A questionnaire sounds a simple term, yet it is not that simple when it comes to definition (Dörnyei and Taguchi, 2010). Questionnaire nonetheless, is used here as identified by Brown (2001, p. 6), in which he remarks that ‘questionnaires are any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing answers’. Even though Brown's definition is well-received among a number of researchers, his definition would also cover written examinations. Hence, a questionnaire is specifically concerned with respondents' beliefs and attitudes which may explain their behaviour rather than being a record of the behaviour itself. In this research, this subjective tool then provides a valuable complement to interviews and to the objective data of the students’
102 performance that were collected. Plentiful questionnaires have been used in L2 research gathering various pieces of information to provide further distinctive findings. This section outlines the reasons for using a questionnaire in this study, and how the questionnaire was designed.
4.7.2.1 Overview
In this study, questionnaires were used to discover the reasons why English-speaking learners feel that they make common Arabic writing errors. It is directed to English speaking learners of Arabic in different learning levels. As noted before, the writing tests (section 4.7.1) were taken by mid-level learners in order to avoid too little as well as too much information, which normally accompany early and advanced stages respectively, which may prejudice eliciting data – common writing errors. The questionnaire tries to reveal the participants’ backgrounds and attitudes, which might impact their Arabic writing reception, leading them to make such errors. While this is the main purpose of using a questionnaire, it was open to all learners whose English is their L1 at the institutions (see section 4.7), where the data were collected. The decision was to widen the sampling frame seeking for a more representative picture and gathering as much information as possible, leading to reliable and valid results.
As in similar studies (e.g. Al-Shehri, 2009; Ryan, 2009), the questionnaire was not designed totally from scratch. In terms of language and demographic background of respondents, the design of research questionnaire embraced two context-related questionnaires (i.e. Li et al., 2006; Marian et al., 2007). Numerous studies were surveyed on the two resources to determine the most frequent and useful questions in the realm of L2 research. Given the fact that many L2 questionnaires overlap, they proposed a web- based questionnaire which compiles crucial items. In terms of questions on Arabic writing, however, they were carefully tailored by the researcher to explore the respondents' feedback on their own L2WS Arabic experience. These purpose-designed set of questions seem fundamental in order to discover the attitudes that underlie the respondents' behaviour while performing Arabic writing. More details about the two strands of questions are in the discussion of the questionnaire structure.
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4.7.2.2 The Questionnaire Structure
As said, the respondent profiles, which comprise language history and language proficiency, were compiled, selecting the most appropriate questions in two L2 questionnaires. The other specific questions, however, which touch on Arabic writing attitudes, were designed by the researcher according to the objectives of the study. Exploiting the writing test results, various questions about certain writing errors were raised as well. Accordingly, a framework was drawn to determine areas of interest that encompass four aspects: the Arabic language history of the sample; their Arabic writing errors; their difficulties in Arabic writing; and their cross-linguistic influences. A pool of questions was then established to cover these four aspects. The initial, fifty-four questions, which represented the question pool, were refined into twenty-six questions that were divided in three sections: language history and language proficiency, Arabic writing, and background information; each of which was then revised appropriately. Moreover, the questionnaire sections were structured and ordered to gain as many interested respondents and completed questionnaires as possible.
The design incorporated suggestions and guidelines of several methodologists (e.g. Seliger and Shohamy, 1989; Aiken, 1997; Oppenheim, 2000; Brown, 2001; Couper et al., 2001; Lazaraton, 2005; Perry, 2005; Gillham, 2008; Dörnyei and Taguchi, 2010; Cohen et al., 2011), such as using positive instead of negative phrases, writing specific and not general terms, laying factual questions at the end, and so on. Giving instructions in the respondents’ L1 (English) was to ensure that the respondents had time to spend on responding to the questionnaire items rather than figuring out what it was all about. Using L1WS for such purposes is thought to be useful and significant in terms of validity and reliability (Atkinson, 1987). Although this may activate a specific language mode (Grosjean, 2001), the questionnaire was intended to merely gather information and not test the respondents’ L2 efficiency, and hence there was no reason to write the questionnaire items in their L2.
During the design process, a number of questions were rewritten and restructured to reach a satisfactory wording. Similarly, sections were joined and divided in order to provide the respondents with a good experience (see Appendix 5 (Questionnaire – 9 pages). The following sub-sections explain in detail how the questionnaire sections were designed.
