The Correlation Between students' scores in TOEFL and GPA - Institutional Repository of UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh
SUBMITTED BY:
Annisa Amanda Putri
Students of Department of English Language Eduationn
Reg No : 231324404
THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’
SCORE in TOEFL AND GPA
THESIS
THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHER
TRAINING
AR-RANIRY STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
DARUSSALAM- – BANDA ACEH
2018
APPROVAL LETTER
SURAT PERNYATAAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillahirabbil’alamin, all praises are due to Allah swt, the most merciful andthe almightiest, who has blessed and given the chance to me, health, unlimited love, unlimited gift and stength.
I would express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Safrul Muluk, S.Ag., MA my first advisor, and Dr. Jarjani Usman, S.Ag.,S.S.,M.Sc., MS my second advisor, for their patience, valuable guidance, encouragement, and time through out the process of accomplishing my study in regard to my endeavor to make this final project as comprehensive as possible.
My special honor goes to all my lecturers in English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh for the precious lessons and assistance during my study. I also express my deepest love to my parents, Zulkifli Yusuf and Kemalasari, thank you for support, love and pray. May God bless them and return their kindness.
Moreover, my deepest gratitude is dedicated to all of my friends in English Department ’13, especially for Hilyatun Nafis, and all who are in my heart thanks for motivation, and encouragement to support this study, you will always be the best for me. I am Twice thankful for all the supports everyone gave me.
Nothing is perfect in this world, and this final project is no exception. I hope the result of this final project of my study will be useful for anyone who needs it.
Banda Aceh, Desember 2017 Annisa Amanda Putri
TABLE OF CONTENTS
APPROVAL LETTER ....................................................................................................................... i
SURAT PERNYATAAN .............................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .......................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................. iv
LIST OF APPENDICES .................................................................................................................. vi
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... vii
List of figures .............................................................................................................................. viii
.................................................................................................................................... ix ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1
A. Background of study ................................................................................................................... 1
B. Research Question: ...................................................................................................................... 4
C. Purpose of the study .................................................................................................................... 5
D. Significance of the study ............................................................................................................. 5
E. The organization of the Thesis .................................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER II ................................................................................................................................... 7
LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................. 7A. The nature of TOEFL and GPA .................................................................................................. 7
C. Conclusion and Implication ...................................................................................................... 12
D.Factors that affect students’ academic success .......................................................................... 13
E. Factors that affect students performance ................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER III .............................................................................................................................. 18
METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................................... 18A. Research Design ........................................................................................................................ 18
B. Research strategy and sample selection .................................................................................... 20
C. The respondents......................................................................................................................... 21
CHAPTER IV ............................................................................................................................... 26
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .............................................................................................. 26A. The findings ............................................................................................................................. 26
1. The test results ............................................................................................................................ 26
2. The interview results .................................................................................................................. 31
a.Students’ interview analysis ......................................................................................................... 31 b.
Lecturer’s interview analysis .................................................................................................... 41
B. Discussion ................................................................................................................................. 43
................................................................................................................................ 46CHAPTER V CONCLUSION & SUGGESTION .......................................................................................... 46
A. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 46
B. Suggestions ............................................................................................................................... 47
C. Reflection .................................................................................................................................. 48
BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 49
AUTO BIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 82
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A: The students’ TOEFL score and GPA data ................................................................
Appendix C: interview transcription ................................................................................................
LIST OF TABLES
List of figures
ABSTRACT
Name : Annisa Amanda Putri Reg. No : 231324404 Faculty/Major : Faculty of Education and Teacher Training/ Department of English Education Title :
The correlation between students’ TOEFL score and GPA Advisor I : Dr. Safrul Muluk, S.Ag.,MA., M.Ed.
Advisor II : Dr. Jarjani Usman, S.Ag, S.S, M.Sc, MS Keywords : Test of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL), Grade Point Accumulation (GPA), correlation.
