CRITICAL JOURNAL REPORT

Subject : Quantitative Research

Lecturer : Johannes Jefria Gultom, S.Pd., M.Hum

Compiled by:

Mey Lorens Siahaan

(2162321028)

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

2019
 IDENTITY OF JOURNALS

A. Article 1

Title of Article : A Qualitative Study about the Implementation of Tablet Computers

in Secondary Education: The Teachers’ Role in This Process
Name of Journal : International Conference on Education & Educational Psychology
Author : Hannelore Montrieux, Ruben Vanderlinde, Cedric Courtois, Tammy
Schellens, and Lieven De Marez
Publisher : Elsevier Lid , Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences
Publishing Place :-
Publishing Year : 2013
Number of ISSN : 112 ( 2014 ) 481 – 488
Website : https://perso.liris.cnrs.fr/christine.michel/wa_files/document3.pdf

Article 2

Title of Article : The Role of Qualitative Research in Science Education.

Name of Journal : Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education
Edition of Issue : Vol. 6 (1)
The Author : Iztok Devetak, Sasa A, Clazar and Janez Vogrine
Publisher : EURASIA
Publishing City :-.
Publishing Year : 2009
Number of ISSN : 1305-8223
Website :http://www.ejmste.com/The-Role-of-Qualitative-Research-nin-
Science Education,75229,0,2.html
 ANALYSIS OF TWO ARTICLES

Numbe IMRAD AVAILABL UNAVA IDENTIFICATION

r E ILABL
E

1. INTRODUCTION

THEORY √ 1. Article 1

√ 2. Article 2

EXPECTATION √ 1. Article 1

2. Article 2

REALITY √ 1. Article 1

2. Article 2
 √

2. METHODOLOGY Article 1

A qualitative focus group study has been

organized in one of the first secondary schools in
Flanders - the Dutch speaking region of Belgium -
that has implemented tablet computers, namely
iPads, into the whole school and classroom
organization. Using Rogers' (1995) innovation
diffusion theory, which describes five stages of the
life cycle of an innovation, this school can be
considered as an ‘early adopter’ of tablet
computers. The school wide decision to use tablet
computers in all grades and courses is a unique
case in Belgium, which makes this school a
pioneer or ‘early adopter’. This school is the first,
and presently the only school, which has
implemented the tablet computers in all grades and
courses. More specifically, this means that all
teachers and all students have a tablet computer
available for usage at school and at home. The
school’s main vision behind this implementation
project is to motivate and stimulate students to
learn by providing rich and relevant content
according to the digital age in which they all life.
Due to its unique character, the research project is
defined as a single case study. Within the context
of this single case study design, different focus
group interviews were organized with students
(n=36) and teachers (n=20). All participants were
randomly selected, and treated anonymously,
resulting in respondents of different gender and
grade. The use of focus group interviews is a
common method for gathering information in
qualitative educational research (Puchta & Potter,
2004; Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub, 1996),
especially for those research designs where no
solid information is yet available in research
literature. To put it differently, setting up a focus
group study was relevant in this context to gather
explorative information about the perceptions of
the most important stakeholders using tablet
computers in this pioneer school.

Article 2

This section of the paper presents results of

the analysis of methodology used in the research
papers published in three major science education
research journals; International Journal of Science
Education (IJSE), Journal of Research in Science
Teaching (JRST) and Science Education (SE).
These three journals are also included in the Social
Science Citation Index and they had impact factors
as released by the Institute for Scientific
Information, Thomson Reuters (USA), Journal
Citation Reports for the year 2007 as follows:
JRST 1.148, SE 0.936 and IJSE 0.541. Special
issues of the journals and books reviews were
excluded from the analysis
DESIGN √ 1.Article 1

The study reported in this paper is embedded in a

broader longitudinal study of a PhD research,
consisting of collecting and analyzing quantitative
and qualitative data. In this paper, results of the
focus group interviews are reported with a specific
focus on the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of
the changing role of teachers, and the didactical
consequences related to the implementation of
√
tablet computers in classrooms. Six focus groups
with teachers (n=20) and students (n=36) were
organized. Each focus group contained
homogenous groups between nine and ten
participants, and was set up in a quiet environment,
following the guidelines of Krueger & Casey
(1988) and Morgan & Krueger (1998).
Additionally, the conversations of students were
guided through the use of the application Secretive
on the tablet computers of the students. The tablet
computer has become one of the studied
instruments. Secretive is a student response system
developed for mobile technologies, and empowers
students to be engaged to answer questions on their
device. In this study, the Secretive app is being
used to present statements to students with a five-
point Liker-scale (ranging from strongly disagree
to strongly agree), and open-ended questions to
encourage conversation. The focus groups were
filmed and their conversations were transcribed.

2. Article 2

The research was a non-experimental, cross-

sectional and descriptive study (Bryman, 2004). In
 the first step of analysis, the full text papers’
methodology was read by two authors of this
paper. Two authors, trained to analyze the text and
code the data by using the designed coding sheet,
independently coded the selected data. The
analysis and coding process were performed in
several steps. According to the first step of
analysis, the categories of research approaches
used by the authors in selected published papers
were identified. Both authors gave consent about
the derived codes, and a coding sheet was
developed. The data obtained by the document
analysis were entered into the excel file and
additionally coded and added into the coding
sheet.

