T. C. Dokuz eylüL ÜNİversitesi EĞİTİm biLİmleri enstiTÜSÜ yabanci diller eğİTİMİ anabiLİm dali

3. 4.  Data Collecting Instruments 

 

In this research, for collecting data, oral interview with open-ended questions 

as qualitative and a questionnaire as quantitative research instruments are used. The 

participants were asked to respond to the questionnaire  statements distributed to 

them. While preparing the questionnaire statements, in two intermediate level 

undergraduate English preparatory classes of Dokuz Eylul University, the School of 

Foreign Languages, I told the students “If you were a researcher who is going to 

have a research about speaking skill of the students, which questions would you 

prepare for the questionnaire?”, and I wanted them to create their own questions. I 

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took all of them, eliminated the irrelevant ones, and with the ones I could use I made 

the questionnaire statements. 

 

There are two parts in the questionnaire. First, personal information part 

which consists of six items; university, department, level of English, gender, the 

education of parents and English mark in autumn. Second, 34 questionnaire 

statements. These statements are written in Turkish in case the students 

misunderstand them. While preparing the Turkish statements, I consulted with a 

Turkish teacher for analyzing the grammar and the meaning of the statements and a 

psychologist whether the students can perceive the meaning I wanted to express. 

 

In the questionnaire a five-point Likert - Type scale has been used to 

determine the level of agreement or disagreement of the participants on each 

statement. The participants have responded to each statement by deciding whether 

they  strongly agree, mostly agree, partially agree, undecided, and disagree , and 

afterwards mark the item that they think best describes their preference. 

 

The pilot study  of the questionnaire for reliability was conducted with 150 

students. However, 14 students have been disregarded thus, 136 students’ 

questionnaire responses were used for reliability. In the pilot study, since Corrected 

Item – Total Correlation of 4 of 34 items were under 0,20, they were take out of the 

questionnaire and the statements were limited with 30 items. Afterwards, the findings 

of this pilot study have indicated that the correlation of Alpha Reliability Coefficient 

was 0,85. 

 

As I stated in 3.2., 454 students from 20 classes participated in this research. 

From each class two students were chosen at random for the oral interview; in other 

words, totally 40 students were interviewed.  

 

As Nunan (1992) suggests, the oral interview had two steps. Before the 

interview begins, in pre-interview part, briefing and explanation took place. I 

explained the nature and the purpose of the research and how their responses will 

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affect the result. Also, I answered the questions they had. The second step was 

questioning. Each interviewee was interviewed alone. As Walker, cited in Nunan 

(1992) states, the physical positioning of the interviewer and the interviewee were 

considered. I chose sitting side – by – side instead of face – to – face since it “can 

convey the message that the interaction is meant to be cooperative rather than 

confrontational” (Walker, cited in Nunan 1992: 152). As the recording device, I 

preferred note – taking.