This research was carried out to find out the correlation between English Department students’ TOEFL score and their Grade Point Average (GPA). This study used mixed approach in order to align with the data collected based on the research questions. 100 students of English department of UIN Ar-Raniry from cohort 2013 took part in this research. Of them, 9 were selected for interviews based on their scores in both TOEFL and GPA, as also recommended by their lecturers. The students were grouped into three categories: groups A, B, and C. Group A are those with both high TOEFL and GPA scores; Group B with both low TOEFL and GPA scores, and Group C with low TOEFL and high GPA scores. The results show that English Department students’ TOEFL score has a
th th
significant positive correlation with their CGPA, 7 semester GPA, and 8 semester GPA, as indicated in the correlation coefficient value is 1. According to Coolidge (2012), a strong positive correlation happened when the correlation coefficient value is close to +1 or greater than 0.50. This research also found that the factors that influence the English Department student s’ TOEFL score and their GPA based on the students’ perception were divided into internal factors and external factors. External factors are university facilities,
. In
and lecturer’s style, and internal factors are study, practice, strategy, and motivation addition, the lecturer viewed that the main factor influencing the students’ GPA and
TOEFL scores is learning and efforts. In conclusion, the English department students’ TOEFL score are directly proportional to their GPAs, and it can be achieved by study hard
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of study Students at English Language Department of UIN Ar-Raniry are not only required to
undertake courses (e.g., Grammar, speaking, listening, and writing) but also TOEFL test in order to complete their study. However, it has been unknown whether the students who attend in courses gain higher TOEFL scores. This study methods intends to find out the correlation between English department’s students and their GPA, both can be influential for one anot her. It is common to find that students’ success or failure is assessed based on their Grade Point Average (GPA). GPA is regarded to represent their knowledge, skills and competencies in the discipline they are learning. One of the most important aspects of university is grades. It is also decided to be valued in the university. The teacher gave the grades because the students have mastered, relate and understood the lessons. Basically, the professor is the one who decided about the grades. It is also the prove of knowledge the students have gained in the study (Thompson, 2015).
Differently than a very short of teenage phase, grades continuing for a long time and have a deep result; when it is gained, it becomes an essential factor from the possibility of success. It is use to measure the academic success of a person by several institutions (Sneichder & hutt, 2013).
A careful investigation that differs in several countries about the purpose of GPA has shown that GPA has many useful traits such as; as a standardized requirement for students’ scholarship, the requirements for students to graduate, the minimum criteria for TAFE
(technical and further education) students who want to continue to the higher level of education programs, the criteria of joining research programs, the requirements to continue undergraduate and graduate programs. In conclusion, GPA in many countries is defined as the main factor of students’ success and performance internationally (Nodoushan, 2009).
National Education Association (NEA) (2016) also stated that GPA and non-cognitive ability are the most correct predictors of students’ achievement. While Cabrera and Burkam
(2005) stated that GPA is still the most important determinant of the possibility of students’ graduation, beside other college matters.
University students’ success can also be assessed by their TOEFL scores. A high TOEFL score is very important for succeeding in university or any educational institution (Al-Rawashdesh, 2009). TOEFL score was made for non-native English speaker to measure their language ability. More than 130 countries and 9000 institutions including government and scholarship programs approved TOEFL scores (Educational Testing Service [ETS], 2015). Guang et al (2014) found that the English proficiency can be exact sign of well-prepared students to connect with people and engaged with academic matters is TOEFL scores. The students readiness in learning indicate the s tudents’ future success (ETS, 2017).
Therefore, this study is about the correlation between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA, the researcher used TOEFL PBT as one of the variables. The TOEFL PBT test is made to measure students’ English proficiency in terms of sounds, structures, and vocabulary. The structure and content resulted by the grammatical theory of the language (Abunawas, 2014).
Additionally, several researchers have tried to discover the correlation between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA. Some of the researcher found a positive correlation between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA (Wait, 2009;Sahragad, 2011), while some others found no or very little relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA (Arcuino, 2013; Lan & Phu, 2013). These different results happened because of different elements of each research.
