RESEARCH METHOD IN ELT

UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF RESEARCH

GROUP 1

1. Arsinta Wijayanti Ningrum. (14.1.01.08.0053)

2. Dewanti Anggariza. (14.1.01.08.0095)
3. Winda Rofita Sari. (14.1.01.08.0114)

UNIVERSITY OF NUSANTARA PGRI KEDIRI

FAKULTAS KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

2016
 Preface

First of all, thanks to God’s love and grace for us. Thanks to God for help
us and give us chance to finish this assignment timely. And we would like to say
thank you to Mrs. Diani M.pd as the lecturer from RESEARCH METHOD IN
ENGLISH LEARNING TEACHING that always teaches us and give much
knowledge about how to practice English well. This assignment is the one of
English task that composed of Models of Instructional Planning. We realized this
assignment is not perfect. But we hope it can be useful for us. Critics and
suggestion are needed here to make this assignment be better.

Hopefully we as a student in “University of Nusantara PGRI Kediri” can

work more professional by using English as the second language whatever we
done. Thank you.

Kediri, March 2016.

Writer

Page | 2
Table of Contents

Preface 2

Table of Content 3

Source of Knowledge 4

The Major Source of Knowledge 4

Experience 4

Authority 4

Deductive Reasoning 5

Inductive Reasoning 5

The Scientific approach 6

Steps In Scientific Approach 7

Example 1 7

Benefits 8

Reference 9

Page | 3
1. Definition.
According to Webster's Dictionary, knowledge is "the fact or
condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through
experience or association". A frequently used definition of knowledge is
"the ideas or understandings which an entity possesses that are used to
take effective action to achieve the entity's goal(s).

2. Source of Knowledge.
The major sources of knowledge can be categorized under five
headings:(a) experience, (b) authority, (c) deductive reasoning, (d)
inductive reasoning, and (e) the scientifi c approach.
a. EXPERIENCE.
Experiences is an event or occurances which leaves an impression
on someone. Experience is a familiar and well-used source of
knowledge. By personal experience, you can find the answers to many
of the questions you face. Much wisdom passed from generation to
generation is the result of experience. If people were not able to profit
from experience, progress would be severely retarded.
Yet for all its usefulness, experience has limitations as a source of
knowledge. How you are affected by an event depends on who you are.
Two people will have very different experiences in the same situation.
The same forest that is a delightful sanctuary to one person may be a
menacing wilderness to another.
b. AUTHORITY.
Authority is a group of people with official responsibility for a
particular area of activity. For things difficult or impossible to know by
personal experience, people frequently turn to an authority; that is, they
seek knowledge from someone who has had experience with the
problem or has some other source of expertise. For example, We go to
a physician with health questions or to a stockbroker with questions
about investments.

Page | 4
 Authority is a quick and easy source of knowledge. However, as a
source of knowledge, authority has shortcomings that you must
consider. First, authorities can be wrong. People often claim to be
experts in a field when they do not really have the knowledge to back
up the claim. Second, you may find that authorities disagree among
themselves on issues, indicating that their authoritative statements are
often more personal opinion than fact.
c. DEDUCTIVE REASONING.
Aristotle and his followers introduced the use of deductive
reasoning, which can be described as a thinking process in which one
proceeds from general to specific knowledge through logical argument.
A major kind of deductive reasoning is the syllogism. A syllogism
consists of a major premise and a minor premise followed by a
conclusion. For example, “All men are mortal” (major premise); “The
king is a man” (minor premise); “Therefore, the king is mortal”
(conclusion). In deductive reasoning, if the premises are true, the
conclusion is necessarily true.
Deductive reasoning has its limitations. To arrive at true
conclusions, you must begin with true premises. The conclusion of a
syllogism can never exceed the content of the premises. Because
deductive conclusions are necessarily elaborations on previously
existing knowledge, you cannot conduct scientific inquiry through
deductive reasoning alone because it is difficult to establish the
universal truth of many statements dealing with scientific phenomena.
Deductive reasoning can organize what people already know and can
point out new relationships as you proceed from the general to the
specific, but it is not sufficient as a source of new knowledge.
d. INDUCTIVE REASONING.
Inductive Reasoning is the process of making generalized decisions
after observing, or witnessing. In the Middle Ages, people often
substituted dogma for true premises, so they reached invalid
conclusions. The investigator made observations on particular events in

