Chapter 3

Methodology

The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate how it effects the IT

aspirants if their knowledge about Microsoft Office is low-level. This chapter presents

the research design, research locale, the respondents of the study, the research

instruments used in the treatment of the gathered in the study.

Research Design

The research does not attempt to manipulate the research setting, as in an

proficiency study, but rather to understand naturally occurring phenomena in their

naturally occurring states. This is the most suitable research method because the

main intention of the study was to find the significant variable.

The research drew on a mixed methods approach because according to

Johnson, Onwuegbuzie and Turner (2007), it incorporated the diverse perspectives,

qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, and analysis and reference

techniques. A carefully crafted mix of qualitative research methods: participant

observation, focus groups and interviews, and quantitative research methods and

survey questionnaires allowed the researcher to build on the strength of each type of

data collection. This minimized the weaknesses of the individual approaches and it

also increased both the validity and reliability of the evaluation data (Johnson et al.,

2007).

The strong point of the qualitative research is that the participant observation,

face to face communications using interviews and the focus group sessions provided

information about the “human side” of this issue. It provided rich contextual
descriptions of the participant’s involvement, their personal experiences and

perceptions of the laptop programme ( Joniak, 2003 29 ; Power, 1998).

Research Locale

The study was conducted in Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges – Annex

a private educational institution in General Santos City established in 1957 as the

Mindanao Vocational School (MVS). The school was named in honor of former

Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay. Located at Pioneer Avenue, General

Santos City, South Cotabato, Philippines.

Respondents of the study

The respondents of the study were the Information Technology aspirants of a

Grade 12 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics strand of Ramon

Magsaysay Memorial Colleges. All of this participants were selected through random

sampling. This sample method is conducted where each member of a population has

an equal opportunity to become part of the sample. In order to conduct this sampling

strategy, the research defined the population first, listed down all the member of the

IT aspirants. In addition, the review was guided by a document review frame that

indicated what was relevant and what was not. Interviews, focus group, survey

questionnaires, and data from observation were used to gather information, as

shown in Table 1.

The preferred sampling methods for quantitative studies are those that will

enable researchers to make statistical inferences from the sample to the population

(Lund Research, 2012).

 Table 1

Research Questions Data Collection Instrument Participants

Table 1 Reports Sub questions, Data Collection Methods and Participants

Research Instruments

The research instruments used in the study are the IT aspirants. The data

collection methods used was participant observation, face to face interviews and a

focus group session, a structured questionnaire was created for the IT aspirants.

These were formulated by the researcher and were properly validated by the

experts. The primary aim of the questionnaire is to determine the strategy used by

the researchers of STEM A of Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges to overcome

the challenges given by the IT aspirants.

According to Stephenson, Brown, Griffin, 2006 Computer-based instruction is not as

useful as traditional methods despite it being found to be user friendly and being

recommended to educational staff.