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right words, correct grammatical structures, and correct pronunciation to express their ideas. In other words, they monitored their speech. The reason why these
students gave bad evaluations on their competence was also because they got lower scores than their friends. Not optimal preparation was considered to be the
factor that caused this problem. To some extent, this condition caused low self- esteem which made the students feel inferior and tend to give bad evaluations on
themselves. The result shows that high- stake test can bring decay in test takers‟
lives Baker, 1992, p. 9. TKBI, as one example of high-stake test, could decay students‟ self esteem and confidence about their competence. This negative effect
of failure is similar to the result of the previous research by Bouchard, Parent, and Larivee 1991, as cited in Bandura, 1993 that the test-takers judged themselves as
not smart and compared themselves with others. Their failure lowered their self- esteem and affected their self-satisfaction.
The results of the interview and questionnaire show that the test is reliable. Students who took the test twice obtained the same score. It means that
although the test is taken at different points of time, it ends in similar result. The issue of validity is also mentioned by the students. The students felt that the test
really measured their spoken English competence. That the test cannot be studied is considered as the factor which makes the test valid and reliable.
6. The Correlation Between the Components of Attitudes
Spearman ‟s rho was used to infer the correlation between the
components of attitudes. The result of Spearman‟s rho computation shows the
relation between cognitive and affective attitudes. The phi coefficient of 0.044
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below 0.05 indicates that s tudents‟ cognitive attitudes toward test were also linked
to their affective factors, including the perceived difficulty, anxiety, complexity of test, success expectancy, and feeling at ease. Students who had high self-efficacy
level would have high success expectancy. Generally, the results of the previous studies show that the students having high confidence about their language
proficiency would demonstrate high confidence that they could pass the test, whereas, students who had low self-efficacy level tended to feel pessimistic that
they would succeed. Thus, students who have low language proficiency are more anxious to handle the test compared to students with high proficiency level
Zimmerman, 2000.
“Sure. I was sure that I could pass the test.” successexpectancy.P5.r9.p168
Cognitive attitudes which form students‟ self-efficacy was linked to
students‟ feelings when tackling the test. The phi coefficient below 0.05 infers the correlation between self-efficacy and confidence to pass the test. It confirms that
how the students judged their capabilities affected their confidence during test preparation and test-taking process. The data suggests that students with high self-
efficacy level were more confident to succeed. When they judged that their language proficiency was enough to pass the test, they tended to feel relax. In the
interview, students who performed better grammatical knowledge, better pronunciation, and more vocabulary range during learning process were more
confident and less stressful. They also did less preparation for the test because
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they believed that had sufficient language competence, so they did not need to develop their competence to pass the test.
“It was very difficult, I could not answer the question. I answered aaaa eeee aaaa eeee not fluent.
” self-inefficacy.P3.r6.p164
“…but it was quite difficult because I was not good in English.” self-inefficacy.P2.r2.p162
“They said it was easy, I did not need to study. And the test content, mainly about personal information, such as name, address, hobby,
something like that. ” framebuilding.P4.r3.p165
“Just relax. Because I was confident, I did not feel nervous at all.” relaxself-efficacy.P5.r5.p167
On the contrary, students who performed poor language proficiency were less confident than their friends. According to Stawiarska, students with low
language proficiency feel more insecure to speak 2015, p. 104. The data suggests that these students were more anxious and worried that they would not
be able to pass the test because they did not have sufficient knowledge and skill. Hence, their fear of failure lowered their self-efficacy level and raised their level
of anxiety. Students‟ test anxiety was also the result of past academic failure, poor learning performance, and social interaction. Obtaining bad scores on the previous
test or performing less well in the class would weaken students‟ self-efficacy. Students who obtained bad scores on the test or similar test, felt that they were
incapable to handle the test and worried if they would experience the same failure in the future. Adding to this problem, the students assumed that they would fail if
their friends also failed on the same test and thought that the test was difficult and not feasible. They thought that they would also fail in the same test as what their
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friends experienced. When the students could not control their anxiety, this condition would impair their quality of thinking and performance on the test. In
addition, students‟ anxiety raised during their interaction with the examiners because their language proficiency was observed during their speech. The
conditions faced by the students illustrates that test anxiety is actually a manifestation of their cognitive anxiety and performance Harb, Eng, Zaider,
Heimberg, 2003. The problems of anxiety and misunderstanding have been quite a
challenge for the language learners. The results show that the students were not really confident with their competence Previous research by Harb, Eng, Zaider,
and Heimberg shows that speaking test raises anxiety the most because the test takers feel being observed and judged, hence they are worried if they make
mistakes and fail 2003. Based on the research conducted to Pakistan students, Shahzadi et al, 2014 anxiety will obstruct the flow of speech because the test
takers tend to stop frequently to monitor their speech. The finding is similar to the finding of previous research by Khamkien 2010 where test takers feel worried
about their pronunciation, grammatical, and diction during speaking because errors can make their meanings unintelligible and misunderstood by the hearers.
