviation’’ (Abdel Hamid, A. 2010:p.212). Document analysis has several advantages, because it can contribute to the triangulation of results generated by quantitative methods used in this study to determine students’ essay writing, their editing after getting feedback, and their language abilities (Placier, 1998).

In addition and most importantly, the students’ writing in this study could provide actual and authentic knowledge about what the students really did when they edited and revised their essays and show if it was different from what they thought or claimed they did based on the interviews. Some of the samples of the students’ assignments did not contain any feedback in regards to the corrections that needed to be made; whereas some of them contained the teacher’s feedback that had been given on the first draft of writing. Students had to produce their writing (assignments) either individually or in a group of three. The topic of their individual assignments was assigned by their teacher; but in the other assignment where the topic that was written about as a group-; the topic was the students’ choice. The teacher assigned different topics and the group had to write about one of them such as ‘Climate Change’, ‘Body Language’, ‘Difficulty of Teaching English’,’ My Hobby’ and these topics were evaluated as group work.

What’s more, students had to write at least two pieces of writing on different topics to be evaluated individually. The collected writing samples for evaluations were on various topics such as 'opening a university in each city' and 'Climate Change'. The compositions ranged in length based

on how much information students had about the topic (vocabulary was one of the problems that students encountered).

For purposes of evaluation, some of these samples were evaluated twice; one was done by their teacher and one by the researcher. To confirm the accuracy of my interpretations and to counteract the problem of subjectivity; I had to evaluate the writings and write the grades on another paper, and then I asked their teacher of writing to evaluate the writing and inform me about his evaluation (see 4.11.1)

Therefore, document analysis helped me enhance the credibility of my research by checking the students’ actual abilities through their own writing and editing.

4.12.1.2. Interviews

Another method of data collection used in this research is the interview. The interview is a tool of getting information and gaining knowledge through conversation. Throughout interviews, both interviewer and interviewee can discuss a considered issue and their interaction can be the fundamental of knowledge production. Bryman (2004) suggests that the interview is “important for detailed analysis required in qualitative research and to ensure that the interviewees’ answers are captured in their own terms’’ (p. 317)

Researchers have classified interviews into various different types including structured, unstructured, and semi-structured. Although, each type of interview has its strengths and weaknesses (Patton 1980:206), the purpose of this method is generally the same, which is to obtain data "the social situatedness of research data." (Cohen et al. 2000: 267). As a result, the interview is very essential and valued in social research.

The differences between the types of interviews are following:

 Structured interviews generally apply close-ended questions and the questions are in a specific order “the agenda is totally predetermined by the researcher, who works through a list of set questions in a predetermined order" (Nunan 1992: 149).

 Unstructured interviews, as a general rule, include open-ended questions where interviewees get a full chance and can express their opinions about a certain issue.

 a semi-structured interview lets the interviewer do and control the interview by creating the structure of the interview, while at the same time giving the interviewees sufficient freedom to express subjective opinion at length (Wragg, 2002)

The present study adopted the semi-structured interviews and was guided by a list of questions in order to help the interviewer gain a clear understanding of the interviewees’ stance (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison, 2000). Also, Bryman, (2001, p.314) points out, “the interview has a great

deal of leeway in how to reply. Questions may not follow on exactly in the way outlined on the schedule. Questions that are not included in the guide may be asked as the interviewer picks up on things said by interviewees’’. With regard to the fitness for purpose, I think the semi-structured questions are the most suitable to answer the research question concerning both students and their writing teacher’s opinions and their attitudes to the different methods of feedback especially face to face feedback as a learning and teaching method of writing English as an FL/SL. The research question as mentioned before is:

 What are Libyan students’ attitudes before and after getting face to face feedback and what are the writing teachers’ views?

In other words, Will EFL/ESL Libyan students who participate in the study (experimental group) hold a positive attitude toward face to face feedback as investigated by an interview?

Will the writing teacher who teaches both groups have a different attitude toward the groups during the term as investigated by an interview?

Regarding interviews’ disadvantages, the interviewer may not get all the necessary information. There are many reasons for that; for instance, Wragg (2002) indicates interviewees may not express what they really think and believe. In addition, interviewees maybe try to avoid embarrassment or provide answers which they think would please the interviewer (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison, 2000). Another weakness is that interviewees may perhaps reply with their perceived behaviour, and not their actual one.

