CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design

This research will be conducted by using descriptive-qualitative design.

(Denzin and Lincoln, 2005) as cited in (Aspers and Corte, 2019) states that qualitative

research as multimethod in focus, involving an analytical, naturalistic methodology

which makes researchers study things in their natural environments, attempting to

make sense of, or define, or experience in terms of the implications people bring to

them. (Nassaji, 2015) states that the aim of descriptive research is to explain a

phenomenon and its characteristics. It also involved to kind of ‘what’ rather than

‘how’ or ‘why’ something has happened which relate to the research questions in this

study: What are the types of Theme and the types of Thematic Progression pattern

found in International Journal Abstracts.

Furthermore, this research will be focused on textual analysis because the

researcher analyze the types of theme and thematic progression patterns that found in

the abstracts which means analyzing the structure. As cited in (Given, 2008), textual

analysis is a technique in analyzing the data that consider the content and meaning of

texts or the structure and discourse.

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3.2 Data of the Research

(Miles, Huberman, and Saldana, 2014) states that “The source of qualitative

data are collected and analyzed from observations, interviews, documents, and

artifacts”. Thus, the data source of this study is abstracts in international journal

articles published in SAGE Journals website. Documents as the data source are

suitable to be categorized to collect information of the data in this research, the types

of theme and thematic progression patterns.

3.3 Technique of Data Collection

To get the data in this research, this study using purposive sampling as the

constraints among a lot of journals in the site. Based on (Patton, 1987, 1990) as cited

in (Johnson and Christensen, 2014) describe the term purposive sampling as data that

will be chosen by the researcher to gather the information needed related to the

study’s research questions. Thus, the first criteria are using ‘teaching’ and ‘english’ as

its keywords. Moreover, it should be published by Language Teaching Research and

RELC Journal around 2019-2021.

The texts will be analyzed based on types of theme by Halliday and thematic

progression pattern by Paltridge. Collections of selected Journal abstracts will be

analyze as the data analysis.

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3.4 Technique of Data Analysis

In order to analyze the thematic progression patterns in international journal

abstracts, there will be 3 steps. According to (Miles et al, 2014), they states that data

analysis consist of 3 phases; data condensation, data display, and conclusion

drawing/verification. In this research, these steps will be applied by each abstract.

1. Data Condensation

Data condensation aims at focusing and simplifying the data that appear in the

document (Miles et al, 2014). Firstly, the researcher read the text frequently to get

utmost understanding and interpretation to the data. Afterwards, the researcher

segmenting the text into clauses. After that, the researcher identifying theme and

rheme by giving the code ‘T’ as theme and ‘R’ as rheme in a table by each clause as

follows:

Table 3.1 Example of Theme and Rheme for Data Condensation

ln particular, this article reviews stakeholders’ attitudes

towards the implementation of
translanguaging in foreign language
classroom settings.
Theme Rheme

Fourth, the researcher classify the types of each theme by adding a new column

and/or row in the table. Then, explain the result into a text.

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Table 3.2 Example of Theme 3 for Data Condensation

ln particular, this article reviews stakeholders’ attitudes towards the

implementation of translanguaging in
foreign language classroom settings.
Textual Topical Rheme
Theme

In the third clause, ‘this article’ as the topical theme. The textual theme ‘in particular’
as indication of what the article about in short.

Table 3.3 Example of Theme 4 for Data Condensation

lt is found that stakeholders generally hold positive

attitudes towards translanguaging practices in
various ELT contexts.

Topical Rheme
Theme

The fourth clause with “it” which refers to the “reviews stakeholders’ attitudes
towards the implementation of translanguaging in foreign language classroom
settings.”

Fifth, the researcher draw and classify the thematic progression pattern by seeing

the table. Then, explain the result into a text. As illustrated below:

T3 R3

T4 R4

Figure 3.1 Example of linier/zig-zag theme pattern for Data Condensation

lt can be seen the types of thematic progression used is the linier/zig-zag pattern. As

illustrated in theme 4 “it” which refers to rheme 3 “reviews stakeholders’ attitudes

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towards the implementation of translanguaging in foreign language classroom

settings.”

2. Data Display

(Miles et al, 2014) states that a data display is commonly an arranged and shorten

collection of information that can be drawn the conclusion from it. In this study, there

will be two tables which represented the two research questions. As follows:

Table 3.4 Illustrated table of types of theme for Data Display

Abstract Topical Textual Interpersonal Total

Theme Theme Theme
Abstract 1 … … … …
Abstract 2 … … … …
Et seq … … … …

Table 3.5 Illustrated table of types of thematic progression pattern

for Data Display

Abstract Constant Theme Linier Multiple Theme Total

Pattern Theme Pattern
Pattern
Abstract 1 … … … …
Abstract 2 .. … … …
Et seq … … … …

3. Drawing and Verifying Conclusions

In drawing the conclusion, the final result will be drawn after the data

condensation and data display are done. Then, the researcher can interpret and

describe the data.

For the objectivity and accuracy of identifying the data, there will be checked the

trust of this study. Trustworthiness is one way researchers can convince themselves

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and readers that their research results are trusty and well-prepared (Lincoln and Guba,

1985) as cited in (Nowell, Norris, White and Noules, 2017) and researcher does this

through dependability and confirmability.

(Lincoln and Guba, 1985) as cited in (Korstjens and Moser, 2018) states that

dependability related to the aspect of consistency and confirmability related to the

aspect of neutrality. It can be assumed that dependability means the stability of

findings and confirmability means the findings could be confirmed by other

researchers/auditors. An audit trail is a strategy to ensure trustworthiness in

dependability and confirmability. It is a memo contains all decisions researcher’s

made during the process which enables the auditor to know the research procedure.

(Korstjens and Moser, 2018) states that the auditor is a person who take the

dependability and confirmability check, and not part of the research team but an

expert in based theory. Therefore, the researcher will use confirmability and

dependability to measure the consistency and neutrality of this study. The supervisors

will check the data of this study as the confirmability and dependability.

(Denzin, 2009) as cited in (Fusch, Fusch, and Ness, 2018) states that investigator

triangulation is more than one investigator/researcher with the best skills in the field

of the data investigate the phenomenon. Therefore, the supervisors who are expert in

this field will check the trust of this study as the investigators.

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