This condition shows how emotions relate to quality of thinking and language performance. It answers how students with negative affective attitudes perform
less well in the speaking test.
“…grammar is not really important. The important thing is the meaning
, how we express the meaning and others can understand it.
” perception.P5.r1.p167
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“I personally made myself relax, it was okay to make mistake, the most important things were to make the message meaningful
and the purpose was delivered. ” relaxinteraction.P6.r6.p169
If the students could control their anxiety better, it would not interfere with their performance. In the interview, the students shared their experience
about controlling their anxiety level during the test. Fear of failure and fear of making mistakes are the common problems faced by the students when their
competence is being observed or assessed. They trigger anxiety which can lower performance quality if not treated well. The students understood about the
negative effects of anxiety and managed their feeling to stay relax. They built their confidence that their mistakes would not fail them as long as they could
make their messages understandable by the hearers. Their belief that errors on grammar and other language elements did not interfere with the meaning
encouraged themselves to speak. The finding is similar to what Bouchard, Parent, and Larivee 1991 as cited in Bandura, 1993 found in their study that self-
efficacious students can control factors which can affect their performance. They know how to motivate themselves and build their beliefs about their ability.
Furthermore, they understand that errors are a part of learning. The analysis resu
lt suggests that students‟ self-efficacy level was also correlated with their motivation. The phi coefficient of 0.034 infers the correlation
between self-efficacy level and learning motivation. Students who have high self- efficacy level also have high academic aspirations and self-motivation
Zimmerman, 1995 in Bandura 2007, p. 213. In the questionnaire, the students mentioned that they had high motivation to prepare for the test and take the test.
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Being confident about their proficiency raised their interest and motivation to improve their performance. They challenged themselves in every task and test
they had during the learning process. Their motivation was also manifested in their effort to prepare themselves for more than three months.
Students who are less efficacious also have high motivation to learn. Research by Hashwani also suggests that the negative attitudes can facilitate
learning as well 2010. From the interview and questionnaire results, it can be inferred that the students were motivated to learn and improve their proficiency
for the test. The students participated in the learning the activities, such as presentation, discussion, role play, and interview simulation because they believed
that their learning efforts would be significant to improve their performance. In addition to learning participation, students‟ learning motivation was also reflected
in their effort to spend more time and manage their time to practice their speaking skills by joining English course or TKBI preparation. To sum up, the results
suggest that both self-efficacy and anxiety could drive learning motivation. The finding is in line with the nature of a high stake test which to some extent, forces
the test takers to prepare themselves and perform well since it has high consequence for the failure. This finding is similar to what Lyons found in the
study that students tend to focus on meeting certain qualities or standards 2007. Therefore, extrinsic motivation often presents during the learning process.
The results of questionnaire and interview also show a unique case, when to some extent, students‟ judgement on their language proficiency can lower their
learning motivation and academic aspiration. When the students were invited to
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evaluate themselves and their learning method, several students mentioned that they did not make much preparation for the test because they believed that they
would not find any difficulties during the test and that they would succeed easily without any preparation. The same condition was also experienced by several
students who had low self-efficacy level. The negative evaluations on their proficiency impaired their learning quality because they tended to do less learning
effort. Instead of improving their English skills, they memorized the vocabulary to understand and answer the questions. The results show that not only anxiety but
also self- efficacy could debilitate students‟ learning motivation. This answers the
problem why students who performed well in the class could fail on the test. There was a correlation between attitudes and motivation. Gardner
mentions that motivation and attitude affect students‟ performance on test because students with higher level of motivation mostly do better than students with lower
motivation level 2006, p. 241. The data implies that students who are highly motivated to learn have clear reasons for engaging in the relevant activities.
