You are on page 1of 16

35

Chapter 3

Methodology

This chapter presents the methods employed in the research

process. This specifically discusses the research design, the research

locale, the participants who were invited to take part in the study, the

research instrument used and the ways employed in the process of

collecting and analyzing the lived experiences in the conduct of action

research among public high school teachers.

Research design

The main objective of the study was to gain an in depth and

thorough understanding on the lived experiences in the conduct of action

research among public high school teachers. The research approach was

qualitative, which is an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct

methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human

problem (Creswell, 1998).

In a qualitative research, one can conduct an in-depth study about

various topics and may involve studying the meaning of people’s lives

under real-world conditions. It also has the ability to represent the views

and the perspectives of the participants in the study. It covers contextual


36

conditions which may include the social, institutional, and environmental

conditions within which the people’s lives take place. Qualitative research

is also driven by a desire to explain events through concepts which may

be existing or emerging. Finally, qualitative research strives to collect,

integrate, and present data from a variety of sources of evidence as part of

any given study (Yin, 2006).

Inherent in a qualitative research is the thematic perspectives that

will be used to gather ideas and perceptions of the participants relevant to

the phenomena. Pope and Mays (2006) has noted that since a qualitative

research is interpretative and subjective, the researcher is involve in the

process intimately.

The study employed narrative analysis in exploring and analyzing

the lived experiences in the conduct of action research among public high

school teachers. Narrative analysis permits the researcher to understand

the lives of individuals to provide stories about their experiences on some

issues like the challenges encountered by the secondary school teachers

(Clandinin & Connely, 2000).

This narrative method is appropriate since the data required to

address the difficulties encountered by the teachers through in-depth

interview to describe the participants’ experiences. The perspective of this

data analysis was the understanding of the lived experiences in the

conduct of action research among public high school teachers. The


37

information as revealed by the participants from their experiences were

documented.

Research Locale

The study was conducted in New Nongnongan National High School-

Main and New Nongnongan National High School- San Nicolas Annex of

Don Carlos II district in Don Carlos, Bukidnon for the school year 2017-

2018.

There was a total of seven public secondary schools in the Don

Carlos. Don Carlos was composed of three school districts: District I, with

one secondary school; District II, with four secondary schools; and District

III with two secondary schools. The two schools involved in this study were

the two from the four secondary schools in District II.

New Nongnongan National High School-Main was located at

barangay New Nongnongan, Don Carlos Bukidnon. It was 8 kilometers

away from Don Carlos town proper. The school was established in 1968.

It had a population of 743 for the school year 2017-2018 and has 42

teachers both in the junior and senior high schools. It offered Special

Education Curriculum and was the SPED center in southern Bukidnon.

In addition, it offered General Academic Strand (GAS) and Technical-

Vocational Strand (Auto Mechanic) in its senior high school curriculum.

The school is superintend by a school principal.


38

New Nongnongan National High School- San Nicolas Annex was

located at barangay San Nicolas, Don Carlos, Bukidnon. It was an annex

school of New Nongongan National High School but with a different School

Identification (ID) and has its separate Maintenance and Other Operating

Expenses (MOOE) from the main school. It was 3 kilometers away from

the town proper. It was established in the year 2006. It had a student

population of 761 for the school year 2017-2018. As of the study, there

were thirty one (32) teachers combined both the junior and senior high

school. It offered General Academic Strand (GAS) and Shielded Metal Arc

Welding (SMAW) under the Technical-Vocational (Tech-Voc) Strand. It is

superintend by a school principal.

Figure 1 shows the map of the New Nongongan National High

School–Main and New Nongnongan National High School – San Nicolas

Annex, Division of Bukidnon showing the location where the study was

conducted.

Participants of the study

The participants of the study included all the teachers from both

junior and senior high school who had a full-blown action researches.

These action researchers were conducted by team or by group. There were


39
40

eleven identified participants base from the data taken during the

preliminary survey. However, two teachers were excluded as participants

since one was on study leave for the current school year and the other was

the researcher himself.

There were nine participants subjected to semi-structured interview

and focus group discussion. Table 1 shows the profile of the participants

according to gender, age, and their station.

Table 1
The Participants’ Profile according to gender, age, and station.

