METHODOLOGY CHAPTER 111

Transcription

1 CHAPTER 111 METHODOLOGY Method Adopted for the Study Tools Used for the Study Population and Sample Consolidation and Processing of Data Statistical Techniques Adopted References

2 CHAPTER Ill METHODOLOGY "Educational research methods can be categorised on the basis of end results or goals, data gathering technique, method of data processing, degree of control exercised, approach, source of the data, and a number of other cons~derations" (Barr, 1960). In order to tackle any problem, the proper method or methods should be selected in advance. "The decision about the method depends upon the nature of the problem selected and the kind of data necessary for its solution" (Sukhia, 1974). The validity and the reliability of the findings depend upon the method adopted and hence methodology occupies a very important place in any type of research. 3.1 METHOD ADOPTED FOR THE STUDY Since this study attempts to bring out relevant details from students, teachers and parents regarding various practices adopted and expected outcomes of the systems of internal assessment in educational institutions. Normative Survey method was found appropriate for this study. The Normative Survey Method While historical studies search, describe and interpret what existed in the past, there are other kinds of investigations which study, describe and interpret what exists at present. The literature of such investigations includes expressions like 'Descriptive Survey'. 'Normative

3 45. Methodology Survey' IS generally used for the type of research that attempts to find out that normal or typical condition or practice at the present time. The normative survey is the most commonly used approach to solve educational problems. It is followed in studying local as well as state, national and international aspects of education. It involves interpretation, comparison, measurement, classification and generalisation all directed towards a proper understanding and solution of significant educational problems. The type of information the normative survey method procures is in wide demand and is capable of rendering important service because (Sen, 1968): It determines the present trends and solves current practical problems It secures historical perspective through a series of cross-sectional pictures of similar conditions at different times It suggests the course of future developments It helps to fashion many of the tools with which we do research It contributes to the advancement of knowledge It provides the background and data from which many more refined laboratory or controlled studies of casual relations aremade. 3.2 TOOLS USED FOR THE STUDY A suitable research tool contributes to the validity of the findings of any research study. The success of any research study depends largely on

4 46 Methodology the nature of tools used. Factual materials unknown so far are necessary for every study. They can be obtained from any sources, direct or indirect. It is necessary to adopt a systematic procedure to collect essential data. For collecting new and unknown data required for the study of any problem, various devices are made use of and the selection of such devices is of vital importance for any successful research. Different and appropriate tools are to be used for collecting various kinds of information for assorted purpose. The researcher uses one or more of the tools in combination for this purpose. Since it is necessary for the study to gather the needed information from students and teachers regarding the nature and practice of internal assessment at present, two questionnaires were prepared, one for teachers and another for students. An opinionnaire was also prepared, common for students, teachers and the parents of those students studying in those educational institutions where the system of internal assessment is practised. The Questionnaire A questionnaire is a "data gathering instrument, through which respondents answer question or respond to statements in writing" (Best and Kahn, 1996) It is a device for securing factual information about existing conditions. Questionnaire administered personally to the respondents have a number of advantages Best and Kahn (1996) remarks,?he person

5 47 Methodology administering the instrument has an opportunity to establish rapport, explain the purpose of the study and explain the meaning of items that may not be clear". A questionnaire is used when factual information is desired. When opinions rather than facts are desired, an opinionnaire or attitude scale is used. When questionnaires are administered to groups of individuals, they have got a number of advantages The person who administers the tool has an opportunity to establish rapport, explain the purpose of the study, and explain the meaning of items that may not be clear. Anyhow, individuals who have the desired information cannot always be contacted personally without spending a great deal of time and money for travel. It is in such situations that the mailed questionnaire becomes useful. The careful preparation of a good questionnaire takes a great amount of time and hard work. Mainly two types of items are included in the questionnaire. 'Closed type' and 'Open type'. Closed type items are easy and take little time to respond to. They keep the respondent on the subject and are relatively objective. At the same time, 'open type' items call for a free response in the respondent's own words. Moreover, no clues are provided here. Cons~dering the benefits of both these types, a combination of these two types of items was used in the questionnaire prepared for this investigation

