Respondent Determination Method Operational definition of the terms

researcher had once taught and had the practice teaching at SMPN 2 Balung, Jember for about three and a half months.

3.3 Respondent Determination Method

Respondents are a group of people from whom the data of the research are required. Arikunto 2006: 145 explains that respondents are people who give responses or answers to the researcher‟s questions either in an oral or written form. Respondents can be samples of the population. The respondents of this research were the seventh year students of SMPN 2 Balung, Jember in the 20112012 academic year. The seventh year students of SMPN 2 Balung, Jember were divided into six classes: VII A, VII B, VII C, VII D, VII E, VII F. The researcher needed two classes as the research samples. In taking the research samples, the researcher conducted a homogeneity test to the population all the seventh year students of SMPN 2 Balung, Jember in the 20112012 academic year. Based on the result of the homogeneity test, class VII C and class VII B were chosen as the experimental and control classes respectively.

3.4 Operational definition of the terms

In this research, there were two variables namely independent variable and dependent variable. The independent variable was NHT technique and the dependent variable wa s the students‟ tense achievement. Both variables were defined operationally to avoid misunderstanding between the writer and the readers.

3.4.1 Numbered Heads Together NHT Technique

NHT technique is a technique of cooperative learning of structure. In this technique, the students work in small groups and think together to discuss the answers with the members of the group. They discuss the problem posed by the http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id http:digilib.unej.ac.id teacher. The group‟s success depends on every individual success because every student has hisher own responsibility to do the assignment.

3.4.2 The Students’ Tense Achievement

Th e students‟ tense achievement in this research referred to the level of the students to do the test with the use of Simple Present Tens and Present Continuous Tense. Their tense achievement was shown by their scores of the tense test. Then, their scores were classified based on the classification of the score levels.

3.5 Data Collection Methods