A study on applying Group work to increase quality and quantity of language use at High School for Gifted Students = Nghiên cứu về việc áp dụng hoạt động nhóm n

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
  

TRAN QUYNH HUONG





A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP WORK TO INCREASE
QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE
USE AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ÁP DUNG HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM NHẰM TĂNG
CƯỜNG VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TIẾNG ANH Ở TRƯƠNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG
CHUYÊN SƯ PHẠM- ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM HÀ NỘI


MINOR M.A. THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10




Hà Nội - 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
  

TRAN QUYNH HUONG





A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP WORK TO INCREASE
QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE
USE AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ÁP DUNG HOẠT ĐỘNG NHÓM NHẰM TĂNG
CƯỜNG VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TIẾNG ANH Ở TRƯƠNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG
CHUYÊN SƯ PHẠM- ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM HÀ NỘI

Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60.14.10
Supervisor: Do Thi Mai Thanh





Hà Nội - 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION
(1) Rationale for the study……………………………………………1
(2) Aims of the study …………………………………………………2
(3) Scope of the study ……………………………………………… 2
(4) Methods of the study …………………………………………… 3
(5) An overview of the rest of the paper …………………………… 4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT………………………………………… 6
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………… 6
1.1. Group work in the History of ELT…………………………… 6
1.2. Concept of group work ……………………………….……… 9
1.2.1. Group ……………………………………………….…….9
1.2.2. Group work ………………………………………… …10
1.3. Classification of group work ………………………………… 10
1.4. Advantages and disadvantages of Group work …………… 11
1.5. Features of a good group work …………………………… 12
1.5.1. Positive Interdependence……………………………… 13
1.5.2. Individual and group accountability …………………….14
1.5.3. Face to face promotive interaction ………………… 15
1.5.4. Interpersonal and small group skills …………………….15
1.5.5. Group Processing …………………………………… 16
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ………………………………… 17
2.1. Data collection ………………………………………………… 17
2.1.1. Participants ………………………………………………… 17
2.1.2. Data collection instruments ……………….……………… 17
2.1.2.1. Questionnaire ……………………………………………17

2.1.2.2. Interview ……………………………………………… 18
2.1.3. Data collection procedure ………………………………… 18
2.2. Data analysis …………………………………………………….19
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………………………21

3.1. Research question 1…………………………………………… 21
3.2. Research question 2 ………………………………………… 22
3.2.1. Students‟ cooperation in Group activities in class ………… 22
3.2.2. Students‟ Communicative proficiencies after Group work… 28
3.3. Research question 3 …………………………………………… 30
PART C: CONCLUSION ……………………… ………………….32
1. Recapitulation………………. ……………… ……………… 32
2. Pedagogical suggestions ……………………………………… 33
3. Limitations of the study ……………………………………… 35
4. Suggestions for further studies ………………………………… 36
5. Contribution of the research …………………………………… 36
REFERENCES
APPENDICES













LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Frequency of Group work ……………………… …… 21
Figure 2. Overall picture of group members‟ accountability ……… 24
Figure 3. Students‟ accountability to Group work……………………24

Figure 4. Students‟ improvement in Group work skill…………… 27
Figure 5. Students improvement in separate skills after GW……….28




PART A: INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the problem and the rationale for the study, together
with the aims, objectives and the scope of the whole paper are clearly stated
and explained. Above all, this chapter also builds the research questions to
work as clear guidelines for the whole research.
1. Rationale for the study:
According to the statistics issued by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education
and Training in 2003, English was widely chosen by 98.5% of Vietnamese
secondary students as their foreign language. This enormous proportion,
however, reflects the considerable demand for English rather than the quality
of language learning and teaching itself. In fact, English teaching and
learning in Vietnam have confronted a number of obstacles, one of which is
identified by as students‟ low motivation and limited opportunities to
practise communicating in the target language
Michael, H, L & Patricia, A. P., (1985) declared that “the use of group
work in classroom second language learning has been supported by sound
pedagogical arguments” (p.207). In other words, no one can deny the
effectiveness of group work in language teaching. Therefore, following this
educational trend, teachers and professors are trying to extensively exploit
group work in teaching with the aim of “promoting communicative language
skills for the largest number of students in class” (Shevin et al., 1994, cited
by Richard & Roger, 2001). However, in our country, Grammar translation
methods have been applied in language learning for many years, which leads
to students‟ limited group work, presentation skills and inactive learning

