17 coming to class without reading the materials in advance. Through this learning
awareness can be obtained. The third avenue is seeing what it is. In this avenue, there are two-lane
avenues to obtain the awareness. First is contrasting what we do with what we think we do. To accomplish this, keeping record of what we have done is needed.
Here, students can obtain their learning awareness by writing a journal. The second lane is considering what we believe in light of what we do. It deals with
finding out whether student’s beliefs match the actual processes or not. For example, a student believes that he has done the best he could in the exam. He
believes that he will get an A. In fact, he doesn’t get A for his exam which is contradictory to his belief. Thus, to get the awareness of the learning, students can
see what the learning is by contrasting what we do with what we think and considering what we believe in what we do.
The last avenue to awareness is clarifying the feelings. By exploring their feelings of the learning, students are able to gain learning awareness. The feelings
about thing are able to affect the behavior. Hence, clarifying the emotional side is needed. Personal journals are suited to this avenue.
2.2 Review of Related Studies
Study conducted by Ong shows that reflection helps students in their learning. Ong conducted a qualitative research in which students of Republic
Polytechnic became the participant. Ong chose 10 students’ journals randomly from different modules and discipline background and examined the journals.
18 The result showed that students demonstrated an increasing in their learning
awareness. Moreover, there was an increasing in students’ cognitive skill after making daily reflection. Thus, Ong describes that reflection has an important role
in students learning since it relates the new learning material and prior knowledge and enhance learning awareness.
Furthermore, Jensen conducted similar research in using reflective journal to improve students’ learning awareness. The research was conducted in Aalborg
University Denmark. The participants of this research were foreign students of Master Engineering educations who took Professional Procedures in a Globalized
World course PTW. To provoke students’ experiences toward the subject, the students were demanded to make a personal portfolio in a form of reflective
journal where they could reflect their experiences on the subject. In the research, Jensen examined students’ reflective journal and found that most of the students
are aware of what they have learned and 60 of the students showed improvement in their learning capability.
The studies show that reflection helps students in their learning especially in improving students learning awareness. Thus, reflection is beneficial to be
conducted in class.
2.3 Theoretical Framework
Learning awareness is the students’ process of noticing what they learn and the reason to learn. This noticing process is crucial in learning activity. When
students notice their learning, they will have willingness to study. Thus, students
19 who have this learning awareness will be able to manage their learning. They will
be able to solve the problems they face and enjoy their learning process. Reflection is one of the self assessments which contribute to students
learning awareness. By making reflection, students get metacognition skills in which they are able to identify their ability whether they fulfill the criteria or
standard of the learning. Furthermore, reflection helps students to find their strengths and weaknesses and helps the students to find what to be improved and
to be eliminated. Thus, after making reflection, students will notice their own learning. This activity creates learning awareness which as mentioned before is
beneficial for the students. To investigate students’ perception toward the contribution of reflection to
their learning awareness, some theories are taken into account. First, theories on reflection adopted by Ghaye are used in this research to obtain information of
reflection. The definition, kinds and models of reflection described by Ghaye are used to get better understanding on reflection which becomes the focus of this
research. Second, theories of awareness adopted by Gebhard and Oprandy are used
to investigate the contribution of reflection to learning awareness. To have learning awareness, Gebhard and Oprandy describe that there are four avenues to
the awareness namely problem solving, seeing what happens, seeing what it is, and clarifying our feelings. These avenues to awareness described by Gebhard and
Oprandy serves as the main reference to formulate the research instrument.
20 Third, to investigate students’ perception toward the contribution of
reflection to students’ learning awareness, theories on perception adopted by Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts and Huffman and Vernoy are employed in this
research. Both of the theories are used to decide perception measuring instrument of the research.
21
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This part discusses the methodology of the research. It comprises the research method, research participants, research instrument, data gathering
technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure.
3.1 Research Method
The research method employed in this research is survey. Based on Brown and Rogers 2002: 142, survey is defined as follows.
Surveys are any procedure used to gather data and describe the characteristics, attitudes, views, opinions, and so forth of students,
teachers, administrators, or any other people who are important to a study. Surveys typically take the form of interviews or questionnaires or both.
Similarly, Ary, Jacobs and Razavieh 2002 describe that survey is used for gathering data ranging from physical counts and frequencies to attitudes and
opinions. The data gathered from survey is responses of questions that are asked to participants.
Hence, this research employed survey as the research method. This research investigates students’ perception toward the contribution of reflection to
their learning awareness. To be exact, it deals with finding students’ opinion and views on reflection. Consequently, survey is suitable method to be employed in
this research.
