3.0 Introduction

The purpose of the study is to analyse the effects of instructing self-questioning in

reading literary texts. This chapter is to describe the research methodology covering the

research design, sample, method of data collection as well as method of data analysis. The

research design is specifically chosen to achieve the purpose and the objectives of the

study.

3.1 Research Design

This study uses quantitative survey in which numerical data is used to evaluate and

answer the research questions. The design used is experimental research, specifically

quasi-experimental whereby the researcher intended to study the effects of self-questioning

approach in reading activities on students’ level of comprehension. Another research design

namely survey design is employed to gather data to investigate the reading strategies

applied by the students. The data was gathered at one point of time only.

3.2 Population & Sample

The target population for this study is Form 4 students from Sekolah Seri Puteri,

Cyberjaya. Out of over 170 Form 2 students population in the school, 119 of them are

chosen as samples to participate in the study. The number of samples chosen according to

population given is as referred to a tabulated data on determining sample size by Krejcie &

Morgan (1970). Students of this school are selected for this study due to their excellence in

academic and co-curricular performance which earned them Sekolah Berprestasi Tinggi

(SBT) status. Simple random sampling is used to gather samples for this research.

3.3 Instruments

The instruments used for this study are questionnaire, document analysis and tests.

The questions for questionnaire are adapted from Survey Of Reading Strategies (SORS) by

Kouider Mokhtari and Ravi Sheorey, 2002 and the Likert scale from level 1: Never to level 5:

Always is provided for the participants to rate themselves. This questionnaire has 30

questions and the results are calculated from the average of subscales from each strategy

namely Global Reading Strategies, Problem Solving Strategies and Support Reading

Strategies.

On the other hand, the second instrument for this research is a short story Once

Upon A Time by Nadine Gordimer and an activity of listing questions log for participants

while they are reading the given short story. The listed questions will be analysed and

categorized into four types of questions analysis which are textually explicit, textually implicit,

scripturally implicit and linguistic.

Lastly, the tests comprised of pre-test and post-test which are mainly comprehensive

and analytical questions based on the short story selected for this research. There are 10

questions all together with eight multiple-choice questions and two short-answer questions.

The purpose of the test is to analyse the improvement in comprehension of the selected text

from before to after reading the text.

3.4 Intervention

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3.5 Data Collection

Approval to conduct this research is granted from the school administration of

Sekolah Seri Puteri, Cyberjaya. After the permission is given, the teacher-on duty assembles

random 119 Form 4 students to participate the study. The questionnaires are then

distributed to the students in their respective classrooms. They are particularly informed

about the purpose and importance for the questionnaire to be completed. They were also

explained that it is optionally confidential as they need not to write their full names on the

questionnaire. The questionnaires are collected after they have been answered within an

hour. The collected questionnaires were then analysed.

Student participants are also required to attend a class to introduce them to

the self-questioning strategies for reading activities. Before hence, they are given a pre-test

comprehension question on the chosen literary text. In this class, they are explained and

trained to employ the targeted strategies in their reading practices. After the class is over,

students are given post-test to evaluate their improved comprehension skills or otherwise as

determined.

3.6 Data Analysis

The first research question is descriptively analysed using SPSS to gather the results

from questionnaire on students’ strategies used when they are reading literary texts. The

questionnaire has only two sections which are 1) Section A: Demographic and 2) Section B:

Student’s Opinions.

In order to address the second research question, the frequency of each question

type (i.e. scripturally implicit, textually implicit, textually explicit, linguistic and

miscomprehension) questions is calculated for each of the literary texts assigned to the

participants.

Lastly for the third research question, a Paired t-test was applied in order to examine

whether the difference between the means of the participants’ pre-test and post-test scores

are statistically significant. To this end, SPSS (The Statistical Package of Social Sciences)

was employed.

The following table demonstrates the methods of data analysis alongside the

instruments used to evaluate the objectives of this research.

Research Questions Instruments Analysis

What are the reading strategies employed by the

students in their reading activities?

QuestionnaireSurvey of Reading Strategies

(SORS)

Inventory

How does self-questioning reading strategies affect

students’ questioning skills?

Document AnalysisDubravac & Dalle’s Model of

Questions

Inventory

How does self-questioning reading strategies affect

students’ reading comprehension?

Tests SPSSPaired T-test