Dissertation Methodology: Qualitative Research On Group Of People in Education

Introduction

In this chapter, selected research design and methodology of the research will be discussed. The discussion will include subjects, samplings and instruments. Thereafter, the procedures of data collection and the nature of the analysis will also be discussed in this chapter. The selection of the sample and sampling procedures are described in this chapter.

Research Design

Qualitative method is selected as the research design for this study. This method is able to provide factual data needed to support the theory of language change. Through the obtained data, the frequency of code-switching among bloggers of distinct age groups in different domains can be noted and tabulated. Thus, comparison can be made. On the other hand, reasons why bloggers code-switch from one language to another in selected domains can also be studied via questionnaires.

Data Collection

The duration for data collection for this study runs from August 2009 to February 2010. In the period of six months, all the entries posted by the ten selected bloggers will be archived and analyzed, highlighting the influences of domains when code-switching takes place.

There are two categories for the data collected – blog content analysis and questionnaire.

Participants

For this study, ten female Malaysian bloggers who are bi- or multilingual are selected as participants. These bloggers are all females and they are categorized according to their age groups for this study. The reason is so that comparison can be done and noticed easily. Brief categorizations of the bloggers are done as follows.

Group A – 20 to 30 years old

Participant A(1)

Name: Cynthia Lee

Age: 30

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü)

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese (ü)

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Cantonese, Hokkien

Participant A(2)

Name: Audrey Ooi

Age: 26

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü)

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese ( )

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Japanese

Participant A(3)

Name: Anonymous

Age: 26

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü)

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese (ü)

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Cantonese, Hokkien

Participant A(4)

Name: Cherlin Tan

Age: 20

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü)

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese (ü)

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Cantonese

Participant A(5)

Name: Alice Ling

Age: 27

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü)

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese (ü)

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Hokkien, Cantonese, Foochow

Group B – 45 to 60 years old

Participant B(1)

Name: Ling Ying Ying

Age: 51

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü)

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese (ü)

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Foochow, Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese

Participant B(2)

Name: Rose Hii

Age: 53

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü) Teacher’s training

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese (ü)

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Hokkien, Foochow

Participant B(3)

Name: Lee Ing @ Stella

Age: 45

Education Background:

Primary (ü) Degree (ü)

Secondary (ü) Masters (ü)

Diploma (ü) Ph. D. (ü)

Others (ü)

Language / dialects known:

English (ü) Chinese (ü)

Malay (ü) Others (ü)

Cantonese, Foochow, Hokkien

Participant B(4)

Name:

Age:

Education Background:

Primary ( ) Degree ( )

Secondary ( ) Masters ( )

Diploma ( ) Ph. D. ( )

Others ( )

Language / dialects known:

English ( ) Chinese ( )

Malay ( ) Others ( )

Participant B(5)

Name:

Age:

Education Background:

Primary ( ) Degree ( )

Secondary ( ) Masters ( )

Diploma ( ) Ph. D. ( )

Others ( )

Language / dialects known:

English ( ) Chinese ( )

Malay ( ) Others ( )

Blog Content Analysis

Only entries with actual code-switching, for example, alternation of different languages within the same entry are considered. The use of solely Malay or Mandarin for the whole entry in the blog, without incorporation of other languages is not considered as code-switching. To ensure the quality of the data, the subjects chosen for this must be using English as the main language in an entry. The reason is set a standard and also to homogenize the findings so that the data collected can be more precise. Then, the patterns code-switching in their blogs will be categorized according to their domains and studied.

Sampling Procedure for Blog Content Analysis

Participants are selected thoroughly, making sure they code-switch in selected entries of their blogs. The sample population of this study is 10 Malaysian female bloggers of two different age groups. The purpose of this step is to point out the different domains of code-switching in their blogs as well as the frequency of how often they code-switch in a particular domain, keeping in mind the differences between bloggers of the two age groups.

Questionnaire

Questionnaires are distributed to fellow bloggers to get to know the bloggers’ reason to code-switching in certain domains. The questionnaire is specially designed to find out the reasons to code-switch in different domains in blogs. Distribution of questionnaire is done via electronic mailing (email) as the locations of the bloggers spread within Malaysia.

As the main objective of the questionnaire was to uncover the driving factors of the occurrences of code-switching in different domains, an analysis based on frequency count will be carried out and questionnaire will aid in providing thorough reasoning.

The questionnaire is divided into two sections:

Demographic data – where the linguistic and educational backgrounds of the bloggers can be uncovered for categorization purposes.

Questions – where questions will be directed to these bloggers in order to study the reason behind the code-switching from one language to another in different domains.

Sampling Procedure for Questionnaire

The sample size for this procedure is ten bloggers who chosen earlier. They are briefed on the reason for the questionnaire to be conducted and thereafter, filling in the questionnaire before returning them via email. Subsequently, the data collected from the sample will be tabulated and studied.

Data Analysis

The data for this study will be analysed using the work of Montes-Alcalá (2000) as a guideline. The domains of which code-switching takes place are noted from the entries of blogs collected. Thereafter, the frequencies of these different types of code-switching in different domains are noted. Then, it will be tabulated accordingly before analysis of findings.

Furthermore, when the questionnaires are returned, they will be analyzed for the reasons why these bloggers choose change from one code to another and also, under what circumstances or domains do they code-switch? Later, these domains will be categorized and explanation for code-switching in each domain will be included.

Limitation of Method

With the selected method, it is known that the data collected varied from one blogger to another. It may be blogger A1 code-switches at one time but blogger B1 does not, hence, a thorough analysis for keeping counts of the frequency of code-switching in different domains. Thus, analysis of content requires a lot of time to identify and also to understand why a particular situation happens.

Similarly, questionnaire cannot be pre-tested before the collection of data, so it is unknown to the researcher the level of difficulty of the questionnaire and whether the respondents are able to understand the questions or not. There is no opportunity for the researcher to clarify the questions if there should be any confusion. Different bloggers interpret questions differently; hence, this might affect the overall information provided.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, a combined macro-picture and micro-picture of code-switching among bloggers is taken into account for this study. The data for determining the factors that influence code-switching is elicited through questionnaires. This will be done in accordance to the frequency of code-switching in a particular domain. The questionnaire provided a micro-perspective of code-switching while the content of blogs presented a macro-picture of code-switching.

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