Data Analysis Procedure

Each statement on the minute papers was recorded by the researcher on a page to become acquainted with the data and to make way for systematic analysis. Then, the statements extracted directly from the “minute papers” were broken down into meaning units which consist of sentences containing aspects related to a particular concept and the students’

identity numbers like S13 (student 13). Here, the focus was on the specific aspect of meaning with regard to the directed questions on the minute papers. Although some statements

containing almost exactly the similar expressions were regarded as the same and counted accordingly, some responses uttered carelessly were found irrelevant and eliminated from the analysis. The step of condensation of the meaning units was skipped because there was no need to shorten the statements as they were already clear cut and limited with the students’

developmental features. Therefore, the meaning units were labeled with the codes taking into consideration both manifest content (coding the visible and surface content of text) and latent content (coding the underlying meaning of the text) (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004). Then they were abstracted into sub-categories and categories, each describing a specific type of knowledge needed. An example of content analysis process can be seen in Table 2. All the expressions provided by the students were evaluated for multiple times to provide an indepth understanding. Multiple statements which belong to a single participant’s response were also coded into different categories or subcategories.

When it comes to the trustworthiness of the study Guba’s (1981, p. 80) a criterion was regarded to address four issues: “credibility (internal validity); transferability (external

validity); dependability (reliability); confirmability (objectivity)”. The trustworthiness was ensured by checking the data for accuracy with multiple involvements. The process involved going back-and-forth till providing satisfaction with the final forms of the first coding of the data. Intra-rater coding consistency was provided through a second coding of the data following the first coding after two weeks. The information about the students which was

already provided in the section 3.5.2 was regarded as well to bear in mind their developmental characteristics in language and cognition. Therefore, it was crucial to immerse oneself in the data long enough to achieve depth of understanding when the children are in question as research subjects. Moreover, supervisor revision was obtained to reach consensus on the data analysis through frequent sessions. The results of the content analysis were presented with regard to the strategies instructed as well as the answers related to the guided questions.

As for the presentation of the findings, the results will be given in separate tables for each strategy focused. The number of times that a particular aspect of the data was assigned to a subcategory (subcategory frequency) will be presented for the data which provides

information about the taught strategies’ usefulness and easiness. Again, the number of times that a particular aspect of the data was assigned to a category (category frequency) will be presented for the data which provides information about the linguistic and non-linguistic areas that the students had difficulties before learning the focused strategies as well as made

improvements after learning these strategies.

At this point, it is important to note that the frequency of the responses do not correspond to the number of students in the experimental group, which can be explained by the following reasons: Some students found writing a tedious task and did not want to put their energy on expressing their thoughts and reflecting upon them; some irrelevant

information that did not interact with the aim of the question, which was in the form of yes-no answer or exact repetition of the question stems was eliminated from the data; some of the responses given by a single participant and composed of more than one statements were placed into different categories/subcategories depending on the codes which represent related aspect of the data by taking into consideration the categories or subcategories’ mutual

exclusiveness, for example; two different codes were created for the statement “I couldn’t say the words and make a sentence” given by (Student-13, hereafter S13). The first part of the

statement was placed into the code difficulty in pronunciation, and the second part was placed into the code difficulty in building sentences. As a last step, the sample sentences provided by the students in their L1 were translated into English with considerable attention, and shown under the example meaning units’ column. Table 2 shows an example of content analysis procedure.

Table 2

Example of content analysis process

Category Sub-category/ Code Example Meaning Units Frequency

Needs/

goals

Autonomy

Affect

Immediate/

future needs (n=2)

Self-reflection (n=17)

Motivation (n=2)

Need to transfer the str. outside the classroom to meet comm. needs Having awareness about the

strengths

Having awareness about facilitative function of the strategy Motivation to succeed in L2

“When I am abroad, I can use these strategies. I can use them with my friends (S4). While playing games, I can chat with English speaking friends (S19).”

“I improved my English thanks to these strategies (S11-S3). I speak English more easily (S20). I can pronounce the words better than I used to (S16).”

“The words become even more

memorable (S20-S15). Strategies help me pronounce the words correctly and use them in a sentence (S12).”

“I want to learn more about English (S21). I can speak English in the future and I can be very good at it (S14).”

In this chapter, the nature of the research in methodological perspective was

introduced in detail. The next chapter is going to be presenting the results from quantitative and qualitative data.

Chapter 4