To avoid the impact of such weaknesses, I dealt with this issue by informing the interviewees (students and their teacher) about the aim of the study before the interview. Also, I had to use different strategies to make students respond honesty through following:

i. The students were encouraged to speak freely and express what they really feel about their writing skills and whether the face to face feedback is a useful method or not. In other words, students were informed that their authentic reply would help both teachers and students (in teaching and learning if the method worked), and were reassured there would be no effect on their marks for the current course. Oppenheim (1992, p.81) concurs with this procedure and argues that: ‘’interviews should encourage respondents to develop their own ideas, feelings, insights, expectations or attitudes and in doing so it allows the respondents to say what they think and to do so with greater richness and spontaneity’’.

ii. At the beginning of each interview, I kept telling the students to be as honest as possible in their responses in order to examine which kind of feedback is more helpful.

iii. The students were informed from the beginning that the study will not depend on their verbal respond only but also on their written work to encourage them to answer in a straight forward manner.

Furthermore, the participation was not obligatory and their signature was taken as permission to participate before starting the interview after I read the consent form for them. Concerning selecting interviewees, the students were self-selecting that some of them offered to volunteer. Also, there was a variety of levels among the participants; some of them got high grades, some had weak lower level skills.

Students and teacher’s Interview (Pre and Post Interview):

An interview (Appendix B) was conducted to some students and to their teacher too. I interviewed the participants at the faculty of education at Tripoli University and each interview lasted about 15 minutes, although the precise length was determined by the participants’ need to speak. It was done twice; the first interview was before applying the face to face feedback method (conferencing) and the second one was after the end of their course. This instrument was constructed to enquire about the students’ opinions of the effectiveness and helpfulness of different kinds of feedback with which the students were lately familiar, for instance: teacher correction, comments, teacher correction with comments, error identification, self-correction after getting feedback, teacher-student face-to-face (definitions are given below). The interview also asked about the students' strategies for the usage of feedback as well as their preferences for feedback and why.

During the interview, I was taking notes besides the audio recording. These notes were made in order to work as a backup for the audio recording. For example, if something would happen to the recording such as getting lost, getting damaged, or there’s a problem with the sound; I would have my notes as a backup. Moreover, the interview was done in the students’ first language, Arabic, in order to make students more comfortable and express themselves clearly with more details without worrying about the language. Also, this reiterates the point that the interview was not a test.

I informed the participants at the beginning that the two interviews (pre- post interviews) are part of my study I am conducting about the face -to –face feedback as a method of teaching and learning English writing to ESL learners in general and university students in particular; and thus, their responses is very vital to the study. I explained that their responses and cooperation would enhance my understanding of the students' problems in EFL/ESL writing with a view to improving the learning and teaching conditions. For the interview, I prepared a list of questions as a guide to gain information. In general, the participants’ views were informative and students expressed their opinions and attitudes enthusiastically.

The participants for the interview in this study were students from treatment group and their teacher of writing. These students were females, who are aged between 18- 22, and all of them were Libyan. All the ten students who were interviewed volunteered to participate in the study. It was also

explained to the participants that they were free to withdraw from the study at any point. It was impossible to interview all the students so I asked those who had time to participate in the interview to volunteer. Only the female students volunteered to participate in the interview, I did not however get involved in choosing students. This could limit the representativeness of the study slightly.

However, in the pre and post-tests there were participants were of mixed gender i.e. male and female because the tests were done in the class and it had to be for all the third year students to see whether they would benefit from the feedback or not. I used the interview as method to support the results of the study.

Furthermore, all the participants were asked to sign the Consent Form (see appendix C for sample of consent form) , which I had created, for them to use to confirm that they agreed to participate in this study and provided me with the information I would asked for. Also, anonymity was offered to the participants as it says in the Consent Form. Not only would the information be treated confidentially but also all the recordings would be destroyed at the end of the study.

