Page 13 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2018

was non-probability purposive sampling. The researcher had to ascertain that the lecturers were
using this change initiative and were appropriate for the study.
The two student interviewees were students from the Language Description class taught
by the researcher. They were new TESL first semester foundation students from the June 2015
intake. Only two students were chosen as the group was rather small consisting of fourteen
students in total. They were fresh school leavers, being first semester foundation students.
One was a male student and the other a female student. The two sexes were selected to represent
the different gender of the students. The boy was the monitor and the girl the subject coordinator
for the subject Language Description, a major TESL paper taught by this researcher during that
semester. Both the monitor and the coordinator were chosen as they were the class leaders for the
semester and thus had more active roles to play in the WhatsApp group. The purposive sampling
method was therefore also used in this case. Their responses were gathered, studied to find out the
implementation, the utility and the effectiveness of the innovation initiative.
Before the interviews, the Director and the Head of the Department were informed about
the study. After getting their permission, the five respondents were then informed that the purpose
of the study was to gather data for research. Their permission was therefore obtained before the
interview.
Five individual interviews were conducted. The first was with the Head of Department,
the two lecturers and then the two students. The respondents’ permission was obtained for the
audio recording to be made. The individual interview sessions were held separately in the Head
of Department’s office, the computer laboratory, the library and the students’ lecture room.
Before the actual interview, the respondents were prepared for the interview with some
warming-up questions. The interview questions were semi-structured and open-ended. The
questions posed to the Head of Department, and the other two lecturers were more focused towards
the use of WhatsApp for their work in the campus. The interview for the History lecturer was
conducted in Malay as he was not proficient in the English language. His interview transcript was
also in Malay. The other four interviews were conducted in English. For the students, the same
set of questions was posed to them separately to garner their answers.
The interviews lasted from 3 to 5 minutes and were recorded using audio recording. All
the five interviews were then transcribed and the transcripts were analyzed in an iterative manner
to extract emergent themes. This iterative approach took a number of rounds of analysis to identify
and cluster according to recurring themes. The result was four themes, namely: fast, effective and
reliable communication, convenient, the forging of good rapport between lecturers and students
and helping the teaching and learning process. These themes will be discussed in section (4) in
relation to the effectiveness of the change initiative.
The intention of this study was to determine the effectiveness and then the critical factors
for the sustainability of the initiative. It would then ascertain whether the change initiative was
sustainable. The following are the research questions:
1. Is the change innovation initiative effective for communication and learning?
2. What are the critical factors for the sustainability of the change initiative?
3. Is the change initiative sustainable?
The answers to question 1 will be answered in section 4 and questions 2 and 3 in section
5. A summary of the overall finding will then be discussed in the conclusion.

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