Arcuino ’s study (2013) is an example of the no relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA. The researcher chose TOEFL to predict international master students’ future GPA in the abroad university.
On the other hand, Sahragard ’s study (2011) is an example of the positive relationship English department in Iran to see whether their GPA correlates with their Language proficiency as measured by TOEFL scores.
The gap between these two representative studies is the context of these studies. One study used TOEFL scores to predict GPA, while another study analyzed the relationship between TOEFL score and GPA.
Even though many studies have been carried out on the correlation between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA, none has documented the correlation of PBI students’ GPA and their TOEFL scores. To fill in the gap, this study about The Correlation betwe en Students’
TOEFL Scores and GPA constructed in consideration. Therefore, this research focuses on English department students’ current GPA as the measurement of their academic success.
Also, the TOEFL scores is uses to assess their English proficiency. The researcher of this study wants to find out how English students’ GPA inversely or directly proportional to their TOEFL score.
B. Research Question:
To address the abovementioned problem, this study proposed the following questions:
1. Is there any significant relationship between students’ GPA and TOEFL scores of the English department’s students?
2. What are the factors that influence both students’ GPA and TOEFL scores?
C. Purpose of the study
The purpose of this study is primarily to find out the relationship between English students’ GPA and their TOEFL scores. This study made not to predict an academic success but to see the English students’ language proficiency with the relation of their academic achievement as measured by GPA. In consideration of English department students’ experience in English is a lot due to their major. Also, this study wants to find out the factors that influence students’ success in both GPA and TOEFL scores. It can be seen if there are students scored high in both TOEFL scores and GPA. It can be useful for the reader and future studies to examine and improve TOEFL skills.
D. Significance of the study
This study is beneficial for further studies in the future and as the source to improve English departments. The findings of this study hopefully can make the readers realize the importance of both English proficiency and academic success in English department. Also, this study hopefully will help the readers to learn something to be succeeding in both TOEFL and GPA, because in this fast-growing era of globalization TOEFL and GPA are the most important things in every aspects of life.
E. The organization of the Thesis
In this research there are many aspects that are analyzed. Firstly, the correlation between students’ GPA and TOEFL scores, how the GPA predicted the students’ TOEFL scores and its impact on students’ success. The second is the factor that makes some students success in both GPA and TOEFL, to find out what obstacles and tricks they have been through to be success in both eleme nts. The last is the lecturers’ opinion toward this correlation and their perspective about students with both successful GPA and TOEFL scores in the class.
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews literature pertaining to the study about correlation between
students’ TOEFL scores and GPA. Therefore, Section A will explain about TOEFL and GPA in detail explanation. While, section B will explain factors that affect students’ academic performance.
A. The nature of TOEFL and GPA 1.
TOEFL TOEFL is created by National council on the test of English as a foreign language at 1962 (ETS, 2015). Therefore, ETS (educational testing service) built and manage the TOEFL test. It was made to measure non-native speaker ability in English. It was usually required by college or university abroad (ETS, 2009). This kind of test is commonly used by united states for school admissions and professional used (Hudson & evehigby, 2014). The TOEFL itself tests the test takers proficiency in understanding the academic English surroundings (Pierce et al., 2015).
1.1 The TOEFL test types
Since 1962 until now, TOEFL has changed its type of test to a better way to measure non-native English speaker proficiency. There are three kinds of TOEFL test ;
PBT (paper based test) Paper based test is a TOEFL test that the problems or queries are penned, printed, or drawn, and the answers are penned too. There are two objectives of TOEFL PBT test. First, for students’ placement and evaluating students’ progress. Another objective is as another option when CBT cannot be held in the area. The TOEFL PBT has three sections namely Listening Comprehension, structure and written expression, and reading. The score ranges from 310 to 677 ( Sharpe, 1999).
CBT (computer based test) Computer based test TOEFL is TOEFL test that has the same content as TOEFL PBT.