6 48 - -~ - - Methodology Then the investigator met experts in the field of internal assessment, college teachers and students where the system of internal assessment is practised and discussed the problem with them. These discussions helped the ~nvestigator to modify the items and further to prepare suitable items for the questionnaire. Thus two draft questionnaires, one consisting of 30 items for students and another consisting of 32 items for teachers were prepared. They were submitted to experts in the field for getting their suggestions for improvement. Moreover, teachers in those institutions where the system of internal assessment is practised and students were interviewed in this regard and their opinions were also noted. According to their suggestions, some items were modified and some others were rejected. Thus the final form of the questionnaires was prepared with 20 items in Part A and 5 secttons in Part B for the teachers' questionnaire and 20 items in Part A and 6 sections in Part B for the students' questionnaire. The final form of the questionnaire to teachers and students are given in Appendix I and II respectively. Questionnaire for Teachers The final form of the questionnaire for teachers consists of two parts. Part A and Part 6. Part A of the questionnaire consists 20 items which seeks the op~nion of teachers regarding the various aspects of internal assessment Teachers' opinion regarding the present system of assessment is collected through the first four items in this questionnaire. The items 5 to 10

7 Methodology try to find out their choice towards the system of internal assessment. The personlpersons suitable for making internal assessment are measured through the terns 11 and 12. The items 13 to 17 intend to measure the qualities of internal assessment when it IS implemented. The items 18 to 20 try to find out from among teachers whether the system had got any negative characteristics. Part B consists of 5 sections to elicit the views of teachers on the percentage of marks to be given for internal assessment and external examination, the personlpersons entitled to do the assessment, their suggestions for making the system of internal assessment more reliable and acceptable, the aspects to be considered to assess the students internally, and finally on their opinion about the extent of consideration for taking these aspects for internal assessment. Questionnaire for Students The questionnaire for students also consists of two parts- Part A and Part B In Part A 20 items were included. Items 1 to 3 were included to study the oplnion of students regarding the conventional system of examination 'The purpose of including items 4 to 6 was to find out their preference towards the implementation of internal assessment. ltems 7 to 10 were included in the questionnaire to test the opinions of students regarding some qualities of internal assessment. ltems 11 to 14 envisage the opinion of students regarding their own teachers evaluating them, ltems 15 to 20 take

8 Methodology into conslderatron the feasibility of the system of internal assessment in educational ~nstitutions In part B of the questionnaire consisting of 6 sections, the first one seeks the opin~on from stuaents regarding the nature of scholastic assessment The second item seeks the opinion of students about the percentage of marks to be given to internal assessment as well as external examination. The third item in this section tries to find out the personlpersons to be entrusted with the duty of internal assessment in educational institutions. The fourth item envisages the choice of students on aspects to be considered for internal assessment. The last two sections (V and VI) seek from the students their arguments for and against the system of internal assessment in educational institutions. Administration of the Questionnaire for Teachers and Students The investigator personally visited the different educational institutions selected for the study. met the teachers and students and explained to them the purpose of the study. Then the questionnaires were distributed to them and after answering they were collected back. Ninety seven questionnaires were given to the teachers personally and 35 of them were posted. Out of the 114 quest~onnaires which were returned. 104 were selected after careful scrutiny. The students' questionnaires were administered in person. A total of 376 questionnaires were distributed among students and 312 questionnaires which were complete in every respect were selected.

