Perceptions on the Implication of the Test Based on the Interview

57 every two weeks to make the students not burdened. He proposed two week tests to make the students feel free and not stressed when attending the class. Having known the results of the questionnaire and the interview conducted, it was clear that actually most students perceived the implementation of weekly tests was important to enhance their vocabulary mastery. The perceptions acquired from those five out of six interviewees reinforced 87 students who affirmed the importance of weekly tests as stated in the questionnaire. Moreover, student A, student B and student D confessed that weekly tests made them become more diligent learners. Having a large number of items to master for each test truly forced them to study much harder every week. Hence, they were more diligent than before having weekly tests. However, student C and student F stated that weekly tests were not really so fantastic to make them more diligent. They remarked that the impact of having weekly tests did not influence their diligence in learning. In addition, they added that it was just a common thing to study much harder to prepare the test. In contrary, student E convincingly confirmed that weekly tests had no any positive effect on him. Student E was also the one who perceived that it was fine for not having weekly tests in Vocabulary I class. He argued that weekly tests were boring. Besides, he insisted that there were other effective techniques to build the students’ vocabulary mastery, such as making tests which provide sentences as context, two-week tests and many others. In contrast, the other interviewees, namely Student A, student B, student C, student D and student F remarked that PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 58 weekly tests should be applied in Vocabulary I class. They confirmed that vocabulary weekly tests were very important to build self learning habit. Without those tests, they would not be challenged to study hard every week. Moreover, weekly test was a specialty test in Vocabulary class since the other courses had no such kind of test. Besides, those tests motivated the students to master vocabulary items which were useful, not only for the Vocabulary course but also for other courses. With reference to the importance of weekly tests, almost all students argued that the implementation of weekly tests was able to enhance their vocabulary mastery. From the data acquired through the questionnaire, it was clearly described that the majority of students was in agreement with the weekly tests which enhanced the students’ vocabulary mastery. There were 53 out of 61 students in the class who admitted their agreement. This finding was verified when the researcher conducted an interview. In fact, five interviewees confessed that weekly tests were essential in enhancing their vocabulary mastery. Thus, it was clear that the students on the whole remarked the importance of weekly tests. In addition, most of them also perceived that the weekly tests were challenging. They had to master a large number of vocabulary items, apply those words on the tests and compete with other students as well. These factors made weekly tests challenging for the students. Related to the correlation between the weekly tests and the students’ diligence, 83 students stated that they became more diligent learners by having vocabulary test every week. It means that weekly tests were able to push the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 59 students’ laziness away. There were three interviewees who admitted that they became more diligent learners. Student A, student B and student D had similar opinion about being more diligent by having vocabulary weekly test. Besides, the researcher also found that 78 students argued to apply weekly tests in Vocabulary I class. They considered that the implementation of weekly tests was beneficial to enhance students’ vocabulary mastery, build self learning habit, and enable the students to apply the words they had mastered in other English skills. There were five interviewees admitting it was advisable to apply weekly tests in Vocabulary I class. However, a small number of students had negative perceptions on the implication of weekly tests. From the data acquired from questionnaire, it was clearly described that there were only 13 of students who disagreed with the importance of weekly tests to enhance the students’ vocabulary mastery. Moreover, 18 students admitted that the implementation of weekly tests was not challenging. Another finding was 17 students also perceived that weekly tests were not able to make learners become more diligent. Afterwards, there were 22 students confessing that weekly tests should not be applied in Vocabulary I class. Student E was the one out of six interviewees who argued that weekly tests were not important in enhancing the students’ vocabulary mastery. He was also the one who confirmed that weekly tests could not make students become more diligent. Further, he added that it was fine not to apply weekly tests in Vocabulary I class. He argued that in administering vocabulary test, lecturers were able to vary the type of the test, not merely matching test as done in weekly tests. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 60 There were many supportive reasons elicited by the students which were truly meaningful and beneficial to apply weekly tests in Vocabulary I class. Weekly tests were able to enhance students’ vocabulary mastery, build self learning habit, and enable the students to apply the words they had mastered in other English skills too. In addition, vocabulary weekly test was a specialty test in Vocabulary course, it should be maintained. Besides, weekly tests motivated students to study more seriously.

B. The Contributions of Students’ Perceptions to Vocabulary Mastery

Having discussed the students’ perceptions on the implementation of weekly tests acquired from the questionnaire and the interview, the researcher moved to find out the answer for the second research question about the contribution of the students’ perceptions on the weekly tests towards their vocabulary mastery. Those perceptions were classified into four major aspects, namely the perceptions on teaching–learning process, validity of the tests, reliability of the tests and the implications of the tests. For the computation, the researcher employed Pearson Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation to look for the contribution of each aspect towards vocabulary mastery. 1. The Contribution of the Students’ Perceptions on the Vocabulary Teaching-Learning Process to Vocabulary Mastery In this section, the researcher endeavoured to search for the contribution of students’ perceptions on the vocabulary teaching-learning process towards their vocabulary mastery. It was stated that most students perceived the implementation of weekly tests in the class positively. To be more detailed, their high interest in 61 the weekly tests led them to be highly motivated, more confident and wholehearted when doing the tests. In other words, the students’ positive perceptions initiated them to have positive behavioural responses. However, from the computation using Pearson Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation, it was found that positive perceptions did not gain merely good results in the final scores. According to Budi 2006: 92, if the correlation coefficient is lower than 0, 200 it means that the correlation between two variables is very weak. It was demonstrated that the correlation coefficient was 0, 125 See Appendix 8. It showed the frailty of the correlation between the perceptions and the scores. From the computation, it was also found that the probability 0, 335 was higher than the level of significance 0, 05. It inferred that the students’ perceptions on the teaching-learning process did not significantly contribute to their vocabulary mastery. Meanwhile, the absence of minus sign - indicated that there was positive correlation, namely the more positive perceptions the students had, the higher scores they would attain. 2. The Contribution of the Students’ Perceptions on the Validity of the Tests to Vocabulary Mastery Based on the results of questionnaire and interview, mainly students perceived validity of the tests positively. Nevertheless, in this research, the researcher found that those positive perceptions did not merely contribute to the students’ achievement at the end of semester. Moreover, the computation using Pearson Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation as shown in Appendix 8 revealed that the correlation coefficient was negative. This minus sign illustrated