However, it is different in the method of answering the questions (Pyle, 2001). The TOEFL CBT test used computer as the tool of the test. It has four sections ; listening, structure, reading, and writing. This TOEFL CBT is a flexible test, which means that the test questions will not be the same between the participant who registered in the same day (Sharpe, 1999).
iBT (internet based test) Internet based test is a TOEFL test that highlights the four skills in English and helps test takers by providing the academic English circumstance questions, which is important reading, speaking, and writing). The TOEFL iBT combined the test sections with more than one skill, resulting in a more academic English circumstance (ETS, 2009).
2. GPA
The GPA (grade point average) is an overall students’ academic achievement that are expressed in numbers (Adelaide, 2017). There are two kinds of GPA ; TGPA and CGPA. TGPA is term grade point average. This is a kind of GPA that shows students GPA on certain semester, trimester, or quarter in the educational program. Another one is CGPA.
CGPA is cumulative grade point average. This is a kind of GPA that shows students GPA on overall courses students have taken (Nanyang Technological University, 2012). In UIN Ar-Raniry, the academic status and the university credits of university students were set based on the TGPA or CGPA the students have achieved (IAIN Ar-Raniry, 2013).
Several studies have used GPA as the indicator of the students’ success (Ching, 1967; Sharon, 1971; Rosberg, 1983; Yan, 1995; Addow, 2013; Ting & Chen, 2009; Maleki & Zangani, 2007; Abunawas, 2014) that later on will be explained in this literature review.
GPA also becomes one of the requirement for scholarship and assistantship (Yanfei, 2017).
B. Previous studies of the correlation between students’ TOEFL score and their GPA
The relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and their achievement during their study at university is important to understand. This is because of many universities require students’ proficiency to have good TOEFL scores to get admissions. Many studies have been carried out about the correlation of TOEFL scores and students’ achievement as indicated on their GPA.
2.1 Early studies of the correlation between students’ TOEFL score and their GPA.
Early studies (Ching, 1967; Sharon, 1971) found no relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA. Ching (1967) used 126 first year international graduate students in Oklahoma state university. Ching grouped the participants based on their country origin (india and china) and based on their gender (male and female), but still found no correlation between TOEFL scores and GPA of the participants.
Correspondently, Sharon (1971) used an analysis data from 24 schools with 978 foreign students’ data of GPA, TOEFL scores, and GRE, only found that TOEFL can help the GRE test in validity of predicting GPA. However, GRE cannot predict the TOEFL scores of the students. Therefore, the researcher concluded that low English proficiency students can survive in the American universities.
On the other hand, (Rosberg, 1983; Yan, 1995) found that there is a relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA. Rosberg (1983) used 263 foreign students who enrollment, major, GPA, proficiency scores, and ESL classes). Therefore, the researcher found that there is a linear relationship between TOEFL and GPA of the students, which means that the higher the TOEFL scores or Michigan scores of the students, the higher the GPA obtained by students.
Similarly, Yan (1995) used 97 international exchange students and used their first term GPA as the indicator of their academic success. Therefore, the result of this study mainly point out that the total TOEFL scores are the best predictor of first term GPA of the exchange students.
2.2 Recent studies of students’ TOEFL score and their GPA.
Several studies (Addow, 2013; Ting & Chen, 2009) found no relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and their GPA. Addow (2013) used 100 final year of business and accountancy students of SMAD in Somalia and found a weak positive relationship. However, the researcher concluded that this weak positive relationship cannot be put into account as the academic primary of success indicator of the students. because, there are other factors that beneficial than English language proficiency as measured by TOEFL.
Similarly, Ting and Chen (2009) used 712 international students GPA who admitted via ESL class or TOEFL scores. It resulted that their performance are the same regardless their admission criteria, which can be concluded that the high ESL class scores or high TOEFL scores students are not guaranteed to have high GPA in the future. On the other hand, several studies (Maleki & Zangani, 2007; Abunawas, 2014) found that there is a relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and their GPA. Maleki And Zangani (2007) used 100 students of English translation at the Islamic azad university and found that there is a positive relationship between stud ents’ TOEFL scores and their
GPA. Moreover, the study resulted the higher correlation coefficient in writing than speaking.