9 51 Methodology Opinionnaire for Teachers, Students and Parents An information form that tries to measure the attitude or belief of an individual is known as opinionnaire (Best and Kahn, 1997). Even behaviour itself cannot always be a true indication of attitude. Even though there is no clear method of describing and measuring attitude, the description and measurement of opinion, in majority of instances, may be closely related to people's feelings or attitudes. As a preliminary step for making the opinionnaire, a list of 62 statements on the various aspects of internal assessment was prepared and it was submitted to experts for necessary modification (The list of experts selected for the study is given in Appendix V). Based on their suggestions, some items were modified and some were deleted. An opinionnaire for pilot study consisting of 42 statements was prepared (Appendix Ill). This was administered to a sample of 402 teachers, students and parents. The respondents were requested to answer each item in terms of their agreementldisagreernent by putting a tick mark in any one of the five columns, strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree and strongly disagree. The answer sheets were then collected and scoring was done. For scoring the opinionnaire, a score of 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 was given to category SA, A U, D, and SD for a positive statement and a score of I, 2, 3, 4, and 5 was given to the category SA, A, U, D and SD for a negative statement.

10 ~ Methodology ltem Analysis opinionnaire, ltem analysis was done to select suitable items for the final The total score obtained for each respondent (parentlteacheristudent) was calc~~lated and the response sheets were arranged in the order of magnitude of the total scores. Then the highest 27 percent and the lowest 27 percent were taken out for analysis since 27 percent provides the best compromise between two desirable and inconsistent aims - (i) to make extreme groups as large as possible and (ii) to make extreme groups as different as possible. Out of the 402 response sheets obtained, 370 response sheets were selected for item analysis. The 370 response sheets were arranged in the descending order of the total scores. The top 27 percent (the top 100) and the bottom 27 percent (the bottom 100) response sheets from each section were used as extreme groups for item analysis. The scores obtained for each item in these extreme groups were used for calculating the discriminating power of each item. The discriminating power was obtained by calculating the critical ratio 't' using the formula (Edwards, 1957, p.153).

11 Methodology (Edwards, 1957, p.153) where - XH = the score for a given individual for a given statement in the high group XH = the mean score of the high group for a given statement - XL = score of a given individual for a given statement in the low group XL = the mean scores of the low group for a given statement n = number of subjects in the criterion group presented in Table 3.1 The 't' values calculated for the items in the opinionnaire are

12 . ~ Methodology Table 3.1 't' value calculated for the items in the Opinionnaire Number : Number 't' value ltem Number 't' value ~- ~~ ' " ~- ~ L~- ~ ~. * indicates selected items For the preparation of the final opinionnaire, items with 't' value equal to or greater than 1.75 were selected as the value of 't' which is a measure of the extent to which a given statement differentiates between the high and low group. In the present study, 30 items having 't' values greater 1.75 were selected from the opinionnaire for final administration

13 Methodology Reliability of the Opinionnaire In the present study, the reliability coefficient of the opinionnaire for teachers, students and parents was calculated using split-half method. The scores obtained for odd and even numbered items in the attitude scale were calculated and the coeff~c~ent of correlation 'r' between two sets of scores was calculated using Pearson's Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation (Garrett, 1976). Cx'y' r N Cx Cy ox' cy' r - correlation coefficient cy = correlation in units of interval for the y-variable CX - correlation in units of interval for the x-variable ox1 = standard deviation of the x variable uy' = standard deviation of the y variable N - Number of cases in the sample The reliability coefficient of the whole test was computed using Spearman-Brown Prophecy formula Where K - 2 r I +r R = Reliability coefficient of the whole test r = Reliability coefficient of the half test

14 56 - Methodology The reliability coefficient of the opinionnaire was found to be This ~nd~cates that the opinionnaire is highly reliable. Validity. "Validity is that quality of the tools used or procedure that enables to measure what it is supposed to measure" (Best & Kahn, 1999). Validity of a tool lies mainly in the procedure adopted for constructing it. The opinionnaire was constructed by taking care to cover all the aspects relating to internal assessment. Moreover, it was submitted to experts for necessary modification and the draft scale was item analysed and only the items which have the required discriminating power have been selected. Thus, the opinionnaire can be considered valid and reliable. Administration of the Final Form of the Opinionnaire for Teachers, Students and Parents The final form of the opinionnaire consisting of 30 items was administered to teachers (N = 278), students (N = 435) and parents (N = 122). From these, 264 opinionnaires were collected back from teachers, 418 from students and 111 from parents. Out of these, 254 opinionnaires of teachers. 406 of students and 102 of parents were selected as the final sample which were complete in every respect. For this, 20 educational institutions were selected where the system of internal assessment is practised from Revenue districts of Kerala, namely, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam. Ernakulam, Thrissur and Kozhikode. The districts selected for the study included south,

