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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

A. The Type and The Characteristics of Study

The researcher analyzed lexical cohesion on the

students descriptive text. In this case, the researcher

found the types of lexical cohesion on the students writing

paragraphs especially descriptive paragraph text. It was

conducted in STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro. Going from this statement,

the researcher decided to apply qualitative method as a type of this

research.

Basically, Qualitative research is one of research types

that can be used in education scope beside quantitative

and class room action research. To address a research

problem, qualitative research is a method that is best

suited in which we do not know the variable and need to

explore.1 By using this method the researcher explored the

phenomenon of the use of lexical cohesion on the students

descriptive text.

The characteristic of this research was natural setting.

Qualitative researcher tended to collect data in the field at

1John W. Creswell, Educational Research: Planning, Conducting and
Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative research, (USA: Person, 2012),
Fourth edition, p. 16
 41

the side where participants experience the issue or

problem under study.2 Therefore, the researcher conducted

all of the process of collecting and analyzing data naturally.

Actually, there are five types of qualitative approach to inquiry

namely, narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory,

ethnography, and case studies. But, the appropriate approach for this

research was case study. Because the researcher will focus on a single unit,

that was on the students writing descriptive text.

B. Data Source
The primary data of this research was the descriptive

text written by the sixth semester students of English

Education Study Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in the

academic year 2015/2016. The researcher found the types

of lexical cohesion on students writing descriptive text. In

conducting this research, the researcher selected some

students writing descriptive text at the sixth semester

students of English Department, than the researcher

analyzed it and found the existence of lexical cohesion in it.

The secondary data of this study was information that was taken

from the lecturer who was master in the subject which was related with

this research. The researcher asked the lecturer to look into the result of

the researchers analysis about the types of lexical cohesion on the

students writing descriptive text. Furthermore, the result of interview the

2Ibid, p. 37
 42

students about their understanding about lexical cohesion. Moreover, it

was taken documentation like audio when inerviewing and some relevant

books, English dictionary, internet, writing lecture, and documentation

related to this research.

C. Data Collection Technique

Generally, qualitative findings grow out of three kinds of data

collection: (1) in-depth, open-ended interviews; (2) direct observation; and

(3) written documents. In this research the researcher used those ones,

namely interview, observation and documentation for collecting data.

1. Observation
As the principle means of collecting data, observation that the

researcher performed was by the following steps:

a. Selecting the site and the object to be observed. In this research,

the site and object that was performed by the researcher was the

sixth semester students of English Education Study

Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in the academic

year 2015/2016.
b. Determining an activity that was conducted in observation. In

this study, the researcher collected some students writing

descriptive texts at the sixth semester students of English

Education Study Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in

the academic year 2015/2016 from the lecturer who

guided them in the subject of writing.

2. Interview
To collect the data, the researcher conducted the interview to

obtain some information, suggestion and opinions about the primary

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data. By interview I known deeply about the students knowledge

about lexicl cohesion and I known about the reason from my

questions. In this research the researcher used one-on-one interview

type to get the information.3 The researcher was planning to

determine the informants based on their competency in lexical

cohesion. The informants that asked were the sixth semester

students of English Education Study Program of STAIN

Jurai Siwo Metro in the academic year 2015/2016.

3. Documentation
Documentation also as the principle means of collecting data.

Based on the four categories of document, the researcher chose

researcher-generated document for this study.4 It can be shown that

the researcher collected the students writing descriptive text at the

sixth semester students of English Education Study

Program of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro in the academic

year 2015/2016. Then, the researcher determined the

types of lexical cohesion that are found in the

students writing descriptive text.

D. Data Analysis Technique

3Jhon W. Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, Chosing

Among Five Approaches, Second Edition, (London: SAGE Publications,
2007), p. 132

4Donal Ary, et.al, Introduction to Research in Educations, (United

States: Wadsworth Cengage learning), p. 442
 44

This research applied the Miles and Huberman model

to analyze the data that has been collected. The procedure

was shown in the following figure:

5
Figure 2. Analysis Components of Miles and Huberman Model

Data analysis using Miles and Huberman model was

conducted as follows:

1. Data collection was the first step in which the

researcher collected all data which was used to

complete the research.

2. Data reduction refers to the process of selecting,

focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming

the data that appear in written up field notes or

transcriptions. In this step, the researcher collected

and selected texts containing lexical cohesion as the

main object of research.

5Matthew B. Miles and A. Michael Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis,

Second Edition, (London: SAGE Publications, 1994), p. 12
 45

3. Data display includes the process which the

researcher showed up the data collected in the form

of tables, charts, networks and other graphical

formats.

4. Conclusion involves a process to infer what the

analyzed data mean.

E. Research Approach
Using the case study approach, the researcher generated

the following procedures:

1 Determining focus to the research and formulating the

questions

The researcher focused on the analysis of the type of lexical

cohesion that was found on students writing descriptive text of the

sixth semester students of English Education Study Program

of STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro. Then I formulated some questions that

relate with focuse of this research.

2 Determining case, collecting and analyzing the data

After finishing gaining data from writing product of the

students descriptive text, the researcher determined

the case that data was analyzed.

3 Supplying collecting data instrument

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The researcher was purposing on planning to

determine several instruments to collect the data

format and document the data.

4 Evaluating and analyzing the data

The researcher evaluated the data before analyzing

and interpreting the data. It was to ensure the data

that was complete.

5 Making report

The researcher generated a report to simplify the data

collected in the form of resume or summary.