paragraphs, topic and support, as well as the cohesion and unity. Another point to concern is grammar. A writer should make the sentences constructing his or her
writing are all grammatically acceptable, especially involving the things like the rules of verbs also tenses, subject-verb agreement, articles, pronouns, etc., to
ensure his or ideas are all delivered well and understandable for readers. The eighth aspect is syntax, including the sentence structure and boundaries, stylistic
choices, etc. Last, the surface level should also be attended, i.e. the mechanics, which covers the spelling, punctuation, use of capital letters, etc. Indeed, writing a
passage is not as simple as it seems to be for it involves so many aspects to consider concerning the writer, the text, and the readers.
e. Student Achievement in Writing
Within a teaching and learning process, students are expected to result in certain learning outcomes. As any types of instructional process are directed by
the instructional goals and objectives Miller, Linn, Gronlund 2009, the learning outcomes therefore also reflect the objectives. The relationship of
learning experience to learning outcomes can be seen in Figure 2.1.
Figure 2.1. The relationship of learning experience to learning outcomes Miller, Linn, Gronlund 2009: 51
In the figure above, what the students experience in the learning process is about “the knowledge of the specific course content” while objectives refer to “what we
expect students to be able to do at the end of instruction”, as stated in terms of learning outcomes p.51. Indeed, instructional objectives and learning outcomes
Student Learning
Experience Process
Learning Outcomes
Product
are closely related as the learning outcomes are directed by the objectives. When perceiving instructional objectives in terms of learning outcomes, Miller, Linn,
and Gronlund 2009 add that it is the product of learning that is more concerned rather than the process of learning. Not suggesting that the process is insignificant,
they state that the long-term instructional objective is more about the finished product, instead Miller, Linn, Gronlund 2009. Thus, as shown in the figure
above, in determining students‟ success and effectiveness in learning, we can
directly refer to the learning outcomes. As the result of learning, learning outcomes do represent the learning
objectives but cannot visibly tell how successful a student is in learning. It is the student‟s performance which is measurable and observable and indicates his or
her learning achievement Gronlund Linn 2000. In terms of measurement, Cronbach 1990, as cited in Miller, Linn, Gronlund 2009: 36, identifies two
general categories on the root of the nature of measurement: “measures of
maximum performance” and “measures of typical performance”. The first category deals with “a person‟s developed abilities or achievements” while the
second category is related to “a person‟s typical behavior” and concerned with
“what individuals will do rather that what they can do” p.36. Investigating about student achievement as one of the research variables,
this study focuses on the maximum performance. In assessing maximum performance,
Miller, Linn, Gronlund 2009 suggest that the result shows “what individuals can do when they put
forth their best effort” p.36. Two types of tests, “aptitude test” and “achievement test,” are grouped in this performance category.
The first is structured to “predict success in some future learning activity” while
the second is developed to signify “degree of success in some past learning activity”. Depending on the purpose, measuring student performance can
emphasize on either achievement or aptitude or the combination of both. In short, assessing student achievement is done by measuring student performance which
reflects the learning outcomes of what the students have learned as intended by the instructional objectives.
In line with the idea above is Nation 2009 claiming that measures of achievement should focus on how students do learning in a particular course. In
other words, assessment of student achievement concerns with the actual performance of students. In that, if we want to determine whether students can
perform a task, then we need to assign them perform the task Gronlund, 2006. Related to writing tasks, for instance, if we want to see whether students can write
a story, then we have them write a story. Gronlund 2006 explains that for most types of performance, there is a
knowledge component vital to the performance. Good writing, for instance, requires aspects such as knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, spelling,
punctuation, etc. He adds that a test separately assessing vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and punctuation can detect these weaknesses and is beneficial to improve
writing skill. Therefore, in addition to “performance assessment” that measures
writing ability by assessing the actual wiring p.2, Gronlund highlights that testing provides direct measures of many significant learning outcomes, especially
related to students‟ understanding of knowledge useful in writing, and presents
required information for “assessing and improving actual performance tasks” p.3. In brief, it takes both tests and performance-based tasks to thoroughly assess
student achievement. As in the assessment of student achievement in a Sentence Writing class, therefore, it should also cover both tests on the aspects of writing,
such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and performance tasks, which requires the students to write sentences.
2. Computer-Assisted Language Learning and the Principles
