Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT IN WRITING CLASS A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education By Yenny Setyawati Student Number: 061214100 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2010 i

  STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT IN WRITING CLASS A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education By Yenny Setyawati Student Number: 061214100 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2010

  iv

  

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

  I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.

  Yogyakarta, November 22, 2010 The Writer

  Yenny Setyawati 061214100

  This thesis is dedicated to:

  • Jesus Christ and Holy Mary - My Wonderful Family - Sanata Dharma University

  v

  

ABSTRACT

  Setyawati, Yenny. 2010. Students’ Perception toward the Implementation of

Portfolio Assessment in Writing Class . Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.

  In this modern era, writing seems to be an important skill that people should possess. As global community, people need to have the ability to write effectively since writing plays an important role in people’s life. That is why writing should be taught and assessed well in language teaching. The assessment of writing using a test seems to be inadequate because writing test has some disadvantages. Therefore, teacher needs to find an alternative assessment which can cover the disadvantages of writing test. Portfolio is considered to be one of the alternative assessments. Basically, portfolio is a good assessment tool but in fact a lot of students do not realize it. Because of that, the researcher conducted this study which is intended to investigate students’ perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class. This study had one research problem formulated: What is students’ perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class?

  In this study, the researcher used survey method. To gather the data, only one instrument used, that is questionnaire. The questionnaire included twenty six statements and three open ended questions about portfolio assessment. The questionnaires were distributed from May 12th, 2010 until May 18th, 2010 to the students of Paragraph Writing Class B, Paragraph Writing Class C, Short Essay II Class A and Short Essay II Class F in Sanata Dharma University. Those four writing classes were chosen because they were suitable with the researcher’s criteria about portfolio assessment – students did the writing assignment regularly during the semester and at the end of the semester, they have to collect all their assignment they have made and submit it to the lecturer. Total respondents in this study were eighty students.

  The data analysis showed that most of the respondents had positive perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class. All the respondents had a notion that portfolio assessment is useful and beneficial and is good to be implemented in writing class. Although portfolio gives so many benefits, still it has some weaknesses. However, portfolio assessment helped students to improve their English well, especially in writing.

  This study concluded that students have positive perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment because it gives so many benefits for the students: (1) Portfolio helps students to identify their strengths and weaknesses, (2) Portfolio gives students the opportunity to revise their assignments, (3) Portfolio lets students monitor their own progress and assess their own learning, and (4) Portfolio improves students’ writing skill. vi

  

ABSTRAK

  Setyawati, Yenny. 2010. Students’ Perception toward the Implementation of

Portfolio Assessment in Writing Class . Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma.

  Dalam era modern, menulis merupakan sebuah keterampilan yang harus dimiliki oleh masyarakat. Sebagai komunitas global, masyarakat harus memiliki kemampuan menulis secara efektif karena menulis memegang peranan penting dalam hidup manusia. Oleh karena itu, menulis harus bisa diajarkan dan dinilai dengan baik dalam pembelajaran bahasa. Penilaian menulis menggunakan test nampaknya kurang memadahi karena test memiliki beberapa kelemahan. Maka, guru harus bisa menemukan sistem penilaian alternatif yang dapat melengkapi kekurangan ini. Portfolio dianggap dapat menjadi salah satu dari sistem penilaian alternatif tersebut. Pada dasarnya, portfolio merupakan sistem penilaian yang bagus namun kenyataannya banyak siswa tidak menyadari akan hal ini. Oleh sebab itu, peneliti mengadakan penelitian ini yang bertujuan untuk meneliti persepsi siswa terhadap implementasi portfolio dalam kelas menulis. Penelitian ini memiliki satu permasalahan yang difurmulasikan yaitu: Bagaimanakah persepsi siswa terhadap implementasi portfolio dalam kelas menulis?

  Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti menggunakan metode survey. Untuk mengumpulkan data, hanya satu instrument penelitian yang digunakan yaitu kuesioner. Kuesioner yang digunakan memiliki dua puluh enam pernyataan dan tiga pertanyaan terbuka tentang portfolio. Kuesioner dibagikan sejak tanggal 12 Mei 2010 hingga 18 Mei 2010 kepada siswa-siswa dari Paragraph Writing Class

  B, Paragraph Writing Class C, Short Essay II Class A and Short Essay II Class F di Universitas Sanata Dharma. Keempat kelas menulis tersebut dipilih karena keempatnya memenuhi kriteria-kriteria yang ditetapkan oleh peneliti mengenai portfolio yaitu selama satu semester, siswa secara rutin menulis karangan- karangan dan pada akhir semester, mereka harus mengumpulkan semua tugas yang telah mereka buat selama satu semester dan mengumpulkannya kepada dosen. Total jumlah responden dalam penelitian ini adalah delapan puluh siswa.