15 -..~ 57 - Methodology north and the middle area of Kerala state. The institutions selected included Medical colleges, Engineering colleges, Polytechnics, Paramedical institutions and Teacher education institutions (training colleges). The final form of the opinionnaire 1s given in Appendix IV 3.3 POPULATION AND SAMPLE Population Population in statistics means, the entire set of entities or events that are relevant to the subject of enquiry. Usually the characteristics of the population have to be inferred from sample (Rowntree, 1981). The population for the present study consists of the teachers and students of the educational institutions of Kerala where the system of internal assessment is being practised. A representative sample of parents whose children are studying in that category of educational institutions which is mentioned elsewhere is also included in this study. Sample Sample is the representative group of the population. Walker and Lev (1965) pointed out that the decisions as to the number of cases and that methods by which they shall be collected, is a crucial one because the scope for generalisation depends on how satisfactorily this problem is solved. Hence, the problem of proper sampling in terms of propriety of representativeness was considered w~th all its seriousness.

16 58 -- Methodology Sampling is an integral part of the research where the method adopted is survey. Sampling stands for the process by which relatively small number of ind~viduals or measures of individuals, objects or events are selected or analysed in order to find out something about the entire population or universe from which it was selected. "A good sample of a population is the one which would reproduce the characteristics of the population within great accuracy" (Cornell, 1960). In the present study, the theories of sampling were followed to get a true representative sample of the population under study. According to Cochran (1 959:) "in every branch of science we lack resources to study more than a frequent of the phenomena that might advance our knowledge". To obtain a sample representative of its population, different techniques have been employed. Random sampling, stratified sampling, individual sarnpling and purposive sarnpling are only few of them. Random sampling is a device in which every single unit of the population has an equal chance of being selected. Stratified sampling ensures representativeness in selecting a sample from a population composed of subgroups of different types. Stratified sampling was found suitable for this study The population of this study includes all the students studying in those educational institutions of Kerala where the system of internal assessment is followed the parents of those students who study in such

17 Methodology institutions and the teachers who are teaching in these institutions. A sample of 406 students, 254 teachers and 102 parents were selected for the administration of the opinionnaire and a sample of 104 teachers and 312 students were selected for the questionnaire by the stratified sampling procedure from Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur and Kozhikode districts for the study. Students (both male and female) pursuing different courses of study in different types of educational institutions were adequately represented in the sample. Due representation was given to teachers of both sex working in different types of institutions as well as adequate representation was also given to parentslguardians of the students studying in such institutions. Due representation was also given to government, a~ded and unaided institutions as well as educational institutions situated in rural and urban areas. The list of institutions selected for the study is given as Appendix I. The details of sample selected for the study is given below: Sample Details of Teachers' and Students' Questionnaire Details of the sample selected to administer the questionnaires for students and teachers are given in Table 3.2.

