Research Method

Very little is known about how Deaf people feel about writing or about using English as a second language. Although there are some data on language attitudes of college-age Deaf adults (Kannapell, 1989), there is little language attitude research on Deaf people (Vernon, 1995).

Attitudes are often difficult to assess reliably because an attitude cannot be directly observed, like one’s height, weight, or hair colour. Attitudes are dispositions to respond favourably or unfavourably to something like a language, person, or an institution. Attitudes are often assessed by self- reports and observations and there are reliability and validity issues. Nonetheless, many studies have been conducted on attitudes to specific languages, language variation, language lessons, and the learning of a second language (Baker, 1992).

There is no single definition with which all psychologists would agree. Three fairly typical examples are taken from Gross (2001):

1. Attitude – a psychological term – is ‘... an evaluative disposition toward some object. It’s an evaluaton of something or someone along a continuum of like-to-dislike or favourable-to-unfavourable…’ (Zimbardo and Leippe, 1991, in Gross, 2001:350).

2. ‘The term attitude should be used to refer to a general, enduring positive or negative feeling about some person, object, or issue’ (Petty and Cacioppo, 1981, in Gross 2001:350).

3. ‘A learned orientation, or disposition, toward an object or situation, which provides a tendency to respond favourably or unfavourably to the object or situation…’ (Rokeach, 1968 in Gross, 2001:350).

In addition, the term ‘attitude’ in social science has come to mean a ‘posture of the mind’ (Oskamp, 1977:7). Attitudes can be expressed in various ways, i.e. with different words, different tonal inflections facial expressions and different degrees of intensity (Oskamp 1977:22). They also involve affect (emotion), cognition (belief), and behaviour (intent) which follows:

According to Rosenberg and Hovland (1960 in Gross, 2001:350), attitudes develop on a three-component model - affective, behavioural and cognitive.

a) The affective response exemplifies ‘...what a person feels about the attitude object, how favourably or unfavourably it is evaluated...’.

b) The cognitive response involves ‘...what a person believes the attitude object is like, objectively...’

c) The behavioural response shows ‘...how a person actually responds, or intends to respond, to the attitude object.’

In other words, by showing a person’s actual attitude, a person responds by showing his/her feeling towards a certain object (affective). Through this feeling, a person has already evaluated the object based on a person’s learning experience (evaluative) and then a person develops an opinion on it (cognitive). Therefore, a person acts on his/her intention through behaviour (behavourial). Thus, an attitude emerges.

This three-component model focuses on attitude structure rather than a simple definition (Stahlberg and Frey, 1988 in Gross, 2001:350). Most attitudes in individuals are a result of observational learning from their environment. This research may show that the attitude a person adopts towards writing may be a product of experience at home, at school or outside at work.

Furthermore, the link between attitude and behaviour exists but depends on situations that have influence, some of which is inconsistent (LaPiere, 1934 in Gross, 2001:353). For example, one cannot infer people’s attitudes simply by

observing their behaviour. Just because someone reads a great deal, one cannot assume that they enjoy reading. A person who is reading may not regard reading as a hobby. This makes sense if the person does not like reading, which explains this inconsistency.

Besides, this section from the field of psychology explains attitude in terms of the Theory of Reasoned Action. It is based on the assumption that people behave in a sensible manner taking into account all relevant information regarding the behaviour in question as well as considering the implication of their actions. This theory is designed to predict such behaviours that are considered under volitional control and help to explain their psychological determinants (Ajzen, 1985).

The Theory of Reasoned Action is concerned with predicting behaviour through intentions which is seen as the immediate precursor to behaviour as well as understanding people through the determinants of intentions. The theory suggests that a person’s intention to perform a given behaviour is a result of two basic determinants. The first determinant is the person’s positive or negative evaluation of performing the given behaviour; termed the ‘attitude

toward the behaviour’ (Ajzen, 1985; Penny, 1996; Maes and van Elderen,

1998 in Gross, 2001:163) and the second determinant is the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the given behaviour and this is termed the ‘subjective norm’ (Ajzen, 1985; Penny, 1996; Maes and van Elderen, 1998 in Gross, 2001:163). People are more likely to perform a given behaviour when they evaluate it positively and when they believe that key roleplayers in their lives think that they should perform that behaviour. (Ajzen, 1985; Gross, 2001.)

Attitude toward the behaviour is determined by the person’s salient beliefs about that behaviour; these beliefs that underlie a person’s attitude toward a behaviour are termed ‘behavioural beliefs’ (Ajzen, 1985; Penny, 1996; Maes and van Elderen, 1998 in Gross, 2001:163). Each salient behavioural belief links the behaviour with a specific outcome. The attitude toward the behaviour

is thus determined by the evaluation of each salient outcome and by the strength of these evaluations (Ajzen, 1985).

As explained by Baker (1992), the measurement of attitudes cannot be assessed directly. Because of this, it is necessary to find adequate attitude indicators that are based on the assumption that they can be measured by people’s beliefs or opinions about the attitude object (Stahlberg and Frey, 1988 in Gross 2001, 351). Most attitude scales depend on verbal reports and take the form of standardised statements which refer to the attitude being measured.