  Dari analisis data dapat dilihat bahwa sebagian besar responden memiliki persepsi yang baik terhadap implementasi portfolio dalam kelas menulis. Bahkan seluruh responden berpendapat bahwa portfolio sangat berguna dan menguntungkan bila diimplementasikan dalam kelas menulis. Walaupun portfolio memiliki beberapa keunggulan, namun tetap saja portfolio memiliki beberapa kelemahan. Namun, bagaimanapun juga, portfolio tetap saja dapat membantu siswa dalam meningkatkan kemampuan bahasa Inggris mereka khususnya kemampuan menulis.

  Penelitian ini memiliki kesimpulan bahwa siswa memiliki persepsi yang baik terhadap implementasi portfolio karena portfolio memiliki beberapa keunggulan yaitu: (1) Portfolio membantu siswa untuk mengidentifikasi kelebihan dan kekurangan mereka, (2) Portfolio memberikan kesempatan kepada siswa untuk merevisi tugas mereka, (3) Portfolio membuat siswa dapat memonitor kemajuan belajar mereka dan menilai pembelajaran mereka sendiri, and (4) Portfolio mengembangkan kemampuan siswa dalam menulis. vii

  

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

  Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Yenny Setyawati Nomor Mahasiswa : 061214100

  Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

  

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THE IMPLEMENTATION

OF PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT IN WRITING CLASS

  beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, me- ngalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

  Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal: 22 November 2010 Yang menyatakan Yenny Setyawati viii

  

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Foremost, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to God Almighty for all his blessing, grace, and love. From the beginning, He has guided me to finish my study in English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University and finish this thesis. He has also helped me to overcome all the problems and strengthened me when I started to feel desperate and stressful.

  In finishing this thesis, I also received some helps and supports from these following people to whom I would like to express my gratefulness. Without helps and supports from these people, this thesis would never completed.

  First, I would like to thank the chairperson of English Language Education Study Program, C. Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd. as my major sponsor for spending her time for me and giving me beneficial advices and corrections, helpful assistance, great support and encouragement from the beginning when I first joined her RELT class, Thesis Writing class, until I finished this thesis.

  Second, I would also like to express my gratitude to all PBI lecturers for guiding me and teaching me well during my study in English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University, especially Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd. for guiding and helping me during my study. I also thank Henny Herawati, S.Pd., M.Hum. and Drs. Antonius Herujiyanto, M.A., Ph.D. for doing their job well as my academic advisor, Gregorius Punto Aji, S.Pd., M.Hum., Fidelis Chosa Kastuhandani, S.Pd. and Chrysogorus Siddha M, S.Pd. for allowing me to distribute questionnaires in their classes, and Yuseva Ariyani Iswandari, S.Pd., M.Ed. for answering all my questions and proofreading this thesis. I also send my gratitude to Maria Martarina Pramudani and Chatarina Artilantari who have helped me a lot during my study.

  Third, I would like to give many thanks to my parents, Dewi Epri Indriasari and YS. Saktiawan, for praying for me and giving me big affections, endless supports, and priceless advices. Also, to my brother, Roni Setiawan, and my sister, Debby Cinthya Dewi, for reducing the stress during finishing this thesis. Then, I also thank my boyfriend, Edy Nurmono, for all the love and care he ix has given to me and for always supporting me and giving me a hand.

  Finally, I would like to thank my best, best friends, Ayum, Rika, Susan, Idoeth, Rina, Ruzna, Deinza, and Danny for their help, support, cooperation and for the beautiful friendship they have given to me. The last, I thank all off my respondents to whom I was so indebted because they were willing to cooperate with me in finishing this thesis by filling out the questionnaires.

  Yogyakarta, August 20, 2010 Yenny Setyawati x

  TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

  TITLE PAGE .............................................................................................. i APPROVAL PAGES .................................................................................. ii STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ........................................... iv DEDICATION PAGE ................................................................................. v ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ vi

  

ABSTRAK .................................................................................................... vii

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH viii

UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS .......................................................