principles. This, in fact, turns out to be a challenge for the applied group
work to achieve their original intentions. Thus whether these Group
activities can reach their intentional effectiveness is still a big question mark
for not only the educationists but also the authority.
Students who directly take part in those group activities can help
answer this question. Inspired by this fact, the researcher decides to conduct
“A study on applying Group work to enhance quality and quantity of
language use in High School for Gifted Students”
2. Aims of the study:
This study is conducted to figure out how often group work is
conducted in classes of High school for Gifted Students. In addition, the
research is expected to investigate into the effectiveness of Group work in
language classroom. With these two aims, this research is carried on to
fulfill the following research questions:
1. How are group activities applied in English lessons?
2. How effective is the group work applied in English lessons?
3. What are the solutions to improve group work activities in English
classes?
3. Scope of the study
First of all, both quality and quantity of language use which students
can enhance after Group work activities in class are too broad for this small-
scaled research; therefore, this study does not cover all the features of group

work but only the most important features in the light of Cooperative
learning which can help group work foster cooperation among students to
get the highest benefits.
Second, this study plays a role of collecting and analyzing the feedback
from students, who directly work with Group work for further study in the
future.

Last but not least, it is noteworthy that the samples of the study were
restricted to classes of only one senior secondary school in Hanoi, namely
High school for Gifted Students. Nevertheless, the students would be
deliberately chosen so that the survey results would be as highly
representative of the whole picture of language learning and teaching as
possible.
4. Methodology of the study:
4.1. Data collection methods:
The combination of the two data collecting methods: qualitative
and quantitative and the one of two data collecting instruments:
questionnaire and interview were fully employed in this study. Going
into more detailed, a set of questionnaire was delivered to 276 students
so that the data would be collected from different viewpoints.
Moreover, after this survey, some semi-structured interviews were
applied to get further information from 6 students who had finished the
questionnaires in the previous stage. All of the participants here would
be chosen in light of the „stratified random sampling‟ with the aim of
varying the data of different kinds of students.

As for the procedure, the set of questionnaire was distributed to
students to see whether the textbook content can meet students‟ needs
and levels. Then, after collecting the surveying data, the interview
questions were revised to ask for more information which had not been
clearly stated in the questionnaire. Then, the in-depth interviews would
be applied to get further information of those students.
4.2. Data analysis methods:
The collected data were utilised to answer all three research
questions.
Then, for each research question, data would be summarized into
tables and charts to facilitate the synthesis and generalization of the

data. In addition, the most important details in the semi-interview were
clearly quoted to illustrate the analysis of data.
5. An overview of the rest of the paper
The rest of the paper includes five chapters as follows:
Chapter 2 – Literature review – provides the background of the study,
including definitions of key concepts, description of the context of applying
group work and discussions of related studies.
Chapter 3 – Methodology – describes the participants and instruments
of the study, as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research.

Chapter 4 – Data analysis and discussion – presents, analyzes and
discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected
according to the two research questions.
Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summarizes the main issues discussed in the
paper, the limitations of the research, several suggestions for group work
adaptation and further studies. Following this chapter are the Bibliography
and Appendices.

Summary
In this part, the researcher has elaborated on these following points:
1. Rationale for the study
2. Aims and objectives of the study
3. Scope of the study
4. Methodology of the study
5. An overview of the rest of the paper
To sum up, these elaborations have not only justified the major
contents and structure of the study but will also work as the guidelines for
the rest of the paper.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This second chapter is totally devoted to the literature review,
especially to the key concepts and related studies to the research topic. At
first, the overall picture of background is provided with some key concepts
of group work in details. At the mean time, related studies from all over the
world in general and in countries in particular are deeply analyzed to
illustrate the concepts more clearly.
1.1. Group work in the history of ELT:
It is common knowledge that not until the emergence of
Communicative Language Teaching was Group work applied to teaching
language in class. However, in fact, Group work has been taken use of in
different versions since the early stage of Language Teaching Method with a
typical representative, Grammar Translation Method.
According to Richard J. C. & Rodgers, T. S., (2001), even before
English totally overthrew Latin to become the international language in the
early 19th century, the Grammar Translation Method had become a standard
and dominant approach in Language Teaching. “Grammar Translation
Method is a way of studying a language that approaches the language first
through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of
this knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into and out of
the target language.” (Richard & Rodgers, 2001). Although this method
focuses on widening linguistic knowledge “about the Language not the

