Violencia sexual

Any d ata collection procedu re , by t h e ve ry fact of its use, creates some effect on the d ata. In o rder to assu re the qual ity of data co l lection p roce d u res, the criteria of re liab i lity and validity were app lied to this study.

3.7.1 I nternal Validity

If o n e is to be able to state that t h e re lati onship between strategy u se and the oth e r variables in the study is u nambiguous and not explai n ed by extraneous facto rs , attention m ust be given to factors which may affect the i nternal validity of the study. In fo rmulati ng the research desig n fo r a study of strategy use , there we re fou r pote nti al sources of t h reats to i nternal validity. Each of these is exami ned below.

Subject Selection

I n selecting subjects it was i m p o rtant to e nsure that s u bj ects classified as distance learn e rs were i n fact studyi n g i n the distance mode and that they we re not partici pat i ng i n i nte rnal classes, eve n on a casual basis . Lect u re rs we re asked if any distance learners atte nded classes. Two such subjects we re ide ntified and we re re moved from the sample.

Four learne rs e n ro l led in J apanese language classes were in fact native speake rs of Japanese. They did not form part of the sample for the questi o n nai re study or the verbal re port study.

Subjects co mpleting a questionnai re in a lang uag e other than thei r mothe r tongue may h ave experie nced difficu lti es in u nderstanding some ite m s or may not have u nderstood them accurately, thus i nfluenci ng the validity of the data. Subjects were asked to give thei r mothe r tong u e thus al lowi ng the researcher to identify learne rs who we re not native spe ake rs of E ng lish. Twe nty-fou r su bjects noted that they had two mother tongues, o n e of which was English , and these people were retai n ed in the qu estionnai re sample . Eig hteen subjects g ave a language other than E ng lish as their mother to ng ue and these stude nts we re removed from the question nai re sample since it was not possi ble to check o n their leve l of p rofici e ncy in English. Two classro o m learn e rs were re moved from the ve rbal report sample si nce they we re not native speake rs of E n g li s h .

I n section 3 . 5 . 5 t h e question of att riti on of su bjects was d ealt with a n d a descri ption was given of the ste ps take n to e nsure that learn e rs who participated i n the study we re likely to co nti n u e with the course.

Instrumentation

lt was also i m portant that the observatio ns used i n this study were valid and consist e nt and that the definitions of t h e key terms reflected t h e constructs u nde r study. To d efi ne the co nstructs of m et acog nitive strategy use , cognitive strategy use , social strategy use and affective strategy use a rep resentative set of items

were d rawn f ro m the literatu re (see section 3.3. 1 ) . Ope ratio nal defi nitions have bee n g ive n fo r the learn i ng context variables and the learne r characte ristic variables used in the research, also i n section 3 . 3. 1 .

Task Directions

I n structio n s were plan ned and pi loted to e nsure that they were clear and that su bjects knew what was e xpected of the m i n co mpleting the qu estionnai re and in followi ng the yoked su bject procedure. Identical procedu res were followed i n col lecti ng d ata from diffe re nt classes. Th e o ral i ntroduction g ive n t o classroo m learners p rese nted the i nfo rmatio n co ntai n ed i n the acco mpanyi ng letter mai led to distance learners. In the mai n study a simi lar consistency in the col lecti o n procedu re was fol lowed .

Adequate Data Base

H atch and Lazaraton (1 9 9 1 :39) deal with a fu rthe r aspect of i nternal validity i n t h e fo l lowi ng way :

To b e valid the data-g atheri n g procedu re should allow u s to tap the t ru e abi lities of the learners . . . . I n qu estio nnaire research we suggest that d e m og raphic informati o n . . . be placed at the e nd of the quest i o n n ai re . . . . You are more like ly to g et full participation if other data a re col lected fi rst and personal i nformation seco nd.

I n the questi onnai re study, su bjects we re fi rstly asked to respo nd to qu estio n s about thei r strategy use and t h e n t o provide backg rou nd info rmation o n th emselves. T h e fi nal section o f the backg rou nd info rmati o n consisted o f a n i n e­ item scale relating to lang uage learn i ng motivation. This requ i red su bjects to t h i n k about whether certai n i ssues were important t o them in learning t h e TL. Since responses to t hese questions are less automatic than those about age , g e n d e r, p rior languag e learn ing experience and so o n , the validity of the motivation data could p robably have been i mp roved by putting the ni ne-ite m scale at the start of the backg round info rm atio n section rather than at the end. Subjects who did n ot complete t h e questio n s re lating to motivation were not included i n the sample.

