67 and Sources, 6 Support Services, 7 Feedback of Preliminary Designed Test, 8
Revision of Preliminary Designed Test, 9 Feedback from the Implementation, and 10 Final Test Revision. The detailed of components are presented below.
1. Learners’ Characteristics and Needs
The designed test should be appropriate to be implemented for students. In order to collect indispensable information, the writer conducted interviews. The
interviews result could be the basic information to identify learners’ characteristics and needs. Then, the writer collected information from related
literatures, some materials and references to develop the basic designed test. Therefore, the information gathered from teachers and students were utilized to be
the basis of designing test. The interviews occurred for seven participants. They were two English
teachers of SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong, two English teachers of SMA Eka Wijaya Cibinong, one student from SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong, one student
from SMA Eka Wijaya Cibinong, and one student from SMAN 1 Cibinong. The interviews for teachers were conducted in April 16-20, 2010 and August 10, 2010,
whereas the interviews for students were performed in August 11-13, 2010. The results of the interview would be described below.
a. The result of interview with English teachers
The interviews conducted for four English teachers, two from SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong and two from SMA Eka Wijaya Cibinong. From the result of
interviews, all teachers asserted that they had experienced designing-applying
68 multiple-choice test for their students. Further, all teachers had experienced online
test although they have never attempted to establish the online test. The first interview was in SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong. The writer
interviewed a female teacher on April 16, 2010 and a male teacher on April 20, 2010. Based on the interview, the teachers revealed that multiple-choice MC test
was a frequent test type for testing students’ reading comprehension in consideration of practicality in administering the test and usually applied for
summative test. However, teachers offered other test types to measure other skills such as oral-test for speaking, fill-the-blank for listening, and essay test for
writing. The teachers afforded materials, topics, and text types in conformity with the School-Based Curriculum or KTSP. Sometimes, teachers attached some
materials from tenth grade and eleventh grade in order to review English lessons. Another finding was the fact that teachers recurrently accomplished the
topics and learning contents through several handbooks from Erlangga and Bumi Aksara
publisher in order to enhance students’ mastery on reading, grammar use, and vocabularies. The target text types that definitely should be attained based on
Competence Standard CS and Basic Competence BC were involving narrative, explanation, review, and discussion text. For better preliminary in facing national
examination, students’ ought to prepare supplementary materials. Hence, to overcome the problem, teachers combined particular materials including
descriptive, news items, procedure, announcement, advertisement, job vacancy, and invitation. Moreover, to test students’ understanding in grammar, the teacher
gave conditional sentences, direct-indirect speech, passive voice, relative clause,
69 simple present, present progressive, simple past, past progressive, simple future,
simple perfect, past perfect, and structure for some expression. According to teachers’ opinions, the favorite questions in multiple-choice
test were allied to the text, vocabulary, and structure. In one test, it was consisted of 3 to 4 extended passages and 2 or 3 short passages. Generally, the extended
passage was developed into 5 to 8 questions, whereas the short passage was developed into 2 to 5 questions. The comprehensive questions covered questions
about main topic of passage, main idea of paragraph, expressions idioms phrases in context, inference implied detail, grammatical features, and detail by scanning
for specifically stated detail, excluding facts not written, supporting ideas, and vocabulary in context. Further, vocabulary questions encompassed antonym and
synonym. It usually appeared in 5 to 6 questions in one test. For grammatical features, it involved some verb tenses, conditional sentence, relative clause,
reported speech, passive voice, and logical connectors. It was developed for 5 to 8 questions.
From the interview result, the writer carried out some information about students’ characteristics in SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong toward multiple-choice
test. The details of students’ characteristics were described below: 1
Multiple-choice test was the favorite type of test that students preferred for conducting a test. The reason was because multiple-choice test provided
options that created secure feeling when they could not answer the question. 2
Students’ could finish the multiple-choice test faster than the other test type, such as essay or error analysis because they were familiar with MC.
70 3
Students had a difficulty when they faced vocabulary test especially in synonym or antonym. The reason was because they had lack of vocabulary
knowledge. 4
Then, students would be fatigue on some long reading passage. They would not concentrate in doing the test because they felt apathetic at first seeing the long
passage. Moreover, teachers admitted that multiple-choice test also had weaknesses as
mentioned below: 1
Multiple-choice test only measured limited aspect, such as reading comprehension, vocabulary, some expression, and structure. Hence, the teacher
should add some test to measure the students’ performance on other skills. 2
Test in form of multiple-choice might facilitate student to cheat with their friends because of the simple letters on the options.
3 Students could guess the answer even if they doubted the answer. It happened
when students confused about the meaning of some vocabularies and they did not get the meaning.