Supporting this idea, the result of the interview also shows that most students had clear goal setting. There were some motives underlying students‟ engagement in
the learning process including their desire to improve their English skills and the needs of using English for their academic purpose and their work in the future. As
the immediate goal, the students learned English because they needed to pass the TKBI test. Having the clear learning goal relates with having the high motivation
because when the students have clear learning goal, they know what to achieve in the end of the learning process. Thus, they will have strong enthusiasm and
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motivation that direct their learning with a purpose to achieve the desired learning outcomes. This idea is similar to what Baker mentions about the interrelated link
between learning goal and motivation that students with clear learning goal are highly motivated in making their efforts to succeed 1985, p. 61.
The result of Spearman‟s rho computation suggests that motivation has correlation with learning. The phi-coefficient of 0.004 indicates that learning
motivation is correlated with learning effort. In addition, the results of the questionnaire and interview show that students who demonstrated high motivation
also had good learning attitudes, including learning effort, persistence in the learning process, attention on learning process, desire to achieve the learning goal,
and learning enthusiasm. These students showed good responsibility towards their learning process and willingness to engage in every learning activity. They also
persistently practiced and learned with others or individually to improve their speaking skills. From the interview result, it can be seen that the students made
good learning efforts through their active participation in various types of learning activity, such as presentation, discussion, and interview simulation that they
considered beneficial to improve their communicative skills. Although the students performed good learning efforts, their motivation and attitudes were not
self-initiated, instead driven by the lecturers or instructors. Therefore, most students did not practice their communicative skills outside the classroom. In fact,
communicative skills are acquired through using the language for communication. Since English course itself was conducted for early semester students as an
obligatory course, it made students‟ language competence degrade as the language
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exposure also diminished. Therefore, to review the materials, several departments conduct special learning program for TKBI preparation. This program is
conducted as an extra course, after classes or on Saturdays. Most findings of the previous studies suggest that s
tudents‟ self-efficacy which has a very important role to build students‟ motivation also contributes to
s hape students‟ learning behavior. However, the findings are not applicable in this
research because the result of statistical analysis infers no correlation between self-efficacy, as one of the important cognitive attitudes and learning behavior. It
can be seen from the questionnaire and interview results that both self-efficacious and self-inefficacious students have the same learning approach. In the learning
approach itself, the students will do some useful learning strategies to approach and tackle the test. From the results of the questionnaire and interview, it can be
concluded that both types of students employed additional learning approach which combines surface and deep learning approaches.
In additional learning approach, the students engage in the learning activities to improve their knowledge and skill. Students who employ this learning
approach also organize their learning, manage their time, and aim to achieve the highest grade. In their sharing, the students explained their learning process,
including their learning strategies and learning activities. They mentioned the types of learning activity they had inside or outside the classroom and explained
how they participated in every learning activity. The sharing shows how they were willing and motivated to accomplish the learning tasks to develop their
communicative skills, such as presentation, discussion, and interview simulation.