Page | 5
 a class (or category) and then, on the basis of the observed events,
made inferences about the whole class. This approach, known as
inductive reasoning, is the reverse of the deductive method. You can
see the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning in the
following examples:
To be absolutely certain of an inductive conclusion, the investigator
must observe all examples. This is known as perfect induction under
the Baconian system; it requires that the investigator examine every
example of a phenomenon. In the preceding example, to be absolutely
sure that every rabbit has lungs, the investigator would have to have
observations on all rabbits currently alive, as well as all past and future
rabbits. Clearly, this is not feasible; you generally must rely on
imperfect induction based on incomplete observation. Imperfect
induction is a system in which you observe a sample of a group and
infer from the sample what is characteristic of the entire group.
Deductive : Every mammal has lungs.
All rabbits are mammals.
Therefore, every rabbit has lungs.
Inductive : Every rabbit that has ever been observed has lungs.
Therefore, every rabbit has lungs.
Note that in deductive reasoning you must know the premises before
you can reach a conclusion, but in inductive reasoning you reach a
conclusion by observing examples and generalizing from the examples
to the whole class or category.
e. THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH.
In the 19th century, scholars began to integrate the most important
aspects of the inductive and deductive methods into a new technique,
namely the inductive–deductive method, or the scientific approach.
This approach differs from inductive reasoning in that it uses
hypotheses. a method of acquiring knowledge in which investigators
move inductively from their observations to hypotheses and then

Page | 6
 deductively from the hypotheses to the logical implications of the
hypotheses.

3. AN EXAMPLE OF THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH.

In a classic example, award-winning author Robert Pirsig
provides a vivid andsuccinct description of the scientific approach by
comparing it to the process of maintaining a motorcycle in good
working order:
 Five steps that are typical in scientific inquiry:
1. Identification of the problem. The fi rst step is the realization
that a problem exists. The problem may involve a question
about something, a discrepancy in findings, or a gap in
knowledge. In Pirsig’s example, the fact that the motorcycle
did not start constituted the problem.
2. Statement of the problem. The next step is the clarifi cation of
the problem. The investigator states more precisely the nature
and scope of the problem that has been identifi ed.
3. Formulation of hypotheses. The investigator formulates
hypotheses about possible solutions of the problem. In the
example, the fi rst hypothesis was that the motorcycle did not
start because of trouble in the electrical system.
4. Prediction of consequences. The investigator next predicts the
consequences of each hypothesis; that is, what should result if
the data support the hypothesis.
5. Testing of hypotheses. The researcher gathers objective data to
evaluate the adequacy of each hypothesis formulated. If the
data support the hypothesis, it is accepted as a reasonable
explanation. If the data do not support the hypothesis, it is
rejected.

Page | 7
Benefits.
The main reason doing research is to find out more information about
their condition. Whether the research is successful or not it will
contributed to knowledge on the subject, and this could lead to the
development of better treatment.

Page | 8
Reference.
1. Ary, Donald 2010. Introduction in Research in education. Canada: Nelson
Education Ltd.
2. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/experience accessed on
wednesday, 16 of march 2016.
3. http://www.dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authority accessed
on wednesday, 16 of march 2016.
4. http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-inductive-reasoning-example-
definition-quiz.html accessed on wednesday, 16 of march 2016.
5. http://www.stevedenning.com/Knowledge-Management/what-is-
knowledge.aspx. accessed on wednesday, 16 of march 2016.
6. http://www.arthritisresearchuk.org/arthritis-information/arthritis-and-daily-
life/taking-part-in-research/what-are-the-advantages.aspx accessed on
wednesday, 16 of march 2016.
7. http://iupab.org/publications/value-of-fundamental-research/ accessed on
wednesday, 16 of march 2016.

Page | 9