The oral communication course - about the main in brief

Introduction

This chapter presents the research design of the study. It describes the Evaluation Design which was used in the analysis of the Oral Communication Course. It also discusses how the data were collected, how the research instrument was developed, and how the respondents were selected.

Research Design

The Descriptive Method was utilized in the study. Sanchez described the “ method as an accurate observation and assessment of data to ascertain the nature and incidence of prevailing condition, practices or description of all subjects, processes, and persona who are objects of description”. The study also used conventional content analysis of the course syllabi and outlines that were collected from the school-respondents. In this type of content analysis, coding categories are derived directly from the text data. The study employed the Context-Input-Process-Product Model of Daniel Stufflebeam. This method is used in program evaluation, a trend in education that started during the Industrial Revolution. The purpose of this method is “ not to prove but to improve.” It is an evaluation model that is comprehensive to help guide evaluations of programs, projects, personnel, products, and institutions. The CIPP Model can be viewed as several types of evaluation or as steps in a comprehensive evaluation. Context Evaluation was used to determine whether the course objectives of Oral Communication offered in each higher educational institution were aligned with the learning outcomes set by the Department of Education and the course objectives of the Commission on Higher Education. Input Evaluation was utilized to describe the resources available to the Oral Communication program of the schools-its faculty and facilities. Process Evaluation was used to assess the implementation of the program. Questions regarding the methods of teaching, strategies as well as problems encountered were asked from the respondents. Lastly, the Product evaluation was employed to determine the problems encountered by the students in learning the subject as well as their objective assessment of the overall delivery of the course.

Respondents of the Study

The study was conducted in Region IV-A which comprises of 5 provinces. To ensure that all of these provinces were represented, the author selected four schools from each province:

Cavite

1. Cavite State University
2. Adventist University of the Philippines
3. Philippine National Police Academy
4. San Sebastian College Recoletos de Cavite

Laguna

1. University of the Philippines Los Baños
2. Laguna College of Business and Arts
3. San Pablo Colleges
4. Laguna State Polytechnic University

Batangas

1. Lyceum of the Philippines University
2. University of Batangas
3. Batangas State University
4. St. Bridget College

Rizal

1. University of Rizal
2. Harris Memorial College
3. Roosevelt College
4. Tomas Claudio Memorial College

Quezon

1. Manuel S. Enverga Foundation University
2. Southern Luzon State University
3. City College of Lucena
4. Eastern Quezon College

The twenty schools were chosen based on the criteria set by the author. The criteria were:

1. The school must have been recognized by the Philippine government for at least 25 years; and
2. The school must be offering at least five undergraduate courses.

A list of higher education institutions with their year of establishment and their courses being offered was obtained from the Commission on Higher Education Region IV-A. Through Stratified Sampling technique, the twenty schools from among those that qualified using the criteria set by the researcher were chosen. The population of the study was comprised of two sets of respondents – the Teacher-Respondents and the Student-Respondents. The Teacher-Respondents were the oral communication teachers who were present during the school visitation, while Student-Respondents were the students who had already finished the oral communication course. The total number of teacher-respondents was 49. To facilitate the computation of the sample size for the student-respondents, enrollment data of the previous year was obtained as the data for SY 2011-2012 was not yet available at the time of preparation for the data gathering. The record obtained from CHEDRO IV-A showed that the total enrollment for the S. Y. 2010-2011 was 245, 787 students. Of this, 75, 400 were enrolled in public schools while the rest were enrolled in private schools. Using the Slovin’s formula, a sample size of 400 students at 5% margin of error was obtained. The researcher, on the other hand, utilized a sample of 564 which guaranteed the result at 4% margin of error. Convenience and Purposive sampling techniques were used to gather the number of respondents since there was a wide coverage in the study. These techniques were also employed to minimize the travel period and the expenses of the researcher.

Instrumentation

In order to contribute to the pool of knowledge in Oral Communication Curriculum Evaluation, the writer developed a survey questionnaire anchored on the guidelines stated in Daniel Stufflebeam’s Context-Input-Process-Product(CIPP) Model. The CIPP Model was the basis for the questionnaire. Since the questionnaire was self-made, it was subjected to content validation by professors who are experts in Speech in the University of the Philippines Diliman. One finished his PhD at Northwestern University in Illinois, USA and had been the Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Baguio, while the other earned her PhD at Philippine Normal University and has been a faculty member of the Speech and Drama Division of the College of Arts Letters of the University of the Philippines. Both have been teaching in the said state university for more than a decade. The self-made questionnaire was tested in another group of teachers and students for clarity. The results of the pilot test determined whether the questionnaire was free from grammatical and perceptual errors. When errors occurred, rewording and/ or corrections were made. The questionnaire for the teacher-respondent included questions, that asked about the profile of their respective schools and the profile of the teacher themselves. Questions related to teaching strategies, problems encountered, assessment of the delivery as well as the measures to be done to enhance oral communication delivery were incorporated in the questionnaire. On the other hand, the questionnaire for the student-respondents included only questions related to the assessment of the delivery of the course, the problems encountered, and the students’ suggestions on how to further improve the delivery of the course.

Data Gathering ProcedureTo obtain the data needed for the study, the researcher went through the following steps:

The researcher sent a letter to the Commission on Higher Education requesting for the total number of enrollment of the SY 2010-2011 of Region IV-A as well as a list of all accredited colleges and universities. The list also included the year of accreditation and the contact details of each school.

She then sent a letter to the respective school-respondents requesting for a possible accommodation to conduct the research. The letter was sent through email. Follow-up calls were employed to expedite response.

The data were gathered using the two sets of self-made questionnaires- one for the teacher-respondents and another for the student-respondents. The questionnaires were administered personally by the researcher on dates approved by concerned authorities. The data gathering started in September 2011 to February 2012.

Data Analysis

The author used the Quantitative. Descriptive Method of Research specifically the Frequency Counts and the Modal responses given to describe the data obtained. The data gathered were tabulated and analyzed through frequency counts, percentages, and means.

Ineffective

Non-parametric tests for significant difference and relationship were used in the data due to the responses of the survey which were ordinal in nature, from “ Ineffective” to “ Very Highly Effective”. Particularly, the Mann-Whitney U Test for Significant Difference was used to determine if there was a significant difference in the ordinal responses of the student and teacher respondents regarding the delivery of the oral communication subject. Furthermore, the Chi-Square Test for Independence was used to determine if there were significant relationship between the effectiveness of the delivery of oral communication and the teacher-profile and school-profile variables that were nominal in nature. The Spearman’s Rho Correlation, on the other hand, was used to determine the relationship between the effectiveness of the delivery of oral communication and the teacher profile variables which were also ordinal variables.