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The students also tried many learning methods to improve their knowledge and skills. In order to do so, they needed effective time management to allocate some
time to practice their English during their study in the campus. The analysis results more or less portray the model of self-efficacy and language learning
where it builds students‟ aspirations to make their efforts for academic success Carroll et al, 2012, p. 5. Nevertheless, both high and low self-efficacy can lead
to delinquencies or similar to misbehaviors. As the results imply, when students‟ judgement about their language proficiency, either good or bad, demotivated them
to make their learning efforts, this condition would debilitate their learning qualities and impair their learning achievement. The interview results describe
how many self-inefficacious students had less learning effort. Instead of practicing their communicative skills, they preferred memorizing vocabularies
and preparing the answers to the test questions. As a result, they failed to understand unfamiliar questions and found difficulty to express their ideas due to
short range of vocabulary knowledge. The study conducted by Bouchard, Parent and Larivee 1991 as cited in Bandura, 1993 also shows that self-inefficacious
students fail in the test due to lack of knowledge because they give up. Not only self-inefficacious students, but also students who had high self-
efficacy level or positive cognitive attitudes can have negative behaviors. Students with good confidence made less learning effort because they were sure about their
success. Hence, they did not make any preparations before the test. As a result, they performed less well and felt dissatisfied with their performance. This
condition shows how students who usually performed better in the class
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performed less well in the test. The result is similar to previous study conducted by Hashwani 2010 and Noble, Robert, and Sawyer 2006 which shows that
self-efficacious students can perform less learning effort. The result of Spearman
‟s rho computation indicates that motivation can be considered as an important key of success. The phi coefficient below 0.05
infers the correlation between motivation and success expectancy. When the students had high learning motivation, they would be willing to take part in the
learning process and persevere in the process when the tasks or the tests became more challenging or difficult. As a result, it would direct them to achieve the
learning goals. This idea is similar to the model of self-motivation and learning achievement Zimmerman, as cited in Bandura, 2007, p. 205; Carroll et al, 2012,
p. 5. In addition to cognitive components, affective components of attitude
also have relation with behavioral attitudes because students‟ emotions can drive their performed behaviors French et al, 2005, p. 1825. Students‟ emotions are
correlated with their learning performance. The lower their performance, the more anxious they become. Students who are highly anxious feel more insecure about
their performance on the test because they feel that their low language proficiency level will hinder them from success. The level of anxiety has correlation with their
learning behavior because it determines students‟ intentions and strategies to exercise. However, the findings of this study suggest different thing. The result of
Spearman‟s rho computation implies that affective factors were not related to behavioral attitudes. The phi coefficient of 0.161 or above 0.05 indicates that
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emotions did not have any correlation with the learning behaviors. It does not matter what the students felt, either positive or negative, they had to make their
learning effort. The findings show that students who were anxious, relax, or enthusiastic to learn made their effort to pass the test. This condition can be the
sign of exam culture learning, where the students had to give their best effort to pass the test despite their feelings, unless they could not graduate.
Feelings are intrinsic factors, while learning effort can be driven by extrinsic factors, including motivation. The results of this study imply that
e xtrinsic motivation drove students‟ learning effort. Hence, feelings did not
interfere with it. As a result, the feelings of anxiety, relax, or enthusiasm did not significantly
determine students‟ behaviors. Another implication from this relation is that s
tudents‟ feelings, either positive or negative can be debilitative and facilitative towards learning Alpert
Haber, 1960, as cited in Stawiarska, 2015. Anxiety can be debilitative when it demotivates the students to learn. When the students think that their competence
and ability are considerably low and they feel that there is nothing they can do about improving their quality, they tend to do less learning effort. Hence, their
anxiety is debilitative towards their learning behaviors. The examples of debilitative anxiety were the test content leakage and vocabulary memorization.
The students were anxious that they would perform less well on the test, so they tried to gather information about the test contents and prepared the answers for the
questions or memorized the vocabulary for the test. O n the contrary, students‟
anxiety can facilitate the students to do more practices. During TKBI preparation,
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anxious students had strong reason to study and improve their skills. Feeling anxious or worried due to their low English proficiency level and high probability
to fail on the test, the students performed some actions to help them become more proficient. They spent more time to improve their communicative skills by
practicing with their friends, lecturers, or individually. They also used many learning strategies to learn English, such as presentation, discussion, and
interview simulation. The results confirm the idea that anxiety can bring either debilitative or facilitative effects towards
students‟ learning performance Alpert Haber, 1960 as cited in Stawiarska, 2015. However, the obtained data shows
that the effect of anxiety was more facilitative rather than debilitative, although the effort was not self-initiated.