Teachers’ sources for making multiple-choice test were gathered from students’ handbooks. Sometimes teachers copied the text and created questions
based on that text. Teachers utilized some books from Erlangga Publisher and Bumi Aksara
Publisher. Moreover, they also browsed the Internet to find appropriate supplementary text for test contents by indentifying the dictions and
text types.
71 These teachers had experienced online test, but no experienced in
establishing the online test. They stated that they attempted to copy online test customarily with the intention of giving it to their students. As stated by teachers,
online test brought benefits for National Examination preparation, while it could be downloaded freely. It directly displayed the result, feedback, answer keys, and
the explanations as well. Unfortunately, the school did not provide Internet facilitation for students, so the teachers could not conduct the online test in a
class. There was only one Internet-connected computer in teacher’s room, while in computer room provided 30 computer units without Internet connection. The
teachers had never attempted to establish online test, so they had no attitude of finding difficulties in designing the online test. They overcame the condition by
providing the hardcopy of online test to the students, but never came up with the online experience.
As stated by teachers, multiple-choice test was commonly applied to assess students’ achievement in summative test. Based on the teachers’ opinion,
the general purposes in designing reading test for the Grade XII students were to find out kind of text narrative, procedure, recount, review, etc, to identify
characters in the story, to identify the generic structure of the text, and to identify the main idea of the text.
Concisely, the teachers from SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong expected the designed test, which utilizes Internet, could motivate students by conducting
online test especially in learning reading and expanding vocabulary. Since the test could be assessed freely, students and teachers would take benefits as references
72 for practicing national examination. The teachers expected the website would be
easy to access and would be simple navigate. The second school was SMA Eka Wijaya Cibinong. The interviews were
conducted on August 10, 2010 for two English teachers of SMA Eka Wijaya whose have S1 degree. One participant taught Grade XII students, and the other
taught Grade XI students. There was some important information obtained in the interviews.
The teachers implied Competence Standard and Basic Competence from KTSP as the basis of designing teaching-learning goals. The teachers focused on
narrative, explanation, discussion, and review in completing reading materials. Furthermore, the teacher affixed some reviews and the important grammatical
features. Thus, for the topic of the lesson, students were familiar with sport, history, food, environment, etc.
In designing a test, teachers agreed that multiple-choice was the most frequent test applied in mid-semester test and final test, even though they
occupied essays in accessing reading as well. In accordance with teachers’ opinion, multiple-choice reading test could measure students’ comprehension and
understanding vocabulary in reading texts. Teachers accustomed to use MC because of the practicality. Besides, multiple-choice test was easy to be scored.
The teachers generally prepared the test contents from lessons and materials delivered formerly, mostly about grammatical features, expressions, and reading
questions.
73 In providing tests, the sources were taken from student’s books, grammar
books, and from the Internet. To select the reading passage from the Internet, the teachers considered from grammar, vocabulary, and theme of the text. For
multiple-choice test, the most frequent questions were about reading comprehension including main idea, true-false statements, title’s appropriate for
the text, ‘refers to’ questions, and the rest for grammatical questions, and vocabulary questions. For short passage, teachers usually mentioned 2 to 4
questions, thus for longer passage teachers accomplished it into 5 to 8 questions. Based on teachers’ opinion, the students’ characteristics of SMA Eka
Wijaya Cibinong toward multiple-choice test were described as follows: 1
Students liked multiple-choice because it gave them problem solving when they got no idea in answering questions.
2 Students occasionally speculated the answers by fortune if they did not sure
about answer. 3
Students grasped multiple-choice as a comfortable way in conducting a test for the reason of practicality.
Besides, teachers recognized that multiple-choice test had weaknesses in the aspect of measuring students’ skill. They argued that multiple-choice could not
definitely measure students’ ability in understanding lesson. Then, to design multiple-choice teacher needed more preparation, so the MC test occasionally
occurred in mid-test and final-test. For the online test, the teachers have experimented with it. They stated that
online test alleviated them in preparing tests or exercises for students. Generally,
74 the online tests were carried out for Grade XII students because the questions
covered whole materials for preparing National Examination UN. The online test relieved teachers as well, because it provided the answer-keys. Furthermore,
the school provided Internet facilities in computer laboratory in which equipped 27 units of computer connected to the Internet and 3 units of computer
unconnected. Teachers stated that they had never conducted online test for students in computer laboratory because they supposed it would be needed more
preparation. Teachers’ information about website providing online test were limited, so that they should study how to manage and to handle the program as
well before they applied it to the students. In conclusion, the teachers of SMA Eka Wijaya Cibinong expected online
test would enlarge function of Internet as one of school facilities. The teachers would obtain new experience if they could design the online test themselves.