18 ~ Methodology Table 3.2 Details of the Questionnaire for Teachers and Students Distributed, Collected and Selected Teachers students- T-- ~otal--l ' t -, Tr~vandrum Kottayam,. ~~~~~,~--~ ~ ~ i i I Total I 1 Kozh~kode 1 I-.-- ~ selected is glven below The course category wise details of sample of questionnaire

19 61 Methodology Table 3.3 Course Category wise Details of Sample of Questionnaire for Teachers and Students I I I Course categorv I I ~ ~ TVM - Thiruvananthapuram; KTM - Kottayam; EKM - Ernakulam; TCR- Thrissur; KZKD- Kozhikode The break up of the sample based on locality and management of all institutions selected for the questionnaire for teachers and students are given below:

20 62 -- Methodology Table 3.4 Break up of the Sample based Locality and Management and Sex I. ; Teachers Sample for the Opinionnaire to Teachers, Students and Parents The details of the sample of the opinionnaire for teachers, students are parents are given in the following tables:

21 63 Methodology Table 3.5 Sample Details of Opinionnaire Distributed, Collected and Selected Teachers-7-St- Parents Total Total selected is given below. The course category wise details of sample of opinionnaire

22 - Methodology

23 -,~ ~~ Methodology The break up of the sample selected based on locality and management of the institution for the opinionnaire to teachers, students are parents are given below: I Trivandrum 1 Kottayam 1, I i - ~ ~.,. No. ~ t~p- Ernakulam 2. Table 3.7 Break up of the Sample of Opinionnaire based on Locality, Management and Sex Respondents 1 Urban Rural 1 Govt Students... - i 3 Parents 1 Teachers - Students *, Thrissur ) ~ 1 3 Parents 13 Teachers Students Parents Teachers Students Parents Aided I Unaided &I I Kozhikode Parents 20 1 Total-Teachers ( 127 / 127 / Total -Students / 45 / Total -Parents 163 / below: The representation of the sample based on institution is given

24

25 67 Methodology 3.4 CONSOLIDATION AND PROCESSING OF DATA The respondents of the questionnaires and opinionnaire were classified on the basis of sex, locality (rural or urban) and management of the institutions - government, private and unaided. The data collected were tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis using appropriate statistical techniques. 3.5 STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES ADOPTED The major statistical techniques adopted in the present study are the following (Garrett, 1976): 1. Chi-square test of significance to find out the significance of difference in the responses of teachers and students. The formula is: X2 = Z in which f, = frequency of occurrence of observed facts f, = expected frequency of occurrence The difference between observed and expected frequencies are squared and divided by the expected number in each case, and the sum of these quotients is XZ. 2. Two-ta~led test of srgnificance for difference between percentage to find out whether the teachers and students differ significantly based on subsamples

26 68 Methodology Where. N?Pi+ NZPZ P N1+ N2 Q P; N 1 N 2 PI p2 - Total sample of the first group - Total sample of the second group - Percentage of the first group; - Percentage of the second group. 3. Two-tailed test of significance for difference between means to find out whether there is any significant difference in the opinion of teachers, students and parents. Where M, - arithmetic mean of the first group M2 - arithmetic mean of the second group CT - I Standard deviation of the first group m2 - Standard deviation of the second group N 1 N2 - Total number of the first group - Total number of the second group.

27 69 - Methodology References 1. Barr, A.S., Davis, R.A., and Johnson, V. (1953). Educational research and appraisal. New York J.B. Lippincott Company, p Barr, Arvil, S. (1960). Research method. Encyclopaedia of education research. New York: Macmillan, pp Best, J.W., & Kahn, J.V. (1999). Research in education flh ed.). New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited. 4. Cochran, William G. (1959). Sampling techniques. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, p.1. 5 Cornell, Francis G (1960). Sampling method. New York: Macmillan, p Edwards, Allen L. (1957). Techniques of attitude scale construction. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, Inc. 7. Garrett, H. E (1 976). Statistics in psychology and education. Bombay: Vakils. Feffer and Simons Ltd. 8. Rowntree, Dereck (1981). A dictionary of education. London: Harper and Row Publishers. 9. Sen, A K. (1968) Models of educational evaluation and their applications. New York. UN Centre for Development Planning. 10. Sukhia, S.P., Mehrotra, P.V., and Mehrotra, R.N. (1974). Elements of educational research. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt. Ltd., pp Walker. H.M., and Lev, Joseph (1965). Statistical inference. Calcutta: Oxford and IBH Publishing Company.