POPULATION √ 1. Article 1
SAMPLE
A qualitative focus group study has been organized
in one of the first secondary schools in Flanders -
the Dutch speaking region of Belgium - that has
implemented tablet computers, namely iPads, into
the whole school and classroom organization.
Using Rogers' (1995) innovation diffusion theory,
√ which describes five stages of the life cycle of an
innovation, this school can be considered as an
‘early adopter’ of tablet computers. The
schoolwide decision to use tablet computers in all
grades and courses is a unique case in Belgium,
which makes this school a pioneer or ‘early
adopter’. This school is the first, and presently the
only school, which has implemented the tablet
computers in all grades and courses. More
specifically, this means that all teachers and all
students have a tablet computer available for usage
at school and at home. The school’s main vision
behind this implementation project is to motivate
and stimulate students to learn by providing rich
and relevant content according to the digital age in
which they all life. Due to its unique character, the
research project is defined as a single case study.
Within the context of this single case study design,
different focus group interviews were organized
with students (n=36) and teachers (n=20). All
participants were randomly selected, and treated
anonymously, resulting in respondents of different
gender and grade. The use of focus group
interviews is a common method for gathering
information in qualitative educational research
(Puchta & Potter, 2004; Vaughn, Schumm, &
Sinagub, 1996), especially for those research
designs where no solid information is yet available
in research literature. To put it differently, setting
up a focus group study was relevant in this context
to gather explorative information about the
perceptions of the most important stakeholders
using tablet computers in this pioneer school.

2. Article 2

This section of the paper presents results of the

analysis of methodology used in the research
papers published in three major science education
research journals; International Journal of Science
Education (IJSE), Journal of Research in Science
Teaching (JRST) and Science Education (SE).
These three journals are also included in the Social
Science Citation Index and they had impact factors
 as released by the Institute for Scientific
Information, Thomson Reuters (USA), Journal
Citation Reports for the year 2007 as follows:
JRST 1.148, SE 0.936 and IJSE 0.541. Special
issues of the journals and books reviews were
excluded from the analysis.

TECHNIQUE OF √ 1. Article 1
COLLECTING
The study reported in this paper is embedded in a
DATA
broader longitudinal study of a PhD research,
consisting of collecting and analyzing quantitative
and qualitative data. In this paper, results of the
focus group interviews are reported with a specific
focus on the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of
the changing role of teachers, and the didactical
consequences related to the implementation of
tablet computers in classrooms. Six focus groups
withteachers (n=20) and students (n=36) were
organized. Data was analyzed using a two-step
√
procedure (Miles & Huberman, 1994). In the first
step of the data analysis, a vertical analysis was
applied leading towards results for each individual
focus group. A coding scheme was used with a
special focus on the teacher’s role. In the second
data analytic step – the horizontal analysis –, a
systematical comparison of the results of the
vertical analysis was conducted by looking for
similarities and differences

2. Article 2

The research was a non-experimental, cross-

sectional and descriptive study (Bryman, 2004). In
 the first step of analysis, the full text papers’
methodology was read by two authors of this
paper. Two authors, trained to analyze the text and
code the data by using the designed coding sheet,
independently coded the selected data. The
analysis and coding process were performed in
several steps. According to the first step of
analysis, the categories of research approaches
used by the authors in selected published papers
were identified. Both authors gave consent about
the derived codes, and a coding sheet was
developed. The data obtained by the document
analysis were entered into the excel file and
additionally coded and added into the coding
sheet. The agreement on the methodology
approaches identified in the published papers in
the selected respected journals was calculated at 96
%. The codes derived from the coding sheet were
counted, and frequencies and percentages were
used to present the results.

INSTRUMENT √ 1. Article 1
OF COLLECTING
Data was analyzed using a two-step procedure
DATA
(Miles & Huberman, 1994). In the first step of the
√
data analysis, a vertical analysis was applied
leading towards results for each individual focus
group. A coding scheme was used with a special
focus on the teacher’s role. In the second data
analytic step – the horizontal analysis –, a
systematical comparison of the results of the
vertical analysis was conducted by looking for
similarities and differences. Methodological
decisions were taken to safeguard the quality of the
 interpretative data in both the vertical and
horizontal analysis procedure. These decisions
include presentations of the interpretative results
in a meeting with the involved teachers so they
were able to give feedback on the research results.
Next, all analyses and interpretations were
discussed among the researchers involved in the
study

2. Article 2

In the first step of analysis, the full text papers’

methodology was read by two authors of this
paper. Two authors, trained to analyze the text and
code the data by using the designed coding sheet,
independently coded the selected data. The
analysis and coding process were performed in
several steps. According to the first step of
analysis, the categories of research approaches
used by the authors in selected published papers
were identified. Both authors gave consent about
the derived codes, and a coding sheet was
developed. The data obtained by the document
analysis were entered into the excel file and
additionally coded and added into the coding
sheet.

VALIDITY √ 1. Article 1
 2. Article 2
√
RELIABILITY √ 1. Article 1

√ 2. Article 2
TECHNIQUE OF √ 1. Article 1
ANALYZING
The research was a non-experimental, cross-
DATA
sectional and descriptive study

2. Article 2

The study reported in this paper is embedded in a

√
broader longitudinal study of a PhD research,
consisting of collecting and analyzing quantitative
and qualitative data.

RESULT √ 1. Article 1

2. Article 2
 √

DISCUSSION √ 1.Article 1

2.Article 2
√
CRITICISM OF TWO ARTICLES

CONCLUSION