Conclusion
As a conclusion, this chapter has discussed the main points
concerning collaborative learning and collaborative visualisation. It has also
provided the readers with an understanding of communication skills and their
relation with collaborative visualisation with a brief explanation of attitudes
and their importance in conducting this work. Besides, the theoretical side,
which consists of the theory of coordination process that includes its major
principles, has been covered. This chapter contains various terms and key
points that were used in this study. The following chapter will investigate the
methodology adopted in this study.
Chapter Two :
Research Design
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Chapter II Research Design
Introduction
The present chapter deals with the methods used in this
research. It describes the research design of the study, the procedures of data
collection and the methodology of data analysis. This study aims at analysing
teachers' and students' attitudes towards collaborative visualisation as a
technique that can help students to develop their communication skills in
English.
This chapter is composed of two sections. The first section is
about data collection procedures taking into account the participants, the
context where the study is conducted, the research method that is used to
gather data (the mixed method), as well as data collection tools used to
collect both quantitative and qualitative data (questionnaire and interview).
The second section is about the procedures of data analysis that contains the
different methods used to analyse the research. Statistics and percentages are
used for the analysis of the quantitative data obtained from the students'
questionnaire; whereas, a descriptive analysis was relied on to interpret the
qualitative data obtained from open- ended questions included in both the
questionnaire and the interview.
1. Context of the Investigation and Population Sample
This investigation has taken place at Mouloud Mammeri
University of Tizi Ouzou in the Department of English. The overall objective of
this research is to investigate teachers' and students' attitudes towards
collaborative visualisation as a technique that can help students to develop
their communication skills in English.
The target population in this research consists of students of
Master I of different specialties and teachers who have experience with
technology, mainly teachers of Information Communication and Technologies
(ICTs) and those of film studies.
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Chapter II Research Design
Besides, a questionnaire has been distributed to 220 students,
130 of them have answered and a structured interview has been conducted with 06
teachers.
2. Research Method
In order to gather data, the mixed methods approach is
adopted. It is defined «as the combined use of both quantitative and
qualitative methodologies within the same study in order to address a single
research question» (Claire, 2006:180). In other words, it combines
the elements of both quantitative and qualitative method to answer one research
question. In the case of our research, the quantitative method is used to get
numerical data from the closed-ended questions included in the students'
questionnaire; whereas the descriptive qualitative method is used to analyse
the data obtained from the open ended questions included in both the
questionnaire and the interview conducted with teachers. We have used the mixed
methods approach because it combines the qualitative and quantitative methods
(Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998; cited in Jupp, 2006). First, it allows us to
study participants' points of view. In addition to that, it gives us more
evidence about the findings grounded on participants' experience.
2.1.1. Data Collection Procedures
In order to gather data that support our investigation which
is students' and teachers' attitudes toward developing students' communication
skills in English through collaborative visualisation, we have used two
different instruments: a questionnaire handed over to Master one students and
an interview conducted with teachers of the Department of English at Mouloud
Mammeri University of Tizi Ouzou.
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Chapter II Research Design
2.1.2. Description of the Students'
Questionnaire
The questionnaire is defined by Craig (2006:252) as
«a set of carefully designed questions given in exactly the same form
to a group of people in order to collect data about some topic(s) in which the
researcher is interested». In other words, a questionnaire is a list
of questions, related to a particular topic, administered to a group of people.
In this study, it is to examine students' attitudes towards collaborative
visualisation in developing their communication skills in English. We have
adopted it because it is less time consuming.
The students' questionnaire seeks to collect data about their
attitudes toward collaborative visualisation, to know whether it may develop
their communication skills in English or not. First of all, we have distributed
the questionnaire to 6 students to test it. After having collected them, we
have analysed the students' answers. Eventually, the students seem to have
understood the questions and have answered without any problem; therefore, this
has convinced us to distribute more. After that, two hundred and twenty (220)
questionnaires have been distributed to Master One students of the Department
of English at MMUTO of different specialities, and only 130 have answered. This
questionnaire consists of fourteen (14) questions presented in three (3)
sections. The first section is about the general information about the
participants. The second one deal with students' attitudes toward collaborative
learning in the Department of English and the third section is related to the
students' attitudes toward developing their communication skills in English
through collaborative visualisation.
2.1.1. Description of the Teachers' Interview
According to Pamela (2006: 157) «an interview
represents a meeting or dialogue between people where personal and social
interaction occur». She adds that it is «A[a] method of data
collection, information, or opinion gathering that specifically involves asking
a series of questions». To put it differently, an interview is a
meeting during which the
26
Chapter II Research Design
interviewee cooperates with the interviewer by answering some
questions about a particular subject. For the purpose of this research, a
structured interview has been conducted with 06 teachers of the Department of
English at MMUTO around June 9th, 2019 until June 13th,
2019. It comprises twelve (12) questions and three (3) parts: the first section
comprises general questions about the teachers; the second one is about
teachers' attitudes toward collaborative learning. The third one deals with
their attitudes toward developing students' communication skills through
collaborative visualisation.
2.2. Data Analysis Procedures
In our research, we have adopted two techniques for the
analysis of the collected data: statistical content analysis and descriptive
analysis for qualitative data. The reason behind choosing these two techniques
is the fact that our research results and findings are both quantitative and
qualitative.
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