Similarly, Abunawas (2014) found a positive relationship through the 41 studies analysis. However, the researcher stated that the positive correlation coefficient cannot be used as the exact point of students’ success. It is only beneficial to predict students’ future success.
C. Conclusion and Implication
From the discussion of both early studies and recent studies it can be concluded that there are several studies stated that there is no relationship between studen ts’ TOEFL scores and GPA (Ching, 1967; Yan, 1995; Addow, 2013; Ting & Chen, 2009). Also, there are some studies (Sharon, 1971; Rosberg, 1983; Maleki & Zangani, 2007; Abunawas, 2014) stated that there is a positive relationship between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA.
The difference of the st udy’s results depends on the participants, and the focus of those studies. Some researchers used international students in predicting stude nts’ success in university outside the learner’s original countries via TOEFL test, while other researchers used English as foreign language students in predicting students’ success in the learner’s universities via TOEFL test and their GPA. The results may vary among the studies because of these two factors. However, based on the Wait and Gressel (2009) study, the relationship between students TOEFL scores and GPA more essential for arts and science major students. Similarly, if we took a look at Sahragard et al (2011) study, the positive relationship between TOEFL scores and GPA happened because the participants are the English language and literature students. the same as the Maleki and Zangani (2007) study which took participants from English translation at the Islamic Azad University and resulted a positive relationship between TOEFL scores and GPA.
It can be concluded that the positive correlation that occurred between students’ TOEFL scores and GPA is primarily beneficial for English major students. Therefore, in this study the researcher used English department of teaching program’s students as the subject of the study.
D. Factors that affect students’ academic success 1. English proficiency and English department students.
English is the center of English department as the language that all the English department’s students acknowledge and learn. The English proficiency of the students often measured by TOEFL and IELTS. TOEFL scores was made for non-native English speaker government and scholarship programs approved TOEFL scores (Educational Testing Service [ETS], 2015).
The same as TOEFL, IELTS (International English Language Testing) is made to assessed students English proficiency, and it has been used by 10.000 organization in the world (British council, 2016).
Ghenghesh (2015) used IELTS to investigate the relationship between English proficiency and academic performance of university students and found that students’ academic success increased as the English language proficiency increased too.
Thus, English proficiency of English department’s students has become the
th
researcher concern. Antoni (2014) analyzed 6 semester students’ TOEFL experience at English department of teacher training and educational faculty of Pasir Pengaraian University and found that the students completed their TOEFL test without any preparation in English strategies and abilities. It also stated that the students faced several problems in TOEFL listening, structure, and writing test, such as; hard to understand the spoken language and the passage, and hard to determine the structural element in writing because of lack preparation and vocabularies.
This became an irony because the English departments’ students is majoring in English major where the English must be the essential language for the English itself stated that its missions are to teach the students to be an innovative, professional, and qualified English teachers in the future. The English department of teaching program in UIN Ar-Raniry also taught the students to develop their English skill within the faculty (IAIN Ar-Raniry, 2013). Altmisdort (2016) summarized and analyzed language teacher education program in 5 countries in Europe with document-analysis approach. The researcher found that one of important part of the English students teacher program success is the high-level use of English in the classroom, which indicated their competency and proficiency in English department at language teacher education program.
To reach the missions of English department of teaching program in UIN Ar- Raniry, the faculty provided several subjects from four basics English skills to teaching strategies in English for English department’s students.
Also, several general studies were included in the curriculum which some of them are religious subjects because UIN Ar-Raniry is the religious university. Komba & Wilson (2012) investigated the relationship between English language proficiency and academic achievement in Tanzania secondary school with the objective is english language proficiency predict the academic achievement of the students. The participants are 89 students from advanced level (A-level). A-level students are those students who will be university students soon. the researcher grouped the academic achievement into two groups, English subjects and general studies subjects achievements.
