THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK REVIEW OF LITERATURE

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C. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In the process of test evaluation, the effect of test on the students is often absent in the evaluation point. Baker mentions that attitudes are important to study because they affect language restoration, preservation, decay, or death, provides current beliefs, thoughts, preferences, and desires of the community, chances of success in policy implementation, summarizes, explains, and predicts intention or external behavior 1992, p. 9. Students‟ attitudes play important role in shaping students‟ competence because attitudes determine students‟ beliefs about their language competence, a ffect students‟ feelings towards test and learning success, and affect their learning strategies. To some extent, attitudes can affect studen ts‟ learning performance. Therefore, identifying students‟ attitudes towards the test will help to improve students‟ performance quality because the students can improve their confidence, manage their feelings, prepare better for the test, and avoid the negative effects of attitudes. Attitudes are built by three elements including cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. To sum up, s tudents‟ cognitive attitudes are reflected in the forms of knowledge, thoughts, and ideas about passing the test. These cognitive elements of attitudes make contribution to self-efficacy and learning interest that build students‟ confidence and learning interest to pass the test. In addition to self-efficacy and learning interest, the implementation of test can affect stu dents‟ feelings. Feelings of anxiety or relax, satisfaction, motivation, and success expectancy are the affective attitudes towards the language test Zimmerman, 2000 . The implementation of language test also affects students‟ 55 behaviors during the process of preparation and test taking. Previous theories show that students ‟ behavioral attitudes determine their actions to learn and tackle the test which can be observed in their learning strategies. Hence, studying students‟ attitudes towards test also includes identifying their reasons and motives to learn and use the language because their learning goals drive the learning process. These components of attitudes are intercorrelated and believed to contribute to learning success or failure. Therefore, this research on attitudes will identify students‟ confidence about their competence, feelings, motivation, learning efforts, learning goals, and perceptions. There are some characteristics of good attitudes towards language learning and language test. According to Tahaineh and Daana 2007 good attitudes are characterized by high interest and desire to learn the language. Soleimani and Hanafi mention that good attitudes present in the form of success expectancy and desire to pursue learning 2009. This condition shows that highly-motivated students have positive attitudes towards the language test. They demonstrate learning effort, enthusiasm, and interest to achieve their learning goals. As a result, they can function effectively in both their academic and professional settings. Referring to this theory, this research will identify the relation between the components of attitudes to obtain more comprehensive information about the attitudes and performance. Attitude is considered as an essential factor influencing language performance Visser, 2008. Positive beliefs about language competence and language learning build students‟ positive attitudes. According to Bandura, 56 students who are highly self-efficacious may view that certain tasks or tests are difficult, but still believe firmly that they can succeed through ingenuity and perseverant effort 1993, p. 127. They believe that their language competence as well as their learning effort ensure learning success. Students‟ positive beliefs are closely related to lea rning intentions which build students‟ behavioral attitudes Warshaw Davis, 1985. These positive attitudes determine their learning strategies or the actions that they take to approach learning. Students who have positive attitudes towards language learning are also characterized by their willingness to perform an intended action or behavior towards test Gibbons, Gerrard, Blanton, Russell, 1998. They are fully aware of their learning process and responsible with their learning results. On the contrary, negative judgement on language competence can result in the negative attitudes towards language and language learning, such as anxiety, low cognitive achievement, and stressful condition Abidin et al, 2012. Students who have low self-efficacy level feel that they are incapable to learn and use the target language due to their low proficiency level. According to Karahan, these negative language attitudes make learner have negative orientation towards learning English 2007, p.84. As a result, it will impair the quality of their learning performance. Anxiety and nervousness can make students hesitate to speak. The problem of anxiety and nervousness is experienced by Pakistan students Shahzadi et al, 2014. The students cannot express themselves well and adequately due to their anxiety and nervousness level during learning the 57 language. Lack of language exposure causes hesitation to speak because the students are not ready to speak. They are still afraid if they make mistakes. The condition changes as the students become more proficient. Those theories describe how the elements of attitudes are correlated. It gives theoretical framework on the correlation between the components of attitudes. The conditions described above illustrate how learning a language is closely related to the attitudes towards the languages Starks Paltridge, 1996. They can the oretically answer why students‟ learning performance can be affected by their attitudes towards language and language learning. Gardner and Lambert explain that students ‟ ability to master a second language is not only influenced by the mental competence or language skills, but also by the students‟ attitudes and perceptions towards the target language 1972. The impacts of the language test on students‟ attitudes and the effects of students‟ attitudes on their performance cannot be controlled or limited because they occur naturally. Owing to these conditions, Dickins mentions that students should be assessed in terms of their learning process and instructional processes rather than the finished products of their learning 2007, p. 507. The statistical analysis is used to answer the hypotheses about the correlation between the attitudes components as the variables. The theories provide possible correlations to answer the hypotheses theoretically. The hypotheses can be formulated into some statements below. 1. There is no correlation between the components of attitudes. Ho = ρ ≥0.05 2. There is correlation between the components of attitudes.Hi = ρ 0.05 58

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

This section describes the methodology used to conduct the study. It elaborates the research design, research instruments, data gathering technique, and data analysis process.

A. RESEARCH METHOD

This research used survey research design. Survey research design is defined as a procedure in quantitative research in which investigators administer a survey to a sample or to the entire population of people to describe attitudes, opinions, behaviors, or characteristics of the population Creswell, 2012, p. 376. Since this research aims to gather information about stude nts‟ attitudes, survey design was relevant and significant to use in this study. Survey research describes population inferred from the sample, explains about the population in terms of the characteristics, and explores particular subjects about the possible relationship between the variables. A variable can be described as a construct or a characteristic that can take on different characteristics, values or scores Ary, Jacobs, Sorensen, 2010, p. 37; Singleton Straits, 1999, p. 70. In this research, the variables were noted as the students‟ attitudes and Spoken English Competence Test TKBI. This survey research would be beneficial to describe students‟ attitudes towards the test and explain the relationship between the components of the attitudes.