Critique of a given research article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Critique of a given research article - Essay Example He evaluated the motivation of first year junior high learners in Indonesia in learning English. The researcher intended to conduct a longitudinal evaluation extending for two years. He attempted to identify changes in motivation and what learners do in and out of class (Lamb 2003, p. 5-6). To do this the researcher combined survey questionnaire with semi-structured interviews. The focal group comprised of 12 individuals. The researcher, additionally, interacted with the learners to obtain qualitative data (Lamb 2003, p. 6-7). Lamb finally concluded that as English becomes adopted by many people, its learning becomes allied to conformity to globalization. Hence the motivation to learn it is dependent on identification. The extensive consultation of up to date literature enables him to evaluate relevant facets of the question. The use of focus group was prudent in finding a solution to conduction research in a multicultural context. Focus groups are an efficient qualitative method providing access to information unavailable without interactions. It provided an avenue to discover indigenous language in order to decipher the learners understanding of phrases used in the questionnaire. However, he fails to identify the variation of focus group employed. Additionally, the researcher did not highlight the guidelines utilized in the selection of members, raising the issue of external validity. Without a representative selection, the results may be invalid. The researcher identified the problems resulting from culture when administering a questionnaire in that they may not interpret the questions as intended by the researcher, he therefore responded to this by gathering qualitative data (Lamb 2003, p. 7). The interaction with the students helped increase the validity of the quantitative data collected through augmenting with qualitative data. From the responses on the liking of the learning of English, the