Then, it could facilitate teachers to derive students’ score. Besides, the Internet medium was expected to bring motivation within interactive features, faster
feedback, and explanation of the questions. By connecting the Internet, students could browse it anytime and practice the test to enhance their knowledge. Students
and teacher would take benefits from the online test which was comparatively easy to access and simple navigate.
b. The result of interview with students
The writer conducted interviews for three students, a student from SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong, a student from SMA Eka Wijaya Cibinong, and a
student from SMAN 1 Cibinong in order to gain information from the students’
75 standpoint. The participants of these interviews were 17 years old female students
on Grade XII, one of them was in Social Class and two of them were in Science Class. The interviews were conducted on August 13
th
, 2010 participant 1 from SMA Mardi Waluya Cibinong, on August 11
th
, 2010 participant 2 from SMAN 1 Cibinong and on August 11
th
, 2010 participant 3 from SMA Eka Wijaya Cibinong.
The writer found that basically all students had grasped theory of kind of text types from teachers. From participant 1, she informed that the teacher
provided summary of several text types. Some test types learned in the class were narrative text, descriptive text, recount text, exposition text, review text, whereas
the other test type have not been taught yet. From the test types, participant 1 learned generic structures, tenses, and the characteristics of the test.
Participants 2 stated in her school she had learned about theory of narrative text, discussion text, explanation text, and review text. She maintained
that the teacher focused on the understanding about some expressions and tenses frequently. Hence, the participant’s class was often given exercises which were
the samples of tryout, or UN test. The test mostly involved reading comprehension, tenses or structure, and expressions.
Meanwhile, participant 3 admitted that she obtained information about genres of reading text from teacher in the form of summary. The summary
included purpose of the text, generic structure, the characteristics of the text, and tenses commonly used in the text. Participant 3 mentioned that the teacher had
taught several text types such as narrative, recount, exposition, news items,
76 explanation, and procedure whereas the other test types have not been taught yet.
Moreover, participant 3 learned about tenses, generic structure, grammatical features, and daily expressions from the text types.
Another finding was the fact that multiple-choice test was familiar toward the students especially in mid-test and final test. On the contrary, multiple-choice
test rarely occurred in weekly test or quizzes. The students realized that multiple- choice test could facilitate them to guess since it afforded options in each
question. One of participant confessed that multiple-choice test facilitated her to cheat or to ask the answer of several numbers with her friends because they had
symbols for option A, B, C, D, or E. In conducting multiple-choice test, there were some reading tests included
in it. The writer realized that students faced some difficulties toward the reading test. Based on the interview, students could not obtain the whole meaning of
reading passage because they missed the meaning of some vocabularies. Then, expanded text caused fatigue that affected students’ focus and interest on the test.
Moreover, the topic of the text also influenced the interest of students. All participants had known online test. They experienced the online test
formerly when they prepared final examination in junior high school. Participant 1 thought that online test could alleviate her in practicing English exam because the
test provided answer key. The participants mentioned that they usually copied the test from the website and filled it in her house.
However, from the collected information previously, the writer summarized that MC reading test was rarely applied in daily tests or quizzes. It
77 was usually applied for mid-semester test and semester test. The reason was
because MC test needed more details in designed, but MC was the most practice technique in administering and scoring a great deal of students. From the data
gathered by interviewing teachers and students from SMA Mardi Waluya, SMA Eka Wijaya, and SMAN 1 Cibinong, the writer drew a conclusion of students’
characteristics in conducting web-based MC reading test below.
Table 4.1: Summary of Learners’ Characteristics
Learners’ Characteristics a.
Students are accustomed to conduct multiple-choice reading test especially in mid-semester test and summative test. In fact, multiple-choice reading test
conveys benefits for students in which it provides options. Students unconsciously speculate the answer from the options.
b. For the reason of practicality, students preferred multiple-choice test in
assessing their reading comprehension than other types such as cloze test and essay.
c. Students have high motivation to drill their comprehension toward English
text especially it could facilitate them in practicing Final Examination. They were also enthusiastic in experimenting with online test.
d. Students’ difficulty in conducting the test mostly is because the lack of
vocabulary knowledge and the fatigue of long reading passage.
Based on the interviews’ results, the students’ expectations or needs were concluded as follows.
Table 4.2: Summary of Learners’ Needs
Learners’ Needs a.
Students require some exercises which contain reading comprehension test, vocabulary test, and grammatical test. Moreover, the design is required to
provide explanation and answer keys, so students will understand by self-
78 Learners’ Needs
study. b.
In practicing the test, students need media which supports translation tools if they faced difficulty and allows them to access the test in flexible time
constraint. A simple address will be beneficial so that the site can be accessed easily.
c. Students need a media which facilitates immediate result and feedback of the
test so that students can correct their error right away.
2. Goal, General Purposes, and Topics
