CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS OF THE DATA
After I collected the data by conducting a writing test on November 2
nd
, 2006, in this chapter, I organized, analyzed, and interpreted the data in order to solve the problems
of my research. Since this study intends to analyze the students’ errors in using the Simple Present Tense in descriptive writing made by the eighth year students of SMP
N 2 Brebes, I used both statistical analysis and non-statistical one.
4.1 Statistical Analysis of the Data
After finding the students’ errors, I started to analyze the data. First, I counted the proportion of errors made by each student. Next, I calculated the dominant errors by
conducting an error analysis. To find out the dominant errors, I classified the errors into several categories based on the students’ errors. The results of the computation
are put in tables. In order to determine the proportion of errors made by each student in using
the Simple Present Tense in descriptive writing, I used the following formula:
X =
100 x
W Er
∑ ∑
37
Where: X = the percentage of errors, Er = various kinds of errors,
W = words, and Σ = the total number.
Since there were 42 students participating in this study, I had 42 computations for the percentages of errors in using Simple Present Tense. The result of the data can
be seen in table 1. The first column is the total number of the students who participated in this study that is 42 students. The second column is the total number of
the Simple Present Tense that was used in the students’ descriptive writing. Here, the students were to write at least 10 sentences in their writing. The total number of the
Simple Present Tense occurrences is 515. The third column is the total of various kinds of errors made by the students. I found that there were 228 Simple Present
Tense errors meaning that the errors almost took a half proportion of the students’ writing. The last column is the percentages of the errors made by each student. The
result of the study shows that the students made errors in various degrees of percentages. Then the mean of the error proportion which is obtained by dividing the
total percentages of errors by the total number of the students is 45, 27. It means that there were still some students who faced some difficulties in using correct
structure.
Table 1: The Percentages of Errors
Sample Code 1
∑ W 2
∑ Er 3
Percentage 4
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9
10 11
12 13
14 15
16 17
18 19
20 21
22 23
24 25
26 27
28 29
30 31
32 33
34 35
36 37
38 16
12 12
11 14
12 13
12 13
12 13
13 11
11 17
11 13
10 14
11 11
11 10
10 10
13 13
12 18
15 10
10 13
11 10
13 10
12 5
5 8
8 4
9 9
6 9
3 2
3 2
2 5
8 4
1 3
4 8
5 6
2 6
7 2
8 2
6 7
4 6
6 5
9 5
7 31,25
41,67 66,67
72,73 28,57
75 69,23
50 69,23
25 15,38
23,08 18,18
18,18 29,41
72,73 30,77
10 21,43
36,36 72,73
45,45
60 20
60
53,85 15,38
66,67 11,11
40 70
40
46,15 54,55
50 69,23
50 58,33
1 2 3 4 39
40 41
42 11
13 12
16 6
6 9
6 54,55
46,15 75
37,5 Total 515 228
1901,52
After finishing the computation of the percentage of errors, I conducted an error analysis in order to find out the dominant errors. In this calculation, I used the
‘Preselected Category Approach’ favored by Etherton 1977 as adapted by Norrish 1983. The formula can be seen as follows:
pi = 100
x n
fi
Where: pi = the proportion of frequency of errors,
fi = absolute frequency of a particular type of error, and
n = the total number of errors observed.
Based on the data, I classified the students’ errors into several types. The result of the data can be seen in this following table:
Table 2: The Proportions of Each Type of Errors
Headings fi pi
1. Omission of be
2. Wrong form of be
3. Double be
4. Wrong use of singular and plural form
5. Addition of be before and after verb
6. Omission of suffix –s-es
7. Wrong use of verb
8. Wrong form of modal auxiliary
9. Omission of verb
10. Wrong form of negative sentence
40 16
1 11
16 79
47 14
1 3
17,54 7,02
0,44 4,82
7,02
34,65 20,61
6,14 0,44
1,32
Total 228 100
Table 2 shows that there were 10 types of errors made by the students in dealing with the use of the Simple Present Tense. The mean of the proportions of
each type of error is derived from the total proportion of error of frequency of errors divided by the total number of errors types.
Before finding out the degree of dominant errors, I computed the proportion of frequency of occurrences of errors as a whole by using the formula:
PI =
100 x
N FI
Where: PI = the proportion of frequency of occurrence of errors as a whole, FI = the absolute frequency of types of errors of all categories, and
N = the total number of possible errors of all the categories. The PI was computed as follows:
PI =
100 x
N FI
PI =
100 10
100 x
PI = 10 The final step was to identify the degree of dominance of the particular error.
As I stated before in Chapter III, any error whose pi - PI is plus + is considered to be dominant. On the contrary, if the pi – PI is zero or minus -, it is considered to
be less dominant. After the calculation, the most dominant errors through the least dominant one can be seen in the table below.
Table 3: The Most Dominant Errors
Headings pi pi – PI
1. Omission of be 2. Wrong form of be
3. Double be 4. Wrong use of singular and plural form
5. Addition of be before and after verb 6. Omission of suffix –s-es
7. Wrong use of verb 8. Wrong form of modal auxiliary
9. Omission of verb
10. Wrong form of negative sentence 17,54
7,02 0,44
4,82 7,02
34,65 20,61
6,14 0,44
1,32 7,54
-2,98 -9,56
-5,18 -2,98
24,65 5,79
-3,86 -9,56
-8,68
It could be seen from the table above that there are 3 out of 10 types of errors whose degree of dominance result is in plus +. They are:
1 Omission of be 2 Omission of suffix –s-es
3 Wrong use of verb The biggest proportion of errors among the three types is the omission of
suffix –s-es from the verb of third person singular subjects. It shows that the students still find it difficult to pay attention to the existence of a particular rule applied in the
English language that is the use of suffix –s-es for verb of third person singular subject in simple present tense especially in descriptive text.
That is the result of students’ dominant errors in using the Simple Present Tense made by the eighth year students of SMP N 2 Brebes based on the statistical
analysis. Then, I discuss those errors based on non-statistical analysis.
4.2 Non-Statistical Analysis
Kategori