104 The first section: language history and language proficiency
The first section focuses on two main aspects: language history and language proficiency. It investigates the number of languages that a respondent speak s, and their proficiency- based order. It then goes deep into their Arabic-learning background as when/how/where they started writing in Arabic. A question regarding their own Arabic skills follows. A system of six-level scale which describes stages from very poor to very good, including poor, fair, functional, and good in between.
The second section: Arabic writing ability
This section thoroughly investigates beliefs and attitudes towards L2WS Arabic. It forms the main part of the questionnaire which embraces the most important information to the study. The researcher designed ten questions here based on three areas: language difficulties, learning difficulties and inter-linguistic difficulties. This triangle of difficulties was formed based on literature survey as well as results of the pilot study. Each question in this section belongs to one (or two or all) of the three angles. The entire section could perhaps reveal where the writing problems come from so as to assign one, two, or all the three angles/areas being the source of making errors. It also may rank them based on their weight as error sources. Each of the ten purposely designed questions will be illustrated.
The first question basically explores how learners perceive Arabic letters in general. The second investigates whether respondents have specific problems with the Arabic letters in their isolated forms. The third takes a step further to examine joining Arabic letters to compose a word which includes three letter positions/forms (i.e. initial, middle and final). The fourth question looks at directionality and whether learners find challenges while writing in the opposite direction to their L1's. The fifth covers many issues that have been found in previous studies (refer to section 3.4 in the previous chapter) and emerged from the pilot study results, such as common orthographic errors among non-native learners, common errors among native learners, phonological problems and directionality. This question was designed to verify whether the errors addressed in prior general studies are also found in the research specific context. The sixth question gives an example of a letter that is joined to others in the three forms and look s for difficulties that learners might encounter in practice. This basically and practically verifies the answers to the third
105 questions. The seventh question asks the respondent to refer to one of the three problems and state whether the difficulties come from the fact that Arabic has different spoken dialects; that Arabic has a completely different writing system; or because of influences from their L1WS. This question collectively represents two angles of the triangle mentioned above.
The eighth question, similar to the fifth, asks about documented known errors amongst second language learners of Arabic. It investigates the respondents' attitudes to particular Arabic writing phenomena, including those which native speakers fall into, such as Alhamza – the glottal stop, and Al-shadda – the gemination, and connecting sounds with their letters. Other issues regarding letter-shape and graphemes are also investigated here, such as letter sizes, teeth and dots, and differences/difficulties in joining letters according to their positions in the word. This would act as a check on the results of the fifth question. At the end of this part, the ninth question tries to determine how often learners check spelling of an Arabic word while writing in Arabic, whereas the tenth inspects whether they do so in a certain way. The former would probably show the size of difficulty or uncertainty that learners encounter while writing in Arabic, while the latter may reveal the most preferable resource, if there is any, to acquire the correct spelling.
As described, the ten questions refer to one or more of the three problematic areas. Questions 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8 ultimately ask whether the learners see the AWS itself as difficult to learn, while questions 4, 5, 7 and 8 investigate writing problems that relate to inter-linguistic aspects such as directionality and L1 interference. Questions 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 finally try to find out whether the learning methods or personal writing practices have negative impacts on the respondents' writing.
The third/last section: factual information
The third section, which is the last part of the questionnaire, contains questions with regard to personal information such as name, age, sex, and education level. These are obviously essential questions which provide insightful information about respondent profiles. It also asks whether the respondent has taken the writing tests which are part of this study, in order to link their responses in both data instruments. At the end of this section, the researcher offers to send the survey’s outcomes to the respondent by typing
106 their email address in the designated box. At least it leaves a nice gesture of returning their effortful inputs.
These questions were situated here, at the end of the questionnaire, as several methodologists suggest avoiding personal questions at the beginning of the questionnaire (Dörnyei and Taguchi, 2010). Placing those questions which ask for critical information at the end allows the respondents to answer the survey questions with much more ease and honesty compared to the other way around.
4.7.2.3 The Questionnaire Administration
The group-administered questionnaire type seems more reliable and suitable for the study purpose (Dörnyei and Taguchi 2010). Besides, it has numerous advantages over the self- administered questionnaire as Brown (2001) noted. On the other hand, online administration tends to be the most desirable among researchers for many reasons and advantages. It adds an illustrative fun element, an individual control device and a reliable computerised result. In addition, it saves paper and assures that each respondent has thoroughly completed the survey as the required-answer feature does. Online administration, using the so-called e-questionnaire, relatively outweighs the group administration type by overcoming many problems associated with traditional administration methods and offering appealing benefits, as numerous methodologists highlighted (Dörnyei and Taguchi 2010). For all these powerful advantages of the online administration type, it was selected to administrate the study questionnaire.