3.7.2 E xternal Val i dity

The e xternal validity of the study also needs to be examined i n o rd e r to be able to d etermine the e xtent to which the findi ngs may be g e n e ralised to situations

outside those i n which the study i s conducted.

Subject Selection

The qu estionnaire study was carried out with i ntact g roups of languag e learn ers. S u bjects were se lf-se lected i n that partici pation was e nti re ly vo lu ntary. Not all classroom learners we re p resent whe n the qu estion n ai re was ad m i n iste red and not all distance learners respo nded to the questio n n ai re . Thus, it was not possible to be e ntirely su re that the subjects fo r the study fo rm a representative sample.

T h e yoked su bject procedure was also carri ed out with i ntact g roups, namely 2 00-level classroom and distance learn ers of J apanese and French. Self­ selection also took place . lt was noted that a n u mber of learn e rs felt re luctant to partici pate in the yoked subject procedu re becau se t hey did not feel suffici e ntly co nfident about thei r own 'study habits' or about their abi lity to re port on the p rocesses they use. Th us subject selectio n may li mit the g e ne rali sabi lity of the fi ndings of the study.

Data Collection Methodology

E ach method of data co llection has u nde rlyi ng theoretical assu m pti ons about the n atu re of the data. The qu estio n nai re procedu re requires subjects to respo nd to s pe cific ite ms while the yoked subject procedure is a less structu red i nstru ment and requires subjects to p roduce verbal re ports o n their strategy use. These d iffe re nces in the degree of structuredness of t he i n stru m ent and in the differi ng relative e mphases o n productive ve rsus receptive com petence i n re po rti ng on strategy use can be expected t o i nfluence the fi ndings o btai ned . G ive n the highly i ndividualised nature of strategy use care was taken to obtai n co nve rgent data o n the strategy u se of languag e learn e rs.

Ecological Validity

The yoked subject p rocedu re has a particu lar ecolog ical vali dity i n the co ntext of the cu rre nt study i n that learne rs a re asked to repo rt on their strategy use i n a realistic context - that is to report o n how t hey g o about l earni ng the TL by looki ng at a particular section of t h e workbook materials and talki ng as if they we re with o n e of their peers who was plan n i ng to e n rol in t h e p rog ram m e . The procedure is not artificial in that it co ntai ns many of the eleme nts of peer tutoring and as such is a fitting procedu re t h roug h which to exte rnalise the strategic

repe rtoi re s of classro o m and distance learn e rs.

3.7.3 Reliabil ity

The criteri o n of re liabi lity was applied t o the study i n o rder to d ete rmi n e the exte nt to which the data collecti on p roced u res can be conside red accu rate and the

resu lts can be co nside red to be stab le.

Two tests of re liabi lity were app lied t o the data.

Internal Consistency Reliability

Parts 1 to 3 of the questi onnai re co nsisted of a number of i n dependent items each of which re lated to one of fou r scales: metacog nitive strategy use, cog nitive strateg y use, social strategy use and affective strategy use. lt was n ecessary to test if, for exam ple , each of the metacognitive ite ms did in fact contribute to the metaco g n itive scal e si nce the m o re homogenous the ite m s the higher the re liabi lity of the i n strument. To e sti mate re liability via i nte rnal consistency Cro nbach's Alpha test was applied to the strategy use ite m s fro m the pilot question nai re data and some adj ustme nt was made in the scales to increase re liabi lity. Cro nbach's Alpha test was applied to the 32 strateg y use ite ms in the main study and the reliabi lity coeffici ents were : m etacog nitive strategy use scale r=.78, cog nitive strategy use scale r=.82, social strategy use scale r=.89, affective strategy use scale r=. 72.

lnterrater Reliability

Give n that t h e yoked subject procedure was o n e of low explicitness it was i m portant to e sti mate i nterrater re liabi lity. The ide ntification and analysi s of strategy use (as described in section 5 . 1 ) was carried out i nd epe ndently by the two rate rs and then the ratings we re co rre lated to p roduce a P earso n correlation m atrix and a n ave rage of al l co rre latio n coefficie nts derived. The Pearson i nte rrater re liabi lity was . 89. We can the refo re co nclude that i nte rrate r re liabi lity was hig h fo r t h e verbal report study .