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................ ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................ xi LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................... xv LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................... xvi LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................. xvii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................

  1 1.1 Research Background …............................................................

  1 1.2 Problem Formulation ................................................................

  4 1.3 Problem Limitation ...................................................................

  4 1.4 Research Objectives …..............................................................

  5 1.5 Research Benefits …..................................................................

  5 1.6 Definition of Terms ...................................................................

  6 xi

  xii CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ..........................

  22 2.2 Review of Related Studies ........................................................

  35 3.6.2 Reviewing of Library Data ………………………………….

  35 3.6.1 Identifying the Problem ..........................................................

  34 3.6 Research Procedure ...................................................................

  33 3.5.2 Analyzing the Open-ended Questions ....................................

  33 3.5.1 Analyzing the Close-ended Questions ...................................

  32 3.5 Data Analysis Technique ..........................................................

  32 3.4 Data Gathering Technique ........................................................

  28 3.3 Research Participants ................................................................

  27 3.2 Research Instrument ..................................................................

  27 3.1 Research Method .......................................................................

  25 CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY ............................................................

  25 2.3 Theoretical Framework ………………….................................

  23 2.2.2 Students’ Perception on The Use of Portfolio .......................

  23 2.2.1 Teachers’ Perception on the Use of Portfolio ........................

  2.1.5.3 Self-assessment in portfolio assessment ………….………

  10 2.1 Theoretical Description .............................................................

  21

  2.1.5.2 The advantages of self-assessment ……………..…………

  20

  20 2.1.5.1 Definition ............................................................................

  18 2.1.5 Self-Assessment in Assessing Writing ..................................

  17 2.1.4.3 Traditional Assessment vs Portfolios Assessment ..............

  2.1.4.2 The advantages of implementing portfolio assessment in assessing writing .................................................................

  16

  15 2.1.4.1 Definition ............................................................................

  13 2.1.4 Portfolios ................................................................................

  12 2.1.3 Assessing Writing ..................................................................

  2.1.2 Assessment in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Classes ..................................................................................

  10

  10 2.1.1 Perception …………………………………………………...

  35

  xiii 3.6.3 Identifying the Research Method ...........................................

  55 4.2.3.1 Portfolio gives students the opportunity to write more …...

  4.2.4.3 Give feedback and correction/revision on students’ portfolio …………………………………………………..

  59

  4.2.4.2 Provide folder to keep the portfolio ………………………

  59

  58 4.2.4.1 Explain about the portfolio ………………………………..

  57 4.2.4 Portfolio Assessment Class Scenario .....................................

  57 4.2.3.6 Portfolio improves students’ writing skill ………………...

  4.2.3.5 Portfolio helped students to be critical ……………………

  57

  4.2.3.3 Portfolio gives students the opportunity to revise their work ……………………………………………………… 56 4.2.3.4 Portfolio makes students to be autonomous learners ……..

  56

  4.2.3.2 Portfolio helped students to identify their strengths and weaknesses ……………………………………….............

  55

  54 4.2.3 Students’ Opinion on the Use of Portfolio Assessment .........

  36 3.6.4 Identifying the Research Participant ......................................

  53 4.2.2 Students’ Opinion on Portfolio as Self-Assessment Tool ......

  4.2.1 Students’ Opinion on the Advantages of Portfolio …………

  53

  50 4.2 Discussion .................................................................................

  46 4.1.4 Portfolio Assessment Class Scenario .....................................

  44 4.1.3 Students’ Opinion on the Use of Portfolio Assessment .........

  41 4.1.2 Students’ Opinion on Portfolio as Self-Assessment Tool ......

  39 4.1.1 Students’ Opinion on the Advantages of Portfolio ................

  39 4.1 Research Result .........................................................................

  38 CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ..................

  37 3.6.8 Drawing Conclusion ..............................................................

  37 3.6.7 Gathering and Analyzing the Data .........................................

  36 3.6.6 Asking Permission To Conduct The Study ...........................

  36 3.6.5 Preparing the Research Instrument ........................................

  60

  xiv CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ...........................

  5.2.1.6 Combining portfolio assessment with traditional assessment ..........................................................................

  71 APPENDICES ............................................................................................

  69 REFERENCES ............................................................................................

  68 5.2.3 Suggestions for Future Researchers .......................................

