Research Instrument Instrument of the Research

3. Reliability of the Instrument

Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure. A test is considered reliable if it provides the same result repeatedly. For example, if a test is designed to measure a thing then each time the test is administered to a subject, the results should be approximately the same. The researcher used the SPSS version 13 computer program with the use of the inter-rater to get the result of the reliability of the writing test. The scoring of the students’ writing test was done by the research as the first rater and the teacher of English as the second rater. The two rates used a scoring rubric for the writing test. The reliability of the writing test can be known by its reliability coefficient. In order to know the categorization of the reliability coefficient, the researcher used the categorization based on Suharto 2006 offers. The value of reliability coefficient he suggests is presented in table 6. Table 6: The value of Reliability Coefficient No. Reliability Coefficient Category 1. 0,800 – 1,000 Very High 2. 0,600 – 0,799 High 3. 0,400 – 0,599 Fair 4. 0,200 – 0,399 Low 5. 0,00 – 0,199 Very Low

E. Procedure of the Research

In this research, the data were collected by using writing tests. Therefore, the researcher carried out a pre-test and post-test for the object of the research as well. The pre-test is aimed to measure the writing ability of two groups before the treatments were applied. Then the researcher gave the treatments inquiry-based learning strategy on students’ writing class of the experimental group VIII D. As a comparison, the researcher applied communicative language teaching on students’ writing class of the control group VIII E. After that, the researcher implemented the post-test to measure the result of students’ writing ability after the treatments were given. Then, the researcher compared the pre-test and post- test mean scores of every group to find the improvement of students’ writing ability. Both the experimental and control groups received the same pre-test and post-test to measure the students’ writing skills, but they received different treatments. The experimental group used inquiry-based learning strategy on its writing class, whereas the control was used communicative language teaching on its writing class. Table 7 presents the implementation of the research. Table 7: The Schedule of the Research No. Date Activities Time Materials 1. 13 th February 2013 Pre-test of the Experimental Class 70 mins Writing test Pre-test of the Control Class 70 mins Writing test 2. 18 th February 2013 1 st meeting of the Control Class 80 mins Narrative text 3. 19 th February 2013 1 st meeting of the Experimental Class 80 mins Narrative text 4. 20 th February 2013 2 nd meeting of the Control Class 80 mins Narrative text Continued