STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere. Author Nguyen Van Dinh ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to all those who contributed to this thesis with their academic expertise, substantive help or emotional support. First and foremost, I would like to express my special thanks to my supervisor, Assoc.
Truong Vien for his continued guidance, help, support and timely encouragement throughout the course of this study. Dear Thầy Viên, thank you very much for helping me to see how to become an independent researcher. Working with you, I have learnt a lot from your precise knowledge, your experiences in doing research and your professional working style. This thesis would not have come successfully into existence without your invaluable insights, constructive comments and constant support.
I would also like to thank Dr. Le Pham Hoai Huong, who read the research proposal of the current study and gave me encouraging comments. My special thanks also go to Dr. Pham Hoa Hiep, whose comments are always valuable in improving this painstaking research.
Next, I am deeply indebted to my classmates, who sent me valuable documents and relaxing stories in the long journey of this research. Many thanks to the MA students of Hue College of Foreign Languages, Hue University and School of Education, Can Tho University who helped me to pilot the questionnaire and especially Classes MA 2006-2009, MA 2007-2010, MA 2008- 2011 for their enthusiastic assistance and participation in this research. Special thanks to Mr. Nguyen Cao Phuc, ELT Specialist of Khanh Hoa Department of Education and Training for his help with proofreading the thesis.
Thereafter, never enough thanks to my beloved family, especially my wife, my parents and my youngest brother for their love, support and encouragement to complete my MA programme. Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages SUB COVER PAGE STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLES OF CONTENTS. 1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS. 5 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES.6 Organization of the thesis.
10 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW.1 Review of previous studies on SPSS used in research projects.1 Data analysis in quantitative research .2 Data analysis in qualitative research .3 Data analysis in mixed methods research .4 Fundamentals of statistics .4 Measures of central tendency. 21 Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 1 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education 2.5 Measures of variability .8 Level of significance .1 Definitions of course design.2 Language-centred course design .3 Skills-centred course design .4 A learning-centred approach to course design .1 Definitions of syllabus design .2 Types of syllabus .3 Components of a syllabus.4 Stages in designing a syllabus .3 Materials and data for demonstration.2 Data for demonstration.2 Questions for interview .5 Procedure of data collection.1 Administering the questionnaire .2 Administering the interview. 37 Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 2 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .2 Participants’ perception on SPSS software, general knowledge of the software and difficulties in using the software.1 Participants’ perception on SPSS software .2 Participants’ general knowledge of the software .3 Participants’ difficulties in using the software .3 Research design(s) chosen by participants for their research .4 Participants’ need of an SPSS course outline .5 Suggestions for the SPSS course outline for MA Students.1 Participants’ opinions about MA students’ advantages when learning SPSS software.2 Participants’ opinions about MA students’ difficulties when using SPSS software.3 Participants’ suggestions for the SPSS course outline .3 Suggested course outline for using SPSS for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT .1 Unit 1: Designing a study.2 Unit 6: Descriptive statistics .2 Implications and suggestions .3 Limitations of the study. 79 Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 3 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education REFERENCES.
P1 Appendix A: Statistical functions available in MS Excel 2003. P11 Appendix D: Reliability analysis of the initial questionnaire. P13 Appendix E: Questions for interview. P15 Appendix F: Reliability analysis of the final questionnaire.
P16 Appendix G: Participants’ profile. P18 Appendix H: A sample session plan. P19 Appendix I: Raw data of the study. P22 Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 4 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ANOVA : Analysis of Variance CTU : Can Tho University BA : Bachelor of Arts ELT : English Language Teaching ESP : English for Specific Purposes HUCFL : Hue University - College of Foreign Languages M : Mean MA : Master of Arts p : probability SD : Standard Deviation SPSS : Statistical Package for Social Sciences Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 5 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES List of Figures Page Figure 2.1: Linear sequence in quantitative research.2: Qualitative data analysis process.3: Data analysis in mixed methods research.4: A language-centred approach to course design .5: A skills-centred approach to course design .6: A learning-centred approach to course design .27 List of Tables Table 3.1: Summary of the clusters.1: Mean score of participants’ perception on SPSS software .2: Mean score of participants’ general knowledge of SPSS software .3: Mean score of participants’ difficulties in using SPSS software.4: Participants’ favourite research design(s).5: Number of research designs chosen by participants.6: Participants’ need of an SPSS course outline .7: Summary of participants’ suggestions for the SPSS course outline.8: Interviewees’ IDs and mean scores of three clusters .46 Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 6 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education ABSTRACT This thesis aims to investigate the needs for an SPSS course outline of MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT.