  68 5.2.2.3 Cooperating well with other students ..................................

  67 5.2.2.2 Doing and keeping the portfolio well ..................................

  67 5.2.2.1 Studying about the portfolio itself ......................................

  67 5.2.2 Suggestions for Students ........................................................

  65

  62 5.1 Conclusions ...............................................................................

  65 5.2.1.5 Creating clear scoring rubric for students’ portfolio ...........

  5.2.1.4 Providing a folder or file manager for students to keep their portfolio .....................................................................

  65

  64 5.2.1.3 Discussing students’ mistakes in class ................................

  64 5.2.1.2 Giving clear feedback for the students ................................

  64 5.2.1.1 Explaining the students about portfolio itself .....................

  63 5.2.1 Suggestions for Teachers .......................................................

  62 5.2 Suggestions ...............................................................................

  75

  xv LIST OF TABLES

  Table Page

  2.1 The Difference between Traditional Concept and New Concept of Assessment ..........................................................................................

  15 3.1 List of Statements and Questions Used for the Questionnaire ..............

  30 3.2 Table Used to Present Close-ended Questions Result ………………..

  34 3.3 Table Used to Present Open-ended Questions Result …………….......

  34 3.4 Table Used to Analyze Open-ended Questions Result ……………….

  35 4.1 The Result of the Close-Ended Questions ............................................

  40 4.2 The Result of the Open-Ended Questions (Number 27-28) ……..........

  50 4.3 The Result of the Open-Ended Questions (Number 29) …...................

  52 5.1 The Example of Portfolio Assessement Scoring Rubric ……………...

  66

  LIST OF FIGURES Figure

  Page 2.1 The perceptual Process by Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts …………..

  11 2.2 The Ongoing Process of Assessment According to Suskie ..................

  12 xvi xvii LIST OF APPENDICES

  Appendix Page I. Letter of Permission ................................................................................

  76 II. Examples of Questionnaire …………………………………………….

  80 III. Questionnaire Blueprint ……………..…..............................................

  83 IV. Questionnaire ........................................................................................

  85 V. Result of the Open-Ended Questions .....................................................

  88

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter includes six main parts which are research background,

  problem formulation, problem limitation, research objective, research benefits, and definition of terms that are going to be discussed as follows.

1.1 Research Background

  Writing seems to be an important skill that we should possess in this globalization era. We as global community need to have the ability to write effectively since it is “becoming widely recognized as an important skill for educational, business and personal reasons” (Weigle, 2002). Therefore, in language teaching, writing should be taught effectively. In addition, a teacher should also find the appropriate assessment to measure the skill of writing.

  Writing is a process. Teacher should realize that teaching writing means introducing this process to the students and making them accustomed to do this process. Since writing is a process, the evaluation of writing should be able to measure the whole process instead of assessing the result only. The most commonly used assessment in assessing writing is the traditional one which is paper-and-pencil test. Paper-and-pencil test for example, standardize tests, multiple choices tests, essay-type tests, and impromptu writing measures only a portion of the result instead of measuring completely the entire development of the learners during the process. According to Law and Eckes (1995) as cited in

  2 Dikli (2003, p. 15) traditional assessment measures what students can do at particular time instead of measuring students’ progress from time to time.

  However, test score cannot be used to show students’ progress over time.

  Many teachers seem to understand this situation that traditional assessment has some weaknesses and is not enough to measure their students’ learning.

  Therefore, teachers start to find a good alternative assessment which can cover the limitation of traditional assessment (test). A good alternative assessment according to Hatfield, Edwards, and Bitter (1997: 107) as cited in Lee, P. Y. (2006: 345) should have one or more of these characteristics: (1) Students perform, create, and produce; (2) Tasks require problem solving or higher-order thinking; (3) Problems are contextualized; (4) Tasks are often time-consuming and need days to complete; (5) Scoring rubrics or scoring guides are required.

  According to Dikli (2003: 14), there are two common types of alternative assessment which are project and portfolio. Project requires students to display what they know about certain topics for example in the form of presentation multimedia, artwork, role-play, etc. Project may have some characteristics of good alternative assessment stated by Hatfield, Edwards, and Bitter (1997: 107) above but when we look up the definition of project and the explanation above, project may not be suitable to be used as an alternative assessment in assessing writing because it does not measure students’ progress during the lesson.