Regarding the teacher’s interview, it was one of instruments used to elicit data. The aim of this was to investigate teachers' conceptualizations of issues related to teaching and learning EFL writing in the English language department particularly in Libyan universities since the teacher, who was interviewed, had had experience teaching in different places. The time for the interview was agreed in advance. It was a semi-structured interview where I prepared some questions to be covered. However, there was some flexibility and the questions were only used as a guide and the teacher had the chance to talk about different points without being interrupted. The smooth running of the interview was crucial to get essential data for the study. Besides that, there were some additional informal talks with other writing teachers in English departments who teach in other faculties either in Tripoli or Yefren city. The objective of these discussions was to investigate the problems that both writing teachers and their students encounter in the teaching/learning process and if these problems are the same or different.

Definitions:

1-Teacher correction: The teacher corrects the entire surface which is usually grammatical errors by crossing out or underlining errors and providing right answers.

2. Comments: The teacher provides written feedback by making comments or questions on the writing but error corrections are not provided.

3. Teacher correction with comments: The teacher corrects the errors and explains that with comments.

4. Error identification: The teacher indicates where the error is exactly by underlying or circling it without any corrections.

5. Self-correction after getting feedback: Students correct their own work by using teacher’s comment in previous writing.

6. Teacher-student conferencing: The teacher and student talk about a piece of student writing individually during the writing or after it is finished. Teacher-student face-to-facecan be, also, with all the students in the class where the teacher discusses with his/her students the problems in their writing.

4.12.1.3. Observation

Observation is considered as an extremely useful tool in both quantitative and qualitative research. Usually, the data that is gathered from observations consist of detailed descriptions and the situation within which the observation was made.

Classroom observation is commonly recognized (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000; Mackey & Gass, 2005; Wajnryb, 1992) as a central component of teacher preparation and development. In addition, the idea of observation has been used as a tool in research generally and classroom research specifically. For example, it has been argued that observation is a useful and crucial tool in learning to teach (Gebhard, 1999; Wajnryb, 1992). So, in addition to my purpose of the study, I got depth understanding about how to develop my teaching methods.

Research on this matter (Gebhard, 1999; Wajnryb, 1992) supports the view that observation is a useful tool in learning to teach. So, getting the knowledge and understanding classroom through observation is very essential.

There are three types of observation: structured, unstructured, and semi-structured observation (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison, 2000; Moyles, 2002) and each type has certain procedure. Structured observation is to some extent systematic because the observer collects data at specific time and usually uses a checklist for the categories that are planned to be observed. Whereas, unstructured observation is different in that it has a wide description of the event and the people observed. Richards (2003) points out that unstructured observation may take note of everything that happens in a certain place or look for nothing in particular. Also, this type of observation concentrates on the interactions taking place between the observed (Bell, 2002). In this study, informal, semi-structured observation was used as a method of data collection. The observation generally focused on the students’ attitude towards face to face feedback and monitored their interactions with each other and with their teacher while they wrote. I noted the exchanged ideas, the time the students needed to write and edit their writing after getting feedback, as well as the difficulties they faced during the writing of the assigned task. Being the researcher, I intended to investigate how observation can help me understand the writing class and students’ engagement. In this respect, the major objective of observation in this research was to find out how feedback works and the effect of various types especially face to face feedback and how this feedback facilitate writing skill as an FL/SL. With the observation method, I had an opportunity to grasp ‘the dynamics

of the situations, the people, the personalities, contexts, resources, roles etc’ (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison, 2000, p.311). Informal notes were taken in class when the students engaged in face to face feedback with their teacher. Observation was carried out over most of the term.

The main strength of observation is that it offers the observer direct access to the considered social phenomena. “Instead of relying on some kind of self-report, such as asking people what they would do in a certain situation, you actually observe and record their behaviour in that situation…. In an interview situation or in response to a questionnaire item, for example, a person may not always provide accurate or complete information, or they might answer in ways that correspond to what is socially desirable’’. I used the observation method as a complementary to the interview as well as to avoid any wrong information I may get if I depended on the interview only as Denzin and Lincoln (1998) indicate that observation findings are more reliable when combined with other methods. This is strength of observation; in other words, observation can effectively complement other approaches and as a result increase the quality of evidence available to the researcher.

Based on Patton (2002) description observation is:“descriptions of activities, behaviours, actions, conversations, interpersonal interactions, organisation or community processes or any other aspect of observable human experience.”

Therefore, in terms of fitness for purpose, informal semi-structured observation let me completely and without restraint to monitor the participants and their interactions with the teacher without restriction to the time or certain points or to the categories listed following a given schedule.