Chapter 3

Chapter 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

This chapter discussed the research method and procedures that will be used in the study of principal leadership styles in secondary schools in Selangor. In general, research design, instrumentation, population and sampling, data collection and data analysis of this study were discussed.

3.1 Research design

The study employed a mix method of quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative statistics are set of numbers that can be used to describe data. Qualitative method can be defined as “interpretive research”. In term of quantitative method, this study employed a descriptive correlation research design. Descriptive correlation design will be choose to investigate teacher’s perception towards principal leadership styles, Fraenkel&Wallen,(2010).

In terms of qualitative research method, interviews will be conduct with 12 teachers identified from six schools in Petaling District by using the open-ended questions. The findings from qualitative method will be used to support quantitative method findings. Hence, quantitative approach was first carried out to get information and then follow by qualitative approach, Fraenkel & Wallen, (2010).

3.2 Instrumentation

This study used questionnaire and interviews to collect data from respondents. The questionnaire will be divided into three sections namely Section A, Section B and Section C. Section A consists of teachers demographic data, sections B consists of type of leadership styles and Section C consists of open-ended questions. Interviews will be used to explore deeper findings on related topic. Selected respondents for interview will be asked to answer the questions listed in the open-ended questions.

This section will used to gather information from respondents. Respondents often incline not to answer open-ended questions, hence the researcher attempt to overcome this problem by conducting structured interviews. Hence, interviews data will be analysed and triangulated with open-ended data collection from questionnaires.

3.2.4 Pilot Study

The pilot study will be conducted at one of the secondary schools in Petaling Perdana in Selangor.

3.3 Population and sample

Population refers to the “larger group to which one hopes to apply the results’, Fraenkel & Wallen, (2010). The list of secondary school in Selangor was obtained from Selangor State of Education Department (JPNS). There are eight Districts of Educational Department in Selangor namely Petaling Utama, Petaling Perdana, Klang, Gombak, Kuala Selangor and Hulu Langat. The study will be merely restricted to the district of Petaling Perdana.

3.3.1 Sampling

Sample is “a representative group of subjects” so “that results can be generalized to that population”, Fraenkel & Wallen, (2010). Random sampling will be used to choose teacher respondents for the self-administer questionnaire. Six secondary schools were randomly selected from the sampling frame. A total of 50 teacher respondents from each secondary school were randomly selected from the school list to answer the self-administer questionnaires. For the interviews, purposive sampling was used to choose 12 seniors teachers who have good knowledge of the school to attend the interview.

3.4 Data collection

Before collecting the data, researcher will submit a research proposal to MOE (Ministry of Education) to get the permission to carry out the research. After obtaining the permission from MOE, researcher will forward the letter to JPNS to obtain the permission to do the research in the state of Selangor. Once the permission to carry out the study was given by JPNS, researcher will download the list of names of secondary school in Selangor from the MOE website. Researcher will randomly select six secondary schools based on the school list.

All the questionnaires will be distribute and collect by the researcher in the six selected schools. Before distributing the questionnaires, respondents will be gathered in a meeting room. Introduction to the research was given to the respondents and a few minutes were taken to motivate respondents so that they give sincere response to the questionnaire. Researcher assures all the respondents that the information provided will kept confidential and will be used by researcher only.

Subsequent to distributing of the questionnaires, researcher select two teachers, a head teacher and a senior teacher that meet the criteria from each school to answer the interview questions. Duration of 30 minutes will allocate to carry out the interviews for each teacher. In order to assure the confidentiality of the information gathered from the interview, the researcher promise that all the interview scripts and audiotape will be obliterated after the complete the study. All the questionnaires will be analysed and incomplete questionnaires will be discarded.

3.5 Analysis of Quantitative Data

The following sections describe the quantitative data analysis procedures that will employ in this study. All the data gathered will be analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Version 16.0. The data will be analysed using descriptive and inferential statistic.  

3.5.1 Research Question No. 1

i.          Which of transformational leadership styles, transactional leadership style and laissez faire leadership style of principals dominantly used by secondary school principals in the district in Selangor in teacher’s perception?

Descriptive data analysis will be used to analyse research question no.1. Frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation (SD) will be conducted to describe responses. The reason for conducting frequency distribution is to review and put in order a set of data. The mean will be used to analyse each score in the distribution. On the other hand, standard deviation will be conducted to measure the data dispersion, Freankel & Wallen, (2010).

3.5.2 Reasearch Question 2

ii.         Is there a significant relationship or correlation transformational leadership styles,  transactional leadership style and laissez faire leadership style practiced by the principals, the principals of secondary schools in the district in Shah Alam, Selangor with student achievement in teachers perception.

To answer research question no. 2 Pearson correlation coefficient (r) will be used to observe the relationship of each independent variable with dependent variable. For the correlation analysis, the correlation coefficient ( r ) range from -1.00 values constitutes ideal negative and +1.00 values constitute ideal positive correlation, while 0.00 values signify absence of correlation between the variables.

3.6 Interviews

During interviews, researcher used note-taking and audiotape to gather information from respondents. The information gathered from 12 respondents were then listened again by researcher before transcribe. The process of re-listening the audiotape is to certify no information will left out during transcribing.