  Portfolio is students’ collection of their works that shows their progress during the course and their mastery of the skill given. Portfolio promotes self- assessment which enables students to identify their own strengths and

  3 weaknesses. From the definition of portfolio above, we know that portfolio is suitable to be used as an alternative assessment in assessing writing because by using portfolio, it is possible for teachers to focus on both the process and the result.

  Moreover, portfolio also has some characteristics of a good alternative assessment. Portfolio requires students to create and produce. Using portfolio, students are obligated to create and produce a set of compositions on various topics during the course. Not only that, portfolio is often time consuming.

  Producing a good portfolio, students must use more time rather than creating a composition on an examination day. Students need some time to develop their ideas, produce their compositions, check their portfolio, revise their portfolio, check it again, and revise it again. Then, portfolio requires scoring rubrics.

  Teachers must have scoring rubrics/scoring guides so that the assessment become clear and the teachers will be able to assess their student objectively. It is clear that portfolio is one of the good alternative assessments that is suitable to be implemented in assessing writing.

  Furthermore, portfolio also focuses on the process instead of the result. During the process of producing, checking, and revising the portfolio, both teacher and students can monitor the development and progress that have been made by the students over a period of time. Moreover, portfolio assessment has a lot of advantages such as portfolio assesses both cognitive and affective domains, portfolio enables self-assessment, portfolio motivates students to write more, and portfolio gives students the opportunity to revise their composition. Thus, teachers

  4 and future teachers can consider using portfolio as an alternative assessment in assessing writing.

  Although portfolio is believed to be one of the suitable alternative assessments to be implemented in assessing writing, still portfolio seems to be less accepted by the students. Students seem to underestimate this kind of assessment. Students do not know what actually portfolio is and what the functions of portfolio are. That is what the writer is going to study in this research. This research focuses on the students’ perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class. Through this study, the researcher wants to figure out students’ attitude and their opinion toward portfolio assessment.

  1.2 Problem Formulation

  There is only one problem that the writer formulates in this study. The problem of this study is: what is students’ perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class? From this problem formulation, the researcher expands the discussion to students’ perception toward portfolio assessment in writing class, students’ reason of having good or bad perception toward portfolio assessment and students’ suggestions for the better implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class.

  1.3 Problem Limitation

  The problem of this study is limited to the discussion on the definition of portfolio as the collection of students’ work from the beginning of the lesson until

  5 the end of the lesson including all the drafts of each work. Then, the discussion continues to the discussion on students’ perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class. Students here refer to the students of Sanata Dharma University especially students from the year 2008 and 2009 who took writing class at even semester in academic year 2009/2010 which uses portfolio as assessment tool.

  1.4 Research Objectives

  The objective of this study is to describe whether students have good perception toward portfolio in writing class. Then, the next objective is to find out why students have good/bad perception toward portfolio. This study also has an objective to make students state some suggestions for the implementation of portfolio assessment in assessing writing so that the next implementation of portfolio will be better.

  1.5 Research Benefits

  This study is expected to give contribution to:

  1.5.1 The English Teachers The benefit of this study is to give an overview for the teachers and/or future teachers about portfolio assessment and students’ perception toward the implementation of it. The writer hopes that the teachers and/or future teachers will be well-informed about portfolio assessment, also, understand the English students’ characteristic after reading this paper. So the teachers and future

  6 teachers of English can manage well how to use portfolio in their assessment and how to make portfolio well-accepted by the students.

  1.5.2 Other Researchers The result of this study might give other researchers clear description of portfolio assessment and the implementation of portfolio in assessing writing.

  This study, also, hopefully will encourage other researchers to conduct further study on similar topic.

  1.5.3 Students of English Language Education Study Program For students of English Language Education Study Program who probably read this thesis in the future, this study might broaden their knowledge of English language teaching especially on the assessment in English language teaching. After reading this study, the readers will get to know some things related to the implementation of portfolio assessment.

1.6 Definition of Terms

  To avoid misleading and to have the same understading between the researcher and the readers, the researcher provides some definition of terms used in this study. The researcher defines some terms as follows.

