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1. Students’ Cognitive Attitudes towards TKBI Test
The data suggests that most of the students had negative cognitive attitudes towards the test. This condition can contribute to failure. The average
score of 2.6 in the first questionnaire item shows that quite many students still showed low self-efficacy during the test preparation. They were unconfident
about their
language competence,
including grammatical
knowledge, phonological knowledge, lexical knowledge, and fluency. The results of the first
questionnaire section report that the students were not sure to have sufficient knowledge to pass the test. Their average scores on the items range from 2.1 to
2.4 mean that most students gave negative evaluations on their competence. They believed that they had poor language competence, so they felt pessimistic that
they could pass the test successfully. On the contrary, most students still demonstrated good self-efficacy level
and mentioned that they were self-assured with their ability although their knowledge needed much improvement. According to Bandura, these two
contradictory situations can happen because performance can either lower or strengthen students
‟self-efficacy depending on each student 1993, p. 132. When the students could not accomplish all tasks and similar tests successfully, they
would have negative perceptions about their competence. As a result, they lowered their confidence and thought that they would fail on the same test.
However, for some students, low competence did not hinder them from success because they could make their efforts to improve it and pass the test.
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Negative cognitive attitudes could be identified from students ‟ responses
when they were asked to evaluate themselves in terms of their knowledge on the language elements. Almost all of them felt that they still found some language
flaws. The average score of 2.1 shows that almost all students believed that they could not speak fluently. They usually found difficulty to communicate their ideas
spontaneously, that they needed to pause frequently to figure out what they wanted to say. Hence, it obstructed the flow of speaking. The same idea was
mentioned by participant 8 and participant 10 during the interview.
“…but I felt a little bit unconfident, because I could not figure out how to speak it out, I was afraid
if I made mistake.” fearof failure.P8.r7.p164
“For me, after the test, I feel that I need to be more fluent.” self- evaluation.P10.r6.p168
From the interview, it can be inferred that fear of negative evaluation affected fluency. Participant 8 mentioned that she was not able to speak fluently
because she needed to think about what she wanted to say before she turned it into speech. Most test-takers were afraid if they produced inaccurate language during
speaking. They were worried if they used incorrect words, produced sentences with inaccurate grammar, or pronounced the words incorrectly. The feeling of
intense worry could to slower their speech because they needed to think about the choice of words, grammar, and pronunciation before they uttered it, unless they
would get lower scores on those elements. In addition to fluency, the students also found the same difficulty in the
language accuracy, especially in pronouncing English words and using the
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grammatical structures. The analysis results of those questionnaire items were negative, ranging from 2.3 to 2.4 in the scale. The scores describe that the students
were aware that they often mispronounced the words. Adding to the problem, the students also doubted their capability to produce accurate language. They still
found themselves making mistakes in using the grammatical structures when speaking.
In terms of language and meaning, the students judged themselves as having insufficient vocabulary range to understand and answer the interview
questions. The scores of 2.4 show that the students were actually worried if they could not perform well in the speaking test because they could not understand the
questions and answer the questions due to the lack of vocabulary knowledge. During the interview, a student shared her experience of taking the test and her
problem dealing with vocabulary.
“…If there was unfamiliar question, I could not answer.” self- inefficacy.P3.r5.p155
“It was very difficult, I could not answer the question...” self- inefficacy.P3.r6.p155
The student mentioned that she could not understand „unfamiliar‟ questions. Being unfamiliar with the questions means that they failed to
understand the questions due to the limited vocabulary. This condition made the student experience the difficulty to answer the questions because she could not
understand the questions. The students thought that they often met these challenges in speaking test because learning English in the university was not
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enough to help them improve their language proficiency. Most of the students mentioned that the contact hours were still limited for them to practice their
communication skills. Therefore, the students felt dissatisfied with their language competence due to the lack of language exposure and language practice. As a
result, many students were not sure that they could pass the test. However, half of the students were still confident about their ability that they could pass the test
although they still needed to improve their competence. The situations mentioned above confirm that the implementation of the
test can weaken or strengthen students‟ cognitive attitude in terms of their self-
efficacy in handling the test. Self- efficacy which can be described as students‟
confidence, self-esteem, and belief about their abilities to pass the test has possible impacts on students‟ performance during the test. Students with low self-
efficacy think that they have poor abilities, so they do less effort because they believe that they have lack of ability and find no chance to improve it. On the
other hand, the students can be motivated to learn because they think that they can improve their competence Bandura, 1993, p. 128. The results of the
questionnaire and interview analysis suggest that past performance on the test cou
ld weaken students‟ self-efficacy as well. Failure on the test lowered students‟ confidence, so
it affected students‟ perceptions about their language competence. This condition confirms the theory of reproduction of belief proposed by Bandura
1993, p. 132. If the students thought that the test was difficult, they possibly failed at the same test because they thought that they were incapable. To give
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example, in the interview, some students mentioned that they or their friends had taken the test at least twice, but they still failed.
2. Students’ Affective Attitudes towards TKBI Test
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