The result shown that there is a weak positive relationship between students’ English language proficiency and academic achievement in English subjects. The combination of the two grouped in relationship with TOEFL iBT still resulted a weak positive relationship between English language proficiency and academic achievement of the students. Then, the researcher analyzed the two variables with scatter plot which resulted the relationship is significant between English language proficiency and academic achievement but insignificant with academic achievement in general studies. Therefore, the researcher concluded that English language proficiency of the students did affected the academic achievement of the students but only in English subjects academic achievement.
From the Komba & Wilson study, we can concluded that although GPA is the variable of the studies, but the need to differentiate between English subject GPA and general studies is important to find a better result about English language proficiency of the students.
The English department of teaching program in UIN Ar-Raniry also ordered the students to take TOEFL test as the requirements of students graduation. TOEFL PBT was tested by LDC (Language Development Center). It is an obligation of every student in English department of teaching program in UIN Ar-Raniry to pass the minimum TOEFL scores namely 498 as one of their graduation requirements.
E. Factors that affect students performance
Mushtaq and Khan (2012) found that communication has impact on affecting students performance for 20 %. While, learning facilities (16%), proper guidance (17 %), and Family stress (13 %). This is indicated that the more fluent the students in the academic communication, the higher their performance in the classroom.
On the other hand, Akessa and Phufern (2015) found that one of the factors that influence students academic performance is the teachers who are highly motivated in contributing for a better performance of the students. It is defined that teachers’ role in increasing the students performance is important.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY In this chapter, the procedures for conducting the mix-method are presented, including : A. Research design, B. Research strategy and sample selection, and C. The respondents. A. Research Design This study was conducted in order to find out the correlation between English
department students’ TOEFL scores and their GPA. In order to gather the necessary data, the research used both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
It is because of the research questions of the study. The first research question can be solved by quantitative approach, because it involved GPA and TOEFL scores of the participants. While, the second research questions can be solved by qualitative approach, because it involved interview of lecturers and students.
This study used qualitative and quantitative approach because of the two research questions of the study. Certainly, using both qualitative and quantitative approach in educational research is not easy and has a lot of risks. The barrier to mixed-method such as; the questions words do not define the scale of the study and not related to research design might be happened in the process. Also, the traditional statistics flaws and the models for
“mixing” are important for the researcher to take as considerations (The Research Council of Norway, 2012).
However, involving both qualitative and quantitative approach in this study can lead to triangulation. Triangulation is involving more than one method to obtain the data which result a better results in the research process (Mackey & Grass, 2005).
Furthermore, this research used qualitative and quantitative approaches in the process, which completely different from one to another. The quantitative research is emphasizing on the methods to the findings by descriptive and explanation of the methods orderly. While, the qualitative research emphasizing on the opinion of the participants about the study (Hancock et al., 2007).
The current study is a qualitative and quantitative approach in which the researcher examined the relationship between TOEFL scores and academic success as measured by GPA for English department’s students.
This study is limited only to English department students who has taken TOEFL PBT from LDC (language development center) in UIN Ar-Raniry, as a requirement for their graduation. Their GPA is put into consideration and the participants was chosen with random sampling.
B. Research strategy and sample selection
In this study, the TOEFL scores were gathered from Language Development Center (LDC) . Also, this study examined the TOEFL scores of 100 participants data as well as
th th
their CGPA, and their 7 and 8 semester GPA. CGPA as the indicator of students’ success is gathered from the English department to avoid false data from the participants, as well as
th th
their 7 and 8 semester GPA that was gathered from ICT UIN Ar-Raniry. This is related with Herman (2009) study about estimated GPA versus the actual GPA. Herman (2009) suggested that obtaining the GPA data from the institution much better than from the participants. It is happened because the participants in both gender reports might be false
th th
and risk the result of the researcher studies. Their 7 and 8 semester GPA is chosen because usually, students took the TOEFL test in those two final semester and in those semester we can see the differences between GPA from general studies and English studies. It is decided to not take the all semester GPA of the participants and divided it, because to gained such data is hard. Also, the participants might not take the TOEFL test on their early semester. Also, the TOEFL scores were gained from LDC website, with the newest 100 participants TOEFL scores in the same cohort from English department.