language itself” (p.5) for individual students, some original version of Group
work was still recognized during class hours from the observation of Nadz
DisiNi (2010) when “A student read out loud “when did Mark Twain live?”
Another student replied “Mark Twain lived from 1835 to 1910” and after
that students come back to “work quietly by themselves”. This example
reveals the fact that role- playing structure- based dialogues are one common
technique in Grammar Translation Method, which laid the foundation for

Group work in the next stage of ELT history.
The mid and late nineteenth century witnessed a “Revolution” or
Reform Movement in terms of Language teaching Method. Grammar
Translation Method gradually lost its initial position and was replaced by
many other alternative approaches and methods. Among these alternative
approaches was Audio-lingual Method that officially emerged at the
beginning of the twentieth century. According to Richards & Rodgers
(2001), Audio-lingual Method “advocated aural training first, then
pronunciation training, followed by speaking, reading and writing” and
language is almost studied through extensive repetition only. It is that
repetitive learning technique that led to some “working together in Chorus”
of students “the dialog is read in chorus, one half saying one speaker‟s part
and the other half responding” (Richard & Rodgers, 2001, p. 64- 65).
However, these kinds of activities are also just considered as another origin
of Group work not Group work itself because there was actually little
cooperation among group members.
It was not until the appearance of Communicative Language teaching
(CLT) that Group work was officially declared as an essential teaching
method to achieve the goal of language teaching, which now focuses on

developing “Communicative competence” for students. In the light of this
approach, English classrooms transformed from “teacher- centered” to
“learner- centered”, in which “students are expected to interact primarily
with each other than with teacher”. (Richard & Rodgers, 2001, p. 166). In
stead of following the assigned structures, students working in groups could
participate into the actual interaction which “often involves negotiation of
information and information sharing”. (Richard & Rodgers, 2001, p.165). It
is CLT that laid the stable foundation for the group work in English teaching
methods but its alternative approach “Cooperative learning” was exactly the
first approach to emphasize on the importance of Group work.

According to To et al. (2008), Cooperative learning “stresses “team
work” as the nature of the classroom and emphasizes cooperation as opposed
to competition” (p. 55). This definition demonstrated the nature of
“cooperative learning” when opposing it to “competition”. With the similar
way of creating concept of Cooperative learning, Roger T. & David W. J.
(1988) make a comparison among three ways of students‟ interaction
including “competition” when “they can compete to see who is "best"”,
“individualistic”; they can work individualistically on their own toward a
goal without paying attention to other students; and “cooperative” when
“they can work cooperatively with a vested interest in each other's learning
as well as their own.” These two explanations shared the same strategies of
defining “cooperative learning” through its alternatives “competitive and
individual learning” in order to figure out the most outstanding features. For
a more correct and comprehensive definition of this term, the researcher
would like to introduce the definition of cooperative learning by Johnson et
al. (1998) which directly specified its three main features 1. “shared goals”

when all the members of groups work together to achieve one shared goal, 2.
equal outcomes to everyone which means “beneficial to themselves and
beneficial to all other group members”, 3. “the instructional use of small
groups”. This definition was proved to be the most successful way of
defining Cooperative learning, which could cover almost all of its important
features in a very brief and logical way. In sum, despite the differences in
defining “cooperative learning”, none of these definitions can deny the
essential and indispensable role of “group work” in teaching English in the
modern times.
1.2. Concept of group work
1.2.1. Group
In turning to the concept of Group work, it is very necessary to
demonstrate what is meant by Group itself. While there are very different

ways of defining Group, it is worthwhile looking through a definition which
takes it back to the basics. Oxford Dictionary (the 6
th
edition) defines
“Group means a number of people or things that are together in the same
place that are connected in some way” (p. 568). This definition merely
reflects two main features of Group “together” and “connected in some
way”. What it is meant by “some way” depends much on the purpose of
forming that group. Based on the objective of Cooperative Learning “to
develop communicative competence through socially structured interaction
activities” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001), students in an English language
teaching class are connected through their studying process to achieve
educational goals. In order to understand more about Group in education, it
is necessary to consider the definitions of Group work in the following part.