Code Name Gender Age School/Station

Participant A F 36 NNNHS-San Nicolas Annex

Participant B F 28 NNNHS-San Nicolas Annex

Participant C F 36 NNNHS-Main

Participant D M 25 NNNHS-Main

Participant E F 33 NNNHS-Main

Participant F F 54 NNNHS-Main

Participant G M 24 NNNHS-San Nicolas Annex

Participant H M 39 NNNHS-San Nicolas Annex

Participant I M 39 NNNHS-San Nicolas Annex


41

The data in the Table 1 shows that for gender, there was a greater

number of female (5) than male (4). As to age, most of the participants were

in their 30’s, this was followed by 20’s and one who is in 50’s. Five of the

nine participants were from San Nicolas Annex; while, the other four were

from the main school. The diversity of the participants’ profile in their

specialization and position is presented in Table 2.

Table 2
The Participants’ Profile in their specialization and position.

Code Name Area of Specialization Position

Participant A Science Teacher I

Participant B Mathematics Teacher I

Participant C English Master Teacher II

Participant D Araling Panlipunan Teacher I

Participant E Science Teacher III

Participant F Science Master Teacher I

Participant G Araling Panlipunan Teacher I

Participant H Mathematics Teacher I

Participant I Physical Education Teacher III

Three of the participants were majors in science. Mathematics and

Araling had the same number of participants, respectively; and one for
42

both major in English and Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health.

The participants had different experiences with the conduct of action

research.

When it comes to position, there were two masters teachers, one was

from junior high school and the other was senior high school teacher

which were both coming from the same school. There were also two

Teacher III; and the rest were Teacher I.

In the number of years in teaching, it can be seen that majority of

the teachers were in their early stage of teaching except for one teacher

who had served for a longer period of time. Table 3 shows the profile of the

participants in terms of number of years in teaching and highest

educational attainment.

Most of the participants were pursuing advance education during

the conduct of the study. Five of the nine participants have completed the

academic requirements for the master’s degree and were working on their

thesis as final requirement for the degree; while, the other four were full-

fledge masters degree holder. There were two participants who were also

enrolled in doctorate programs.


43

Table 3
The Participants’ Profile in number of years in teaching and highest
educational attainment.

Number of years in Highest Educational


Code Name
teaching Attainment

Participant A 7 MA-full fledge

Participant B 5 MA-CAR

Participant C 7 MA-full fledge

Participant D 3 MA-full fledge

Participant E 18 MA-CAR

Participant F 10 MA-CAR

Participant G 3 MA-CAR

Participant H 5 MA-CAR

Participant I 11 MA-full fledge

Table 4 shows the profile of the respondents in number of action

research proposals submitted, on-going action research and full-blown

action researches. It can be noted that most teachers have completed at

least one full-blown action research except for one teacher who has

submitted a great number of action research. On the other hand, there

was a great number of on-going action researches and as well as action

research proposals submitted in the division office.


44

Table 4
The Participants’ Profile in number of action research proposal submitted,
number of on-going action research, and number of full-blown action
researches.

Number of action Number of on- Number of full-


Code Name research proposals going action blown action
submitted research researches

Participant A 3 2 2

Participant B 2 1 2

Participant C 10 3 12

Participant D 4 2 3

Participant E 5 2 3

Participant F 3 1 1

Participant G 4 2 1

Participant H 3 2 1

Participant I 6 1 5

Data Gathering Tools

There were two data gathering tools used in the obtaining data for

this research. The data gathering was facilitated through semi-structured

interview and focus group discussion.


45

A. Semi-structured Interview

The researcher utilized the interview guide questions. Participants

were asked to answer the survey questions consisting of the demographic

information in writing and the open-ended questions answered verbally

which were developed by the researcher. An interview was the verbal

conversation between two people with the objective of collecting relevant

information for the purpose of research (Harish, 2013).

B. Focus Group Discussion

The motive questions for the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) were on

the lived experiences in the conduct of action research among public high

school teachers. This had assisted the researcher to discover more about

the participants’ difficulties and challenges/problems in the action

research process. In addition, through the FGD, the researcher discovered

the strategies utilized by the participants in order to address the

aforementioned difficulties and the challenges/problems. During the

FGD, the teachers were allowed to express themselves in vernacular and

any language they were comfortable with.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researcher observed proper protocol in gathering the data. He

asked permission from the Schools Division Superintendent of the Division


46

of Bukidnon through a recommendation letter from the Dean of the College

of Education of Bukidnon State University. After the letter was approved,

the researcher sought permission from the District In-charge of Don Carlos

II District. After the letter was approved by the District In-charge, the

researcher went on a courtesy call to the school heads in the two schools

where the study was conducted and sought consent in allowing the

researcher to conduct a study inside their governed school.

