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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

C. Data Collection

This study focuses on the qualitative aspects of the teaching experiments.

Therefore, most of the data collected in the teaching experiment is qualitative data. Moreover, we use different kind of data to assist the analysis of the teaching experiments. There are four types of data in this study: 1. Classroom observations, 2. Students’ written works, 3. Interviews 4. Pretest and posttest.

These data are collected in the first two phases: preparation phase, preliminary teaching experiment, and teaching experiment.

1. Preparation phase

In this phase, we conduct a classroom observation, interviews with the teacher and the students, and a pretest. The observation is also to gather data of students’ experiences and facility in the school. Furthermore, it also aims to know the culture of the class in the regular mathematics teaching and learning process. This teaching and learning culture is called social norms

and socio-mathematical norm (Yackel & Cobb, 1996). To do this, some parts of the regular lesson will be videotaped and combined with the field notes from the observer. The topic for the observation can be seen in Appendix 1. To further confirm how the students usually learn mathematics, we also did an interview with the teacher. This interview is to identify students’ experiences, prior knowledge and struggles regarding the topic. In addition, during the interview, we also examine teacher beliefs and her/his educational background to determine what kind of supports the teacher have provided and need to be conduct the teaching experiment. The list of topics for the interview with the teacher can be seen in Appendix 1.

Lastly, in this phase, we conduct a pretest for the students. The aim is to have an insight of their prior knowledge regarding the topic and how far their spatial ability on understanding 3D representation. The pretest consists of 3 problems with different goals and purposes. The first problem is about finding the position of objects in the pictures with respect to the position of the other object. The goal is to investigate students’ sense of direction. The second one is about determining the photo of the objects if the position of the camera is given. The purpose is to examine students’ awareness of spatial orientation. The last problem is about determining the shape of a building blocks if they are viewed from the side. This problem is to further investigate students’ ability to recognize the shape of an objects based on its distant representation. The pretest form can be found in Appendix 1 of this document.

2. Preliminary teaching experiment

As mentioned in the previous section, a preliminary teaching experiment only employed six students of class 3B. The researcher will the teacher and the observer. In addition, one more observer is employed to help the researcher documenting the process. The aim is to test the elaborated HLT as part of the effort to improve the HLT before the teaching experiment. During this phase, we did classroom observations by making videotapes and field notes during the lessons. In addition, students’ written works are also collected to be examined. Students’ written works is collected from student worksheet for each lesson. The worksheet can be found in Appendix 1 of this document. The result will be used to improve the HLT and the activities before the activities are conducted in the teaching experiment.

3. Teaching experiment

Teaching experiment involves 24 3rd-grader students and a regular teacher of the class. Students worked in small groups of 4-5 students. In this teaching experiment, the researcher in this occasion will be the observer to see the activity of the students in the focus group. Another observer is also employed to record the activity of the other groups during the teaching experiment. All the activities of the focus group are videotaped and analyzed as part of the classroom observation. All the students’ written works are also gathered to be examined. In addition, the observer also has

small interviews with the students in between the observation to clarify what the students did.

Finally, after all the lessons are done, we conduct a posttest as a complementary to all the data we have gathered. This posttest will be held in the same day after the teaching experiment ended. The content of the posttest is similar to the pretest but the questions are increased. In addition, the first problem is not included since the goal of the first question is to investigate students’ prior knowledge. As the replacement for this first problem, we add one more problem about building an object based on given standard views. The posttest form can be found in Appendix 1.

4. Validity and reliability of data collection

To improve the validity of the data collection, all the teaching material such as problems, worksheets, and the sequence, are consulted to some experts and have been used in another similar studies (Revine et al., 2010;

Risma et al., 2013). Before conducting the teaching experiment, there is also preliminary teaching experiment to check and improve the HLT and the activities. This study also employs many types of data to confirm and support the findings. The use of many kinds of data contributes to the validity of the data collection. There are three types of data: 1) Classroom observations, 2) Students’ written works, and 3) Interviews. The classroom observations and the interviews are registered by videotapes and audiotapes to increase the reliability of the data. This is because compared to the field notes, videotaping and audiotaping illustrates the original learning

activities. Field notes sometimes can carry observer tendency that lead to miss interpretation of the situation.