1.2.2. Group Work
In terms of defining Group work, there are various definitions in books
and websites, among which the briefest one is attributed to Dictionary online
“a group of people work together temporarily until some goal is achieved”
(dictionary.reference.com). This definition states out two main features of
group work including “Work together” “achieve some goal”. When
discussing the theory of Cooperative Approach, Richards & Rodgers (2001)
share the same definition: In Group work “Group members work
cooperatively on tasks with one another”. With this kind of definition, Pair
work can be considered one type of Group work because it can meet the two
demands “Work together or cooperatively” and “Achieve some goals/ on
tasks”. Supporting this idea, in their books, Richard & Rodgers (2001) claim
that “Pair grouping is the most typical CLT format, ensuring the maximum
amount of time both learners spend engaged on learning tasks” (p.199)

In the light of Cooperative learning which is “designed to foster
cooperation rather than competition” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001), the most
important feature of Group work is to be designed as a teaching technique to
“make group members cooperative” (Jacobs, G. M. & Ball, J., 1996, p. 99).
In other words, the prerequisite of a successful group work is it has to be a
cooperative one.
1.3. Classification of group work
In terms of Group work duration, Johnson et al. (1994, cited by Richard
& Rodger, 2001) divided Group work into three main types: 1. Formal

Cooperative learning groups which “last from one class period to several
weeks”, 2. Informal cooperative learning groups which “last from a few
minutes to a class period”, 3. Cooperative base groups which “last for at
least one year and consist of heterogeneous learning groups with stable
membership”.
In terms of tasks used in group, Long (1990, cited by Jacobs & Ball,
1996) classified group work into: Closed and Open tasks. Closed tasks are
those which often require “predetermined correct answer or small set of
answers” while in Open tasks, “there is no correct answers”. In his book,
Long asserted that the Close tasks enhanced cooperation among students
than the Open ones because students would try their best to discuss with the
aim of finding out the best answer without concerning about the other
alternatives.
1.4. Advantages and Disadvantages of Group work
In spite of being regarded as an indispensable teaching technique in
Language Teaching, group work still consists of both strengths and
weaknesses as others.
Firstly, coming into details about the advantages of group activities in
class, Jacobs & Ball (1994) cited five benefits: “increase quantity of
students‟ language use, enhanced quality of the language that students use,

more opportunities to individualize instruction, less threatening environment
to use language; and greater motivation for learning”. Similarly, “increase
students‟ talking time, mimic real English conversations, create more secure
and positive classroom atmosphere, and give more fun” are 4 main

advantages of group work in class which are stated by Linda Martine in her
research (2005). To sum up, almost all of the research shared the same
opinion about advantages of Group work, especially more time to
communicate, increased language use, increased authentic tasks and
securer environment which could motivate students in studying.
However, there still exist some disadvantages when students work in
groups. Linda Martin (2005) listed out three shortcomings of Group work in
her research: students will speak in L1; teacher may lose control of the class;
it can not help students through their university entrance exam. Due to the
fact that her surveying population, Japanese students and Vietnamese ones
have common in cultural and learning environment, these results seem to be
similar to what are happening in our country. However, these shortcomings
are more of specification in certain situations but can not cover all the
common features in general. Bridging this gap, Henry Picciotto (2002)
stated that group work prevented keeping records of students, lacking
accountability in homework (who do the job). His conclusion not only
generalized the shortcomings of Group work in class but also guaranteed the
validity of the following part “features of a good Group work”
1.5. Features of an Effective Group work:
As stated in the previous part, group work can offer not only numerous
advantages but also disadvantages to the studying process. Therefore, only
“work in groups” or “work together” can not help students get their highest
benefits because “There is a difference between "having students work in a
group" and structuring students to work cooperatively” (Roger et al., 1988,
p. 3). In other words, in the light of Cooperative Language Learning, making