Due to the nature, speaking test can be considered as the most anxiety- provoking test. The test takers could be very anxious because they felt that their
proficiency was directly observed and assessed by the examiners. The students were afraid if they produced erroneous language because they had to speak
spontaneously, making the fear of negative evaluation become much more intense. In spontaneous language production and interactive communication, errors
become clearer and more frequent because inaccurate grammatical structure, mispronunciation, and wrong choice of word cannot be corrected as what people
do in written expressions. Therefore, students who were highly anxious tended to make more errors and speak less fluently because they would speak more
carefully by avoiding making mistakes that they needed frequent pauses to think about their language production. The difficult condition faced by the students
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confirms that speaking test raises anxiety because it requires complex thinking process before the speech production and sufficient planning time Brown, 2000,
p. 395; Robinson Norris, 2005, Foster et al, 1997. The results of the statistical analysis and questionnaire results show that test anxiety could indicate students
‟ learning efforts that both students and teachers needed to anticipate the effects of
anxiety on their learning participation and test performance. Another side effect of the
test that is significant in test takers‟ lives but sometimes ignored during the administration is the social effect of test. Since
language has social dimension, test also brings effect on the social context of lives McNamara Roever, 2006, p. 44. Face-to-face speaking test is not only about
demonstrating knowledge and speaking skill but also participating in a real communication. When the students are having speaking test, they are worried of
making errors as well as failing to maintain effective communication with the examiners. They are afraid if the social interaction through the communication
ends in failure because of inability to understand each other. Another social effect of test wh
ich can bring considerably harmful effects on the test takers‟ lives is bad self-evaluation. After the test and certificate distribution, students who had lower
scores gave bad evaluation on their language proficiency and felt inferior comparing themselves with their friends. They felt that they were incapable, so
they lowered their self-esteem. Shohamy 2007, p. 522 also mentions that test has social impact in the
way it sets the standard of language proficiency. The use of language test as measurement of proficiency defines language competence and creates de facto
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language policies in terms of proficiency standard. The examiners will create and use discrete evaluation rubrics which define the characteristics of proficient
language users. This evaluation standard will discriminate proficient users of language from the non-proficient users. In other words, to be considered as
proficient language users, the students should have that particular quality. If they fail to do so, they will value themselves as the non-proficient ones. Nevertheless,
each examiner can have different view of language proficiency meaning that each examiner can have different measurement standard as well. To give example, an
examiner assesses students‟ language proficiency from the interactive features of language they use to communicate, while another examiner evaluates the students
from the accuracy of their language production. From the results, it was found that the implementation of TKBI test
influenced students ‟ attitudes. It influenced how the students‟ perceived their
language competence or skills, their feelings, and their learning strategies. The implementation of the test in the university brought negative impacts on
students ‟cognitive attitudes. Almost all students judged themselves as having poor
language competence that they were not able to use the language rules, pronounce words correctly, use correct choice of words, and speak fluently. Owing to this
language flaws, they were pessimistic that they could pass the test. Test anxiety was present and unavoidable during the preparation and
implementation of the test. The negative evaluations on language competence raised students
‟ anxiety because they were afraid if they made mistakes and failed on the test. These two components or manifestations of attitudes could lower
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students ‟ performance because the students gave up or misbehaved during the
learning process. The results also describes how the test affected students ‟
learning strategies during the preparation. Most students were affected by the test that made them apply various learning strategies and approaches as an effort to
improve their language competence. Furthermore, the research results also suggest that these components of attitudes were highly correlated. These prior
results will help to explain how the students think, feel, and behave can influence their performance.The results also suggest that
students‟ negative attitudes lowered their performance on the test. Therefore, the students and the lecturers
should be able to anticipate the negative effects of attitudes.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter will present some conclusions which can be derived from the study. In addition, this chapter also gives some useful suggestions to improve the
implementation of the test and students‟ performance.
A. CONCLUSIONS
Considering the potential effects that a test can bring to the students, the test should be evaluated in terms of the impacts to the students. The test should be
evaluated from its impa cts on students‟ goals and their values, the learning
performance, the educational system, and the learning process. One way to evaluate the test is by gathering information from the students. Bachman and
Palmer suggest that students should be included in all phases of test development because they can share as much information about their opinions, perceptions, and
attitudes 1996, p. 24. By involving the test takers in the design and development processes, the stakeholders can avoid the negative impacts of the test and promote
positive impacts of the test. The students will be informed that some factors such as their motivation, self-efficacy, and anxiety, can impair or improve their
learning performance. As high stake test, TKBI test brings considerable effects on the students.
The results of the research on students ‟ attitudes suggest that the implementation
of the test affected students‟ attitudes during the preparation of TKBI test and test