Upon the approval of the school heads of the two respective schools,

the researcher conducted a preliminary survey on the number of teachers

who had action researches who were then the chosen participants. After

identifying the number of participants, the researcher met with the school

heads respectively to present the data he got from the preliminary survey.

The researcher then asked for the final approval for schedule of the semi-

structured interview and the focus group discussion. The two modes of

data gathering were scheduled at the convenient time of the teachers in

order not to disrupt their respective classes. All of the participants were

assured of the confidentiality of their identity.

The researcher also observed the standard procedure in conducting

the FGD. It began with an introduction of the researcher, the purpose of

conducting the study, the gathering of the consent form from the

participants, the establishment of rules, and the recording of the session.


47

The two methods for gathering the data were conducted to grasp the

participant’s responses. The data gathered from the sources were

transcribed. The narrative description was properly analyzed and

interpreted based on the related literature, related studies, and direct

experiences of the participants.

Data Analysis

Data on the lived experiences in the conduct of action research

among public high school teachers were analyzed based from the results

from the semi-structured interview and focus group discussion.

The following steps were undertaken for data analysis: organizing

the data, finding and organizing ideas and concepts, building over-arching

themes in the data, and finding possible and plausible explanation of the

findings (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The Focus group discussion and

the interview helped in developing and organizing data. Huberman and

Miles (1994) claimed that a valid analysis is derived from examining and

organizing data that answer the research question. The organization of

data were done concept or thematic form. In connection with this, the

researcher interpreted the data based on the reliable results gathered

during the focus group discussions and semi-structured interview.

The analysis incorporated the entire work of identifying ideas or

concepts related to the study (Marshall and Ross, 1995). The researcher
48

made a codebook on the lived in the conduct of action research among

public school teachers as basis in getting information needed in the study.

A codebook can be a set of codes, definitions, and examples that can

be used as a guide that aids in analyzing interview data. Fonteyn, et. al.,

(2008) opined that codebooks are vital in a qualitative research for it

provides a formalized operationalization of the codes. Even so, like codes,

codebooks are developed through an iterative process that may necessitate

revising definitions as the researchers gain clearer insights about the

interview data. The more specificity in a codebook, the easier it is for coders

to distinguish between codes and to determine examples from non-

examples of individual codes. In addition, the more detailed the codebook,

the more consistency there will be among coders when using it to code

interview (DeCuir et. al., 2011).

The code book was presented to the members of the thesis

committee to authenticate and verify the coder’s data analysis. This

provided detailed description of the semi-structured interview and focus

group discussion. Ideas found were organized depending on its relevance

to the study.

Lived experiences in the conduct of action research were identified

according to the themes extracted from the research instrument. This

provided a degree of support and a multidimensional summary that


49

facilitated the subsequent, more extensive analysis. Different categories

fall in one main over-arching theme.

Lastly, the possible and plausible explanations were secured to

ensure that the findings were administered to concretize result. The

researcher presented the lived experiences in the conduct of action

research among public high school teachers.

Exploring the lived experiences in the conduct of action research among


public high school teachers.

A frame for every theme were drawn as to how each of the themes

was derived. This procedure provided the means for discovering the

essence of the experiences among public high school teachers in the

conduct of action research. These experiences were validated through

semi-structured interview and focus group discussion with the

participants.

The five parts of the action research process were considered as

grand themes in exploring the experiences among public high school

teachers with the action research process. The first grand theme was in

Identifying an issue and developing a research question which consists of

three subthemes: difficulties in what to study in action research,

challenges/problems in choosing what to study in action research, and

prioritizing and addressing difficulties and challenges/problems. The


50

second process was in Learning more about the issue: what does research

show which includes two subthemes: difficulties in gathering and

preparing literature review in action research, and challenges/problems in

gathering and preparing literature review in the action research.

For the third theme, there were three sub themes: difficulties in

developing a strategy in the action research, challenges/problems in

developing strategy in the action research and considerations in the

preparation of strategy in the action research.

The fourth theme was in Gathering and Analyzing data which has

five subthemes, these were: difficulties in gathering data,

challenges/problems in gathering data, difficulties in analyzing data,

challenges/problems in analyzing data, and assistance received in

analyzing data.

The fifth theme was in Taking actions and sharing the results. This

had three sub-themes, namely: difficulties in presenting and sharing the

results, challenges/problems in preparing the results, and making others

informed of the results.

The strategies utilized by the teachers to address the difficulties and

challenges/problems in each of the five action research process were

presented in the frames.

You might also like