Research title: Characteristics of the Writing Ability of the AB- English in Ateneo de Zamboanga

University.
(SAMPLE)
METHODOLOGY
2.1 Research Design
This research had employed the quantitative-qualitative design. Quantitative design was used because
the study tried to find out the adeptness of the AB-English students in terms of focus, organization,
cohesion, and convention. This study also examined the differences in the adeptness of the AB-English
students in terms of their year level, gender, and high school attended. Qualitative design was used to
determine the characteristics of the writing ability of AB-English students through textual analysis.
2.2 Respondents (Subject)
The respondents of the present study were the AB-English students of the Ateneo de Zamboanga
University (ADZU). There were fifteen AB-English students enrolled in the 2 nd semester in the school
year of 2010-2011. But only eight was present during the data gathering. Of the eight respondents, four
were in their fourth year, one on third year, and three in their second year. Only the fourth year, third year,
and second year were included in this study because there was no first year student enrolled in the course
during the conduct of this study. There were three males and five females. There were two respondents
who graduated from public schools and six from private schools.
2.3 Research Instrument
To determine the characteristics of the writing ability of the AB-English students, the researcher used a
reading prompt entitled What is Success? by John C. Maxwell (2009). A common question was asked
for participants to comment. This study also used an analytic scoring from De Los Reyes (2008) study to
determine the adeptness of the AB-English students according to the writing elements: focus,
organization, cohesion, and conventions. Each level was given descriptions that served as guide for the
raters in evaluating the respondents compositions. The scores were numbered from one to four, one being
the lowest and four being the highest.
2.4 Data Gathering Procedure
The researcher identified the students taking up the course AB-English in all year level. All year levels
of the AB-English students were considered as respondents. The researcher invited the entire AB-English
students to a meeting where she asked them to write an essay about their indication of success. A letter
was given to the AB-English students as an invitation, but there were only eight AB-English students who
were present on the set date March 28, 2011. The participants were given a maximum time of one hour to
construct their essay. Afterwards, the essays were forwarded to the three evaluators. The evaluators were
teaching English, either college or in graduate school. They had at least masters degree. After the data
were rated, the results were analyzed through SPSS.
2.5 Data Analysis
To answer the first research problem the researcher used descriptive statistics to determine the means
of the four elements of writing. The score ranges and their qualitative values were adapted from De Los
Reyes (2008). Below were the score ranges and their equivalent:
1.00-1.49- Poor
1.50-2.49- Fair
2.50-3.49- Good
3.50-4.00- Very good
To answer the second research question, ANOVA test was conducted to determine the relationship of
respondents adeptness with their year level. In addition, Independent Samples T-Test was used to
determine the relationship of the respondents adeptness in their writing elements to their gender and high
school attended.
This study also used means, and percentages to determine quantitatively the adeptness of the ABEnglish in focus, organization, cohesion, and convention of writing. To determine the correlation between
the adeptness of the year levels of the AB-English students in the Ateneo de Zamboanga University,
ANOVA test was employed. To determine the respondents correlations between gender and high school
attended, independent sample T-test was performed. The T-test was used because the analysis for the
correlations would be done by drawing two samples from the respondents with different means.