  1.6.1 Perception “Perception is our sensory experience of the world around us. Perception not only creates our experience of the world around us; it allows us to act within our environment” (Wagner, 2009). Thus, we can say that perception is the way people see, react, perceive, conceive and comprehend about the environment

  7 around them as the result of experiencing something. Huffman, Vernoy, M., and Vernoy, J. in their book Psychology in Action explain when people receive some sensory data, they will always try to organize those data and then interpret it into something that is familiar with their mental pattern (2000: 107).

  Based on these experts’ explanations, in this study, the writer formulates the definition of perception as someone’s point of view and opinion that he/she obtains from interpreting something about what she/he ever experienced in his/her environtment. For example, in this study the researcher wants to conduct research on students’ perception toward the implementation of portfolio assessment in writing class. In other words, it can be said that the researcher wants to conduct research which investigate the opinion of the students about portfolio assessment that they have ever experienced in their writing class.

  1.6.2 Assessment Rayment (2006: 2) describes assessment as a method and process. She explains assessment is a method used in learning to measure how far the teaching- learning process happen, also to gain and collect feedback on the teaching- learning process. She adds, assessment is also process of evaluating students’ within an educational context and the process of documenting students’ knowledge, skill, and attitude.

  However, the researcher has her own definition about assessment which is used in this study. According to the researcher, assessment is the process of evaluating students’ learning to measure their achievement and development in their learning.

  8

  1.6.3 Portfolio Campbell, Melenyzer, Nettles, and Wyman (2000), define portfolio as “an organized, goal driven documentation of students’ professional growth and achieved competence in the complex act called teaching.” According to Northwest Evaluation Association as cited in Weigle (2002: 198) portfolio is “a purposeful collection of students’ work that exhibits to the students (and/or others) the student’s effort, progress, or achievement in a given area” (1991: 1, cited in Wolcott, 1998). Cited in Chen (2004: 1), McNamara and Deane explaine that portfolio is “one of the assessments which provides more complete picture of students’ ability, effort, and progress which also allows students to have greater voice in their language learning process” (1995: p.21).

  In this research, portfolio is defined as the collection of students’ works from the beginning of the course until the end of the course. Since this study focuses on the use of portfolio in assessing writing, portfolio here includes the draft of students’ work.

  1.6.4 Self-assessment As cited in Wen-ming and Xiao-zhen (2008: 20), self-assessment can be defined as “information about the learners provided by the learners themselves, about their abilities, the progress they think they are making and what they think they can or cannot do yet with what they have learned in a course” (Blanche and Merino, 1989). Boud (1991) and Brew (1999) as cited in Marhaeni (2005: 1) add, self-assessment is students’ involvement in assessing process where students identify the criteria and try to evaluate their own works by making judgments

  9 about how their works have met the criteria. Rayment (2002: 55) said that self- assessment is “a powerful part of assessment for learning” because it can motivate students to learn more, to identify and evaluate their own skills and weaknesses.

  Based on experts’ explanations above, we can say that self-assessment means students evaluate themselves by analyzing their own works, identifying their skills and weaknesses, and setting their own learning objectives/goals to make a good progress in their learning. Self-assessment makes students responsible for the whole learning process of their own.

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE This chapter aims at discussing the theories underlying this study. This

  chapter consists of three parts which are theoretical description, review of related studies and theoretical framework.

2.1 Theoretical Description

  This section discusses some relevant theories about perception, assessment and portfolio. Here are the theories which are relevant to the topic.

2.1.1 Perception

  In our daily life, people might be familiar with the term perception. Some people might say perception is vision, reaction, idea, conception, or reaction about something that we have experienced before. Nevertheles, Yapias, Iizuka, Hayashi, Yim, and Burke (2004: 6) explain that perception is the process in which people gather sensory information, organize it, and interpret it. That explanation about perception is almost the same with Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts’ explanation. They add, “perception is the way stimuli are selected and grouped by a person so that can be meaningfully interpreted” (1985: 85) .

  Perception is always started from stimuli. It is the process where stimuli is gathered, organized, and grouped. The process continues when this grouped stimuli is interpreted into behavioural response. This process can be clearly seen in figure 2.1.