To find out whether a set of attitude items all represent the same or different attitude dimensions, ‘attitude scaling’ is undertaken (Bynner et al, 1972 in Mouton, 2001). There are a number of basic procedures developed by Thurstone, Likert, and Guttman (see Mouton, 2001:153-158; Gross, 2001:351-352). The research on attitude research also strongly recommends that the participants are interviewed by using open-ended questions (Bynner et al, 1972 in Mouton, 2001). Hence, a combination of Likert Scaling, a semi- structured interview and writing samples are used for this research.

Likert Scaling is used in quantitative research because the qualitative interview may not provide the relative strength of agreement intended by the research participants. Likert Scaling seems to address this limitation. The attitudinal items are written as statements, some positive and some negative. Likert Scaling calculates the average index score for those agreeing with each of the individual statements. For example, with five response categories, scores of 1 to 5 are used. A score of 1 is assigned to ‘strongly agree’ whereas a score of 5 is to ‘strongly disagree’. This score is used to determine the relative strength of different items, that is, to measure how strongly the research participants feel about reading and writing (Babbie and Mouton, 2001:154). Since this research does not generate enough data for quantification, the Likert Scale is only used to provide an additional information on the interview data.

All the data for this research was collected during a semi-structured interview with each research participant. Semi-structured interviews are conducted within a fairly open framework, which allows for focused conversational two- way communication (Coolican, 2006:278). This technique can be used to both give and receive information. In other words, it allows the conversation to flow where it needs to in order to deal with issues as opposed to cutting off the research participants as they drift from the topic (as is the practice in structured interviews). It seems that the semi-structured interview is more appropriate for capturing the authentic ‘voice’ and viewpoints of the research participants (Coolican, 2006:90). No new questions are designed ahead of time. Most questions are created before the interview allowing both the research participants and the researcher the flexibility to pursue finer details and discuss issues (Coolican, 2006:87). For the purposes of this research, the main question to be used in the semi-structured interviews is:

Tell me the story of how you learnt to write in English and what writing you do now.

Further questions, which were used to expand on this question during the interviews if necessary, can be found in Appendix C.

Since SASL is the natural language of Deaf people, it is important to use their language for the interviews. Babbie and Mouton (2001:249) explain that since there are “… relatively low levels of literacy of the South African population, face-to-face interviews are the most common method…” for research. This also applies to the research participants of this research. There are sign (word) variations among different research participants that might have affected the data analysis, but, because I am a first language user of SASL, I had a very little problem understanding sign variations. When signs were not understood or clear, I checked with the research participants during and after interviews for verification.

Also, because SASL is a visual language and requires no voice, all the interviews were recorded on video camera. SASL requires eye contact as part of grammar as well as cultural etiquette and it was therefore not appropriate

for me to break eye contact to take notes. It is considered rude in Deaf culture. In order to overcome this, recording on video camera is therefore essential and the best option. However, it was thought that a few research participants would prefer not to be filmed for the sake of their anonymity. I would have then explained that note-taking takes time and may make the interview feel unnatural, but would proceed in this mode. Every research participant consented to being filmed.

The interviews were all transcribed and analysed. Both word for word transcription was done as well as a translation from SASL to English. I watched the signed interviews on the computer monitor and directly transcribed what was being said by glossing on computer (Appendix J). Transcribing is ‘translation that closely adheres to the wording and construction of the source text’ (www.trans-k.co.uk/glossary.htm1). As explained in Footnote No. 9, glossing is used to transcribe signs into English words (in upper case alphabetic letters) closest to the meaning of the signs. Because glossed signs can be very far from conveying the true meaning, I then translated into more accurate English structure in order for English readers to understand what the research participants are saying (Appendix K). Translating is ‘the act of rendering written text from one language into another – in which more emphasis is given to the overall meaning of the text than to the exact wording’ (www.trans-k.co.uk/glossary.html).

For the reason that some research participants may have low levels of literacy and feel ambivalent about reading and writing, I assisted them with completing the Likert Scale by explaining the items in SASL during the interview and by ticking off the correct box when receiving their responses.

Finally, the research participants were given a writing sheet and asked to write a short paragraph. It was thought that a few participants might refuse to write. This refusal would also constitute data reflecting their attitude to writing. Only two research participants refused to write. A linguistic analysis of all writing samples will be done in order to understand and explain the research participants’ writing ability in relation to Halliday’s speech-writing continuum.

During this interview, the procedure was as follows:

1. The consent forms were explained as required by the University Ethics Committees and research participants were requested to sign them. (Appendixes A, B, C and D.)

2. The relevant biographical information from research participants (see appendix E ) was obtained via signing and filling in the relevant forms by the researcher.

3. The research participants were assisted with completing the Likert Scale (see appendix F). The given boxes which determine how strongly they feel about their reading and writing skills were ticked by the researcher in accordance with their responses.

4. The research participants were interviewed on video camera about their growing up with reading and writing (see appendix G). The average duration of each interview was twenty minutes.

5. The research participants were requested to produce a piece of writing. They were each asked to write a short paragraph to describe what they do for a living, and what writing they have to do for work/tasks in the workplace/home (see appendixes H and I).