group work cooperative or fostering cooperation in group work sets the first
foundation for the success of group work in learning process.
According to Johnson et al. (1998), there are 5 criteria for a group work
to foster cooperation including positive interdependence, individual and
group accountability, face-to-face promotive interaction, interpersonal and
small group skills, and group processing.
1.5.1. Positive interdependence:
In terms of defining “positive interdependence”, there are various
concepts taken full use of in many studies, among which Dr. Spencer
Kagan‟s one is considered to give the most detailed information by defining
“positive” and “interdependence” separately. With the eyes of a linguist, Dr
Kagan (1999) deduced that “positive” in “positive interdependence” meant
positive correlation in the outcomes “Our outcomes go up or down
together”. This positive correlation in outcomes helped students
“spontaneously tutor each other and encourage each other” (Kagan, S.,
1999). As a result, all the students can study and get some knowledge from
working together. Similarly, “interdependence” in the term “positive
interdependence” is defined as “lack of independence in the outcomes”
(Kagan, S., 1999) or lack of the situations when students can work
independently without cooperating with each other to reach their goals. In
conclusion, Dr Kagan states that positive interdependence “drives
cooperation” and is the principle or prerequisite for the success of group
work.

Although Dr. Kagan‟s definition gives the most detailed information
about positive interdependence, the most common concept which has been
cited by many researchers in different linguistic research comes from
Johnson et al. (1998) “Positive interdependence is linking students together
so one cannot succeed unless all group members succeed. Group members

have to know that they sink or swim together.” This definition shares the
same opinion with the previous one when focusing on the most typical
feature of Positive Interdependence: students have to work together or “sink
or swim together” to achieve success.
1.5.2. Individual and group accountability:
Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (the 6
th
edition) defines
“accountability” or “accountable” as “responsible for your decisions or
actions and expected to explain them when you are asked” (p. 9). Individual
and group have opposite meanings “individual is a person considered
separately rather than a part of group” (p. 661) and “group is a number of
people or things that are connected in some ways” (p. 568). However, they
do not compete with each other especially in this situation of cooperative
group work as acknowledged by Johnson et al. (1998) that “The group must
be accountable for achieving its goals and each member must be accountable
for contributing his or her share of the work”. Group accountability aims to
foster the cooperation among group members while the Individual
accountability “exists when the performance of each individual is assessed
and the results are given back to the group and the individual in order to
ascertain who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in
learning.” (Johnson et al, 1998). The key here is Individual accountability

not only fosters the cooperation in group work but also makes each member
a stronger individual in his/her own way.
1.5.3. Face to face promotive interaction:
The third element of a cooperative group work is “Promotive
interaction, preferably Face- to- Face.” (Johnson et al, 1998). “Promote” in
group work “has a very close meaning to encourage: to help something to
develop or increase” (Oxford Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary, the 6

th
edition,
p. 1014). In cooperative learning, “promotive interaction” among students
means helping each other, which often includes “peer tutoring, temporary
assistance, exchanges of information and material, challenging of each
other's reasoning, feedback, and encouragement to keep one another highly
motivated.” (Biehler, 1997 cited from Houghton Mifflin‟s website).
Investigating into the features of this element, Biehler discerns that “Face to
face promotive interaction” evolves from positive interdependence “This
element is made necessary by the existence of positive interdependence”
(Biehler, 1997 cited from Houghton Mifflin‟s website). In other words, Face
to face promotive interaction originates from Positive interdependence but it
actually happens only in the working process of group work.
1.5.4. Interpersonal and small group skills
Differing from these three previous elements, “interpersonal skills” are
not a requirement for the group work itself but for the students or the
participants of group work to gain after taking part in Group activities. As
explained by Johnson et al. (1998) “Social skills must be taught to students
just as purposefully and precisely as academic skills.” because these small

group skills can help empower students to manage both teamwork and task
work successfully in the future.
1.5.5. Group Processing
The last principle for a successful cooperative group work fits in the
stage after group works‟ completion. In so many words, in order to achieve
their goals, students are expected to maintain “the careful analysis of how
members are working together and determining how group effectiveness can
be enhanced.” (Johnson et al., 1998, p. 4). According to (Johnson et al.,
2006, cited by NDSL from group processing plays
the role of evaluating or reflecting on “how well group members are

achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships among
themselves”. Students have duty to sit down after the Group work evaluating
their own performances as well as the whole Group performance for a
positive improvement in the future cooperation.
Summary:
In this chapter, by providing the key concepts of Group work, and
features of a good Group work in the light of Cooperative Learning, the
researcher has created a theoretical background about the research problem.
Moreover, the researcher‟ deeper investigation into international related
studies helps guarantee the validity of all these concepts and definitions.