To analyze the correlation between TOEFL score and GPA of students involved in this study, SPSS (statistical product and service solution) was utilized. Therefore, for the second research questions used interview for 9 participants and 1 lecturers. The participants was chosen based on their TOEFL and GPA score. It is divided into three groups; Group A GPA respondents, and Group C is high TOEFL scores and low GPA respondents. This is happened because the researcher of the study wanted to find out the reasons of that 9 participants gained different score in both GPA and TOEFL scores.
Also, the lecturer opinion about the correlation between English department students GPA and TOEFL scores is important to take as a consideration. Therefore, interview was chosen as the method of qualitative approach because of its advantage. The advantage of interview is its flexibility that makes the researcher at ease, in order to capture the observable data or the participants self-report (Mackey & Grass, 2005). During the interview process, the researcher priorities are the respondents need and preparedness. It is because of the researcher purpose is to make the interview session went smoothly, in order to get accurate information. The discussion involve the overall perceptions of the respondent toward the factors that influence both their GPA and TOEFL score. The interview was analyzed by Miles & Huberman technique. According to Miles et al (2014), the interview through recording or field notes need to be evaluated by transcribing it before continuing to the further analysis with techniques.
C. The respondents
The Respondents are divided into three categories (a,b, and c) based on their score in both TOEFL and GPA . “a” group are those respondents who have both high TOEFL and GPA score.
“b” group are those respondents who have both low TOEFL and GPA score. “c” group are those
1. Respondent 1a Name z, he is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because he has both high TOEFL score and CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 22 november 2017, at 10.30 am. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 1a persisted for 6 minutes and 57 seconds.
2. Respondent 2a Name P, she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has both high TOEFL score and CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 24 november 2017, at 18.43 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 2a persisted for 6 minutes and 34 seconds.
3. Respondent 3a Name S, she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has both high TOEFL score and CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 23 november 2017, at 20.46 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 3a persisted for 4 minutes and 24 seconds.
4. Respondent 1b Name H, she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has both low TOEFL score and CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 22 november 2017, at 13.38 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 1b persisted for 6 minutes and 20 seconds.
5. Respondent 2b Name R, she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has both low TOEFL score and CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 23 november 2017, at 15.00 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 2b persisted for 12 minutes and 53 seconds.
6. Respondent 3b Name M, she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has both low TOEFL score and CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 22 november 2017, at 15.39 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 3b persisted for 6 minutes and 35 seconds.
7. Respondent 1c Name A , she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has low TOEFL score but high CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 22 november 2017, at 16.36 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 1c persisted for 7 minutes and 29 seconds.
8. Respondent 2c Name I , she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has low TOEFL score but high CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 24 november 2017, at 13.09 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 2c persisted for 9 minutes and 15 seconds
9. Respondent 3c Name N , she is a student from cohort 2013 of English department major. The respondent was chosen because she has low TOEFL score but high CGPA. The respondent was interviewed on 26 november 2017, at 14.48 pm. Before the interview session began, the respondent was given an explanation about the topic of discussion by the researcher. The interview session with respondent 3c persisted for 8 minutes and 12 seconds.
10. Lecturer
The lecturer is Mr.H. He is the chief of Language development center (LDC). His opinion matters, because he is an expert in both TOEFL and GPA.
CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This chapter presents research findings and discussion. It is intended to address the
problem resolved in the part of research questions of the study. Therefore, it is necessary to process the data as in section A, and discuss them as in section B.
A. The findings 1. The test results
As has been mentioned in Chapter III, this research used qualitative and quantitative approach. In order to collect data, data qualification intended to answer the first question with quantitative data.
1. The first research question
“Is there any significant relationship between
students’ GPA and TOEFL scores of the English Department students?” was answered by