A course outline is then designed to meet their needs; sample materials for two units followed by sample session plans were built to support the course outline. The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. Seventy- five questionnaires were delivered and returned, and nine interviews were conducted with two groups of participants: 6 MA students at HUCFL and 3 lecturers at CTU. The findings of the study reveal that the MA students have positive perceptions of SPSS software as a tool for research data analysis and that their learning needs are various.
However, they all agree that a course outline for using SPSS for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT is very necessary for their research purposes. After taking many factors into consideration, a learning-centred course design for using SPSS is chosen. The thesis also gives some implications and suggestions about the implementation of the SPSS course outline so that it can benefit researchers most. Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 7 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This chapter describes in detail the rationale of the research.
It also presents the research aims and the research questions. The significance of the study and the organisation of the thesis are also included.1 Rationale Statistics plays a vital role in research. It helps answer important research questions and it is the answers to such questions that “further our understanding of the field and provide a knowledge base for academic study” (Kerr, Hall, & Kozub, 2002, p. However, to many students, “the thought of completing a statistics subject, or using statistics in doing research, is a major source of stress and frustration” (Pallant, 2007, p.
In search of proof for Pallant’s statement, the researcher spent much time reading the MA theses available at the library of HUCFL and noticed that most students from College of Foreign Languages, Hue University turned to Microsoft Office Excel and even Microsoft Office Word for help with data analysis and presentation, whereas their counterparts from School of Education, CTU used SPSS software for analysing their research data. Simple as it might look, the use of Microsoft Excel functions for in-depth research data analysis is, from the researcher’s experience, time-consuming and, to some extent, unreliable as there are so many statistical functions (see Appendix A) with complicated syntaxes and researchers might fail to choose the right statistics which can be easily obtained by statistical software such as SPSS, STATA or SAS. SPSS is a Windows-based programme that can be used to perform data entry and analysis and to create tables and graphs. It is capable of handling large amounts of data and can perform beginning, intermediate, and advanced data analyses covered in the text and much more.
Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 8 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education Seeing that SPSS is one of the most popular statistical packages which can perform highly complex data manipulation and analysis with simple instructions necessary for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT especially for the ones at HUCFL, the researcher decided to choose the following topic for his MA thesis: DESIGNING A COURSE OUTLINE FOR USING SPSS SOFTWARE FOR MA STUDENTS MAJORING IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING 1.2 Research aims The role of research is becoming increasingly important in the field of ELT in Vietnam. Since most of the ELT approaches are generally created in such English speaking countries as the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, their applicability in the context of English teaching and learning in Vietnam is to some extent unclear. That is the reason why conducting research in ELT is one of the key factors for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT to enhance their perspectives in the field. Thus, the mastery of a statistical package like SPSS will help researchers with analysing the data in a much easier way.
The study aims to: explore the needs of using SPSS software in analysing and interpreting research data of MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT; design a course outline for using SPSS software in analysing and interpreting research data for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT; and give suggestions to facilitate the process of analysing and interpreting research data of MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT.3 Research questions The research aims to design a course outline for using SPSS software in analysing research data for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT. To achieve this aim, the following questions are set up: Nguyen Van Dinh – MA Course 2008-2011 9 Hue University – College of Foreign Languages MA Thesis in Education (1) What are the needs of using SPSS Software of MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT? (2) What should the course outline for using SPSS for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT be like? 1.4 Research significance It is hoped that the result of the study will make for facilitating the process of doing research by MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT at Hue University. Firstly, it suggests a course outline for using SPSS software in analysing and interpreting research data for MA students majoring in Theory and Methodology of ELT which will then be hopefully used at HUCFL. Students will find it easy to improve their statistical skills for a variety of educational research designs following this course because it is designed based on their needs.
Secondly, to some extent, teachers, especially those who teach Scientific Research in Education may find the research useful since it addresses some data analysis and interpretation issues with solutions. Finally, for personal development, the researcher can gain valuable experience and knowledge by doing this research.