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
The previous chapter has provided the basic theoretical background
for the paper. Continuing the line, this chapter underlines the practicality of
the research by presenting the method by which it was carried out. In
details, this method is discussed through four sub headings, namely data
collection and data analysis.
2.1. Data collection
2.1.1. Participants:
As mentioned in the Literature Review Chapter, students are
considered the most suitable researching populations who directly work
with Group activities in class. Therefore, 316 students from these three
schools were chosen under the light of “Stratified random Method” to
answer the Questionnaire. In the next step, an in- depth interview was
conducted for 6 students who had just finished the Questionnaire in order
to confirm the results.
2.1.2. Data collection instruments:
My research was carried out under a combination of the two data
collection instruments: the questionnaire and the interview.
2.1.2.1. Questionnaire:

The research was conducted with the support of one set of
questionnaire for the students who are studying English at High school for
Gifted students. In order to avoid the unnecessary misunderstanding from

the respondents, the questionnaire paper including both close-ended and
open ended questions were designed in Vietnamese.
The questionnaire (Appendix 1& 2) included two pages. The top part
of the first page also served as a pre-face with a brief introduction, concise
explanation of the research topic. The main content of questionnaire was
divided into two main parts: “Information background” and “Group work
in class”. “Information background” included one important question to
see whether students had worked in groups before going to this school or
not, which would affect the research results. Meanwhile, “Group work in
class” part was divided into 14 smaller questions with the aim of partly
answering the second research question and fully investigating the third
one.
2.1.2.2. Interview:
Interview is the most suitable cooperative assistant to minimize the
abstractness of the answers in Questionnaire. Therefore, one set of
interview for students was designed in a semi-constructed format, which
meant flexibility depending on the different flows of particular interviews
(Appendix 3& 4). Using Vietnamese language helped the interviewees feel
more comfortable and confident to answer the interviewer‟s questions.
Some of the interviews were recorded under the permission of the
interviewees.
2.1.3. Data collection procedure:
The procedure of collecting data for the research was conducted in 3
phases:

Phase 1: Designing and Piloting questionnaires

Based on the Literature Review, the researcher gradually designed the
questionnaire. In the meantime, the first draft of interview question was
also created. Then, piloting questionnaires was also conducted with 5
voluntary students, the result of which was taken into great consideration
for the formulation of the final drafts of Questionnaires.
Phase 2: Delivering questionnaires
After redesigned, the student set of questionnaire was distributed to
316 students at that school. Thanks to the support from the school
authority, the researcher met almost no difficulty collecting data from 316
students. However, among these 316 questionnaire papers, only 276 ones
can meet the requirements.
Phase 3: Conducting semi- structured interview
With the aim of clarifying what is still vague in the questionnaire
collecting process, the researcher came back to the interview set to
complete the final drafts. After these final drafts were completed, 6
students from this senior secondary school took part in the interviewing
section.
2.2. Data analysis:
After the data had been gathered, they were classified, analyzed and
synthesized carefully and systematically with a view to revealing particular
patterns to be interpreted later. Both descriptive statistics and qualitative
data were fully employed.

Firstly, in order to answer all the three research questions, descriptive
statistics were employed. Data information was categorized in different
values which would be transferred into the format of bar chart, pie chart
and table, etc.
After that, the data collected from the interviews were compared with
those collected from the questionnaires. Also, the data from interviews
could help the researcher have a more specific understanding of the

problems of students and the solutions as suggested by them.
All the data collected from the questionnaires and the interviews were
classified according to the research questions. Noticeably, they would be
analyzed and then demonstrated for comparison and interpretation.
Besides, some of the quotes from the interviews with teachers and students
would be cited by summaries and quotation into qualitative data to support
the points here and there in the research.

Summary
This chapter has justified the methodology of the study by elaborating
on the participants including the students at High school for Gifted
Students, as well as the two data collection methods: questionnaire and
interview. Clarification has also been given to the data analysis methods
and process. The presentation and interpretation of findings from such
analysis are going to be made clear in the next chapter.