  11 Perception, Sensors’

  Behavioural organization, and selection

  Stimuli response interpretation of of stimuli stimuli

Figure 2.1 The Perceptual Process by Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts

  According to Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts (1985: 86), someone’s perception can be influenced by some factors namely selection of stimuli, organization of stimuli, the situation, and the person’s self-concept. Selection of stimuli means when people receive a lot of stimuli, they only focus on small part of stimuli (p.86). Next factor influencing perception is organization of stimuli. Based on figure 2.1 above, after people receive some stimuli, they will select it. Then, the selected information will be organized to be something meaningful. Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts (p.87) say that “arrangement of stimuli affects our perception”. The ability to organize and arrage the selected stimuli is different from one person to another. Thus, we can say that organization of stimuli influence someone’s perception.

  The third factor influencing perception is the situation. “A person’s familiarity with, or expectation about, a situation, as well as his or her past experience, affect what that person perceives” (p.89). Each person has different background, culture, and experience. People’s behaviour on certain situation of course will be influenced by their background, culture, and experience. The last factor is self-concept. Self-concept is person’s image felt and perceived by himself or herself (p.90). For example, people may think that they are educated. The thought about themselves who are educated will influence their perception about something.

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2.1.2 Assessment in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Classes One of the activities which are done in EFL classroom is assessment.

  According to Peregoy and Boyle, assessment is a procedure used to evaluate students’ learning. This procedure can also be used to measure students’ achievement and development (2004: 108). According to Nunan (2003), assessment is “the act of collecting information and making judgment on learner’s knowledge and ability” as cited by Prabandari in LLT Journal (2005: 109).

  Suskie, in her book, Assessing Student Learning (2004: 3), formulates the definition of assessment as follow which is also illustrated in figure 2.1.

  “Assessment is the ongoing process of: establishing clear, measurable expected outcomes of students learning; ensuring that students have sufficient opportunities to achieve those outcomes; systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to determine how well student learning matches our expectations; and using the resulting information to understand and improve students’ learning.”

  1. Establish Learning Goals

  2. Provide

  4. Use the Learning

  Result Opportunities

  3. Assess Student Learning

Figure 2.1 The Ongoing Process of Assessment According to Suskie

  13 Rayment has different opinion. She formulates assessment as a “process of evaluating students within an educational context” (2006: 2). Based on the experts’ definitions about assessment above, we may say that in the teaching- learning process one thing that teacher needs to do is evaluating students’ learning. It is important to be done because it can help teacher to know students’ development and achievement during the teaching-learning process. Then, the result of evaluating students’ learning can be used to decide whether such teaching method and technique still can be used or not? Thus, assessment becomes a crucial step in teaching because this is the only way for the teacher to evaluate students’ progress in learning.

  There are a lot of methods of assessment used in assessing language. Teachers and/or future teachers must be able to decide which method which fits best with their students and their learning objectives so that they can measure their students’ learning well.

2.1.3 Assessing Writing

  Hughes (1989: 75) as cited in Weigle (2002: 1), says that “the best way to test people’s writing ability is to get them to write”. This statement clearly states that paper-and-pencil test like sentence completion, pictured-cued task, and multiple choices tests are not the best way to test writing ability. Another expert states traditional assessment like paper-and-pencil test measures only a portion of the results instead of measuring completely the entire growth and development of the individual. Traditional test “comes without a personal responsibility, measures learners' performance on the slice of skills that appears on tests, but fails to

  14 demonstrate learners' full range of intuitions and knowledge, sufficiency with first-draft work, and exclusion of development” (Wolf, 1989 as cited in Alimemaj and Ahmetaj, 2010).

  Moreover, “testing situation itself often produces anxiety within the student such that they are unable to think clearly” (Huerta-Macias, 1995). They add “the student may also be facing extenuating circumstances (e.g., personal problems or illness) at the time she/he is being tested; this also hampers the student’s performance on the test”. Students may be failed in a test not because they do not study before the exam but because they are stressful, nervous, and/or sick during the test that makes them cannot do the test well.

  Knowing that traditional assessment has some disadvantages, we cannot deny that it also has some advantages. Lianghuo as cited in Lee, P. Y. (2006: 346- 347) mentions some advantages of traditional assessment which are it is easy to design, it is easy to administer, it can have good coverage in content, it is good for testing factual knowledge and specific skills, it is easy to mark and grade, it is more objective, it is easy to analyze and report, it is well established, and it is also well accepted. Considering its advantages, it is clear that teachers can still apply traditional paper-and-pencil test. Paper-and-pencil test can still play an important role in assessing writing but teachers have to find a new way of assessment to cover the limitations of traditional assessment and to compensate what traditional assessment cannot achieve.