EIX - Methodology (T1)

 

●Experimental Design:

The design of this experiment is an initial planning that can help the researcher in conducting the study. In addition, experimental design is also a method that can be used to collect and analyse the data obtained to achieve the purpose of the study. The design of this study is a questionnaire design in which the researcher can collect a detailed description of a phenomenon that occurs through the questionnaire design method. Since it is quick and simple to gather data and demographic information about respondents, such as gender, age, year of study, and level of education, the research method applied is a descriptive method. In conducting this research, the researcher distributed questionnaires to random students at the universities randomly.

 

●  Sampling Techniques:

The study focused on the population of university students in Malaysia. The researcher used a simple random sampling method. According to Van Dallen (1990), many individuals presupposing meaning of the terms "random" and "probability". However, stature is not a randomly determined factor; rather, it is a well-planned process. Because the research population is not homogenous in terms of gender, age, year of study, level of study, and other factors, random sampling is a simple method to apply.

 

The sample size determined by statistical command for model testing. N = 163 was determined to be the minimal sample size needed to identify the influence of medium size in a three-factor model, estimated with an error probability of 0.05 and power of 95% (Faul et al., 2009), which was used in the preparation of the study. The sample size (N = 163) is therefore suitable for the suggested model.

 

● Instrumentation for data collection:

To achieve the given goals and conduct the studies, data collection is required. Thus , the researchers applied an interview and questionnaire as the research tool to get this data. To assure that the information is reliable for reaching the purpose of the research study, the data obtained will be quantitatively analysed and evaluated.

 

A questionnaire is one of the methods that the researcher used to get the data from the respondents to complete the research about the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the academic performance of university students. It is a process of gathering and analysing data to reach the study objectives. This study will use the quantitative method based on the standard questionnaire. The current study will be using descriptive research, as this study can describe the respondent’s demographics information such as gender, age, year of study, level of study, and others.  Next, the researcher will use the data to evaluate the cause-and-effect relationship between the research’s independent variables and academic performance and link both of them together.

 

The research method that has been used is the descriptive method because it is cheaper and convenient than other primary data collection methods. Furthermore, it is easy to obtain data and demographic information from respondents quickly. This research aimed to study the poor sleeping habits among university students. Since it would be impossible to collect data from all students, the researcher only selected some university students to be the research respondents. Hence, we have targeted 100 students for this survey to be our sample size. The researcher creates the questionnaire using Google Form, considering it is the fastest and easiest platform to create an online survey.

Then, the questionnaire will be distributed to the respondents via email and WhatsApp application. All of the collected data will be analysed and interpreted quantitatively to make sure that the information is appropriate in achieving the goals and objectives of this research study.

 

The questions are done based on three objectives: to determine the factors that affect the academic performance of university students, to identify the most significant impact that affecting the academic performance of university students, to evaluate the relationship between factors of motivation such as financial status, health condition, and basic needs on academic performance of university students during COVID-19 pandemic, and to describe the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the academic performance of university students. The questions were divided into three sections, with three questions about demographic information under section A, seven questions about the factors that affect the academic performance of university students including the motivational factors under section B and eight questions about the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the academic performance of university students under section C.

 

Besides, the researcher also uses interview methods to gather other useful information from the respondents.  McNamara (1999) claims that interviews are important for learning the participants' experience stories. The interviewer has the opportunity to learn more about the subject in depth. Interviews can be used as a follow-up to particular questionnaire respondents, for example, to study their responses further. Because the informants will be able to provide extensive and exact information on the subjects of the study, the interview is known as the major method. As a result, the researcher decided to interview a few students to gather more precise and trustworthy data to conclude the research on factors that affect the academic performance of university students.

Through this method, the researcher will interview 5 students as her primary source. The researcher will notify the selected students about the interview session via emails that the researcher gets from the Google Form responses. To get a different type of data, the researcher will ask the respondents both closed and open questions. For the closed questions, they have to answer with fixed sets of responses.  While, for the open questions, they may express their opinion with their own words. At first, the researcher plan to record the interview session then the researcher will write up the data in a transcript to ensure she do not miss the important information. Hence, the researcher can analyse it later. The data that has been collected will be interpreted in essay form.

Unfortunately, due to the constraint of Covid-19, the researcher hardly conducts a face-to-face interview with her participants as some of them who are willing to be interviewed are still staying in their hometowns. Thus, as an initiative, the researcher conducted an online interview session by using Microsoft Teams since most students are familiar with Microsoft Teams as their main video conferencing platform.

The interview questions are prepared based on two objectives. Firstly, the researcher wants to know if there are any other factors that affect the academic performance of university students and the causes. Secondly, the researcher wants to know if her respondents have been taking some action or any initiative they have done to solve their academic performance problems based on the factors they faced. The interview questions were also divided into three sections, with three questions about demographic information under section A, seven questions about the factors that affect the academic performance of university students including the motivational factors under section B and eight questions about the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the academic performance of university students under section C.

           

● Data analysis:

The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 was used to analyse the data after they had been gathered. The Likert scale was utilised to analyse the closed-ended questions. In this study, descriptive and inferential statistics were used to evaluate the questionnaire at a level of significance where (p<0.05).