The result of the post test also supported the success of the use of cooperative learning on improving the students’ writing ability. The
writing assessment were carried out to measure the improvements of students’ writing skills and to support the data validity and reliability. The
researcher created some indicators of the writing performance including content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. The
following table presents the students’ mean scores on each aspect of writing after the teaching and learning process in cycle II.
Table 4.10
: The students’ Mean Score of Each Aspect in Post-Test
C V
O LU
M TS
Mean 24.4
16.6 17.1
19.2 3.7
81.2
C : Content LU : Language Use
V : Vocabulary M : Mechanics
O : Organization TS : Total Score
For the post-test, the results of students’ writing scored 81.2 in average. This result showed that the students were in the better level than
the previous tests as they scored 74.05. The students’ mean score of each writing aspect also showed significant improvement as compared to before
action. In terms of content, the students managed to reach 24.4 out of 30.
This was considered as good to average. They had adequate knowledge and supporting details although some of them still lacked of some details.
However the development of thesis was quite sufficient.
The students had better organization as they scored 17.1 categorized as very good. The ideas were clearly stated and cohesive. The
main ideas were also stood out and logical. They could provide logical sequencing and quite well organized as compared to the pre-test and
progress test. In the aspect of language use, the students had enough knowledge
about the grammar used in writing narrative text. They managed to earn 19.2 out of 25. This was categorized as good to average. Their writing had
effective and simple construction and showed minor problems in complex constructions. All of them wrote in the right form of tenses although they
sometimes made several errors, it was less than before. The students scored 3.7 for the mechanics aspect. They actually
could perform better than this. However, there were still a few numbers of students who easily forgot to write the proper capitalization. It was like
their habit to write a particular letter in capital letter. In terms of spelling, they showed fewer errors as well as the punctuation and paragraphing.
e. Discussions
The research aimed at describing how cooperative learning strategies could improve the writing ability of Class XI IPS 1 students of
SMAN 1 Seyegan. Referring to the research’s objective, the findings showed that the implementation of cooperative learning improved the
students’ writing ability in the aspects of content, vocabulary, language
use and mechanics. It was true that students’ performance in writing had gradually improved through the implementation of cooperative learning. It
is supported by Kagan and High 2002 that students performed better in writing when cooperative learning was incorporated in the classroom.
Cooperative learning requires positive goal interdependece that a group would sink or swim together. Roger David 1988 describes the
cooperative learning situation in which students work in a small group to help each other to learn before they are engaged in a individual test. This
score of the test later would contribute to their groups’ total score. As the researcher conducted the actions, some students had
changed their behavior as they had been affected by the group. During the implementation of Write-Around in the first cycle, the male students who
previously paid less attention to the class had been separated in different groups and work with female students who had been focused on the lesson.
They gradually had better understanding and could fully participate during the lesson. Every student wrote their own sentence when it was their turn
to write. If they were not easily distracted by their friends and gadgets, actually they could easily understand the lesson. However, they sometimes
could easily forgot what they had learnt so the teacher and their friends always reminded over and over.
The students learned how to work cooperatively with others and compete for fun and work autonomously on their own. During the cycle I,
this situation was hardly accomplished as the teacher still needed to lead
the students to build their knowledge about writing a narrative text. The students still needed the teacher’s guidance to write a good sentence
before engaging in writing a very short narrative text. The students were provided with many tasks and narrative texts. However, in terms of the
writing aspects students had shown fewer mistakes that they did during pre-test. Each of the group members was supposed to remind and provide
feedback to others during the implementation of Praise-Question-Polish. During Three-Minute-Review helped students to ask and review what had
been written or learned. They asked for some clarifications on their understanding. Unfortunately, in the cycle I, the researcher did not manage
to implement the strategy because of the limitation of the time. During the Cycle II, there could be seen some of their improvement
after they got some drills in the previous meeting. The researcher created Buzz Groups to let the students brainstorm ideas to develop their own
writing. During Write-Around, students were engaged more in the writing process in which they could practice to write in groups before they were
asked to write individually. Meanwhile when Praise-Question-Polish was implemented, they had an opportunity to provide feedback on their groups’
writing. This was effective to tell the students’ common mistakes in groups rather than individually. After that they could revise their draft to
get the better result. During the three-minute-review, the students were given an opportunity to review, ask clarifying questions and tell their
friends who faced difficulties so that they could get better score would
affect their total group score. In the end of the lesson, the groups who performed better would be given a reward.
The success of the implementation of cooperative learning could be seen from the mean scores of the students’ score form the pretest to the
posttest. The students’ scores had increased after the implementation of cooperative learning. The table below shows the comparison between the
pre-test and post-test in general.
Table 4.11 : The Comparison between the Pre-Test and Post-Test Results
Score Pre-Test
Post-Test Mean
62.3 81.2
The table above shows the changes on the students’ score which had significantly increased. The students who just gained 62.3 in the pre-
test, managed to increase their score up to 81.2 in the post-test. It indicates that they were successful in making considerable improvement. In
conclusion, cooperative learning was proven to be effective to improve the students’ writing ability. The change between the results of pre-test and
post-test is presented in this following figure.
