Students` perception toward the contribution of personal reflection to their learning a wareness.

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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THE CONTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL REFLECTION TO THEIR LEARNING AWARENESS

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By

Arum Widyastuti Student Number: 06 1214 086

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA


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i

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THE CONTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL REFLECTION TO THEIR LEARNING AWARENESS

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By

Arum Widyastuti Student Number: 06 1214 086

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA


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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 references, as a scientific paper should.

Yogyakarta, August 23rd, 2010 The Writer

Arum Widyastuti 06 1214 086


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v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIK

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:

Nama : Arum Widyastuti

Nomor Mahasiswa : 06 1214 086

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

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THE CONTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL REFLECTION TO THEIR LEARNING AWARENESS

Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin ataupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal : 23 Agustus 2010 Yang menyatakan


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vi

I dedicate this thesis

to my beloved family


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vii ABSTRACT

Widyastuti, Arum. 2010. Students’ Perception toward the Contribution of Personal Reflection to their Learning Awareness. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

Reflection is beneficial to be conducted in class. When students make their reflection, they recall and examine their past learning which makes them know what they are doing and how far they have learned. However, students might not know the contribution of reflection for their own learning. Students might even assume that making reflection is a duty that they have to fulfill whereas in fact, reflection creates their learning awareness which will help them to learn better. Hence, this research intends to investigate students’ perception of the contribution of personal reflection to their learning awareness. It answers one research problem which is what are students’ perceptions toward the contribution of personal reflection to students’ learning awareness?

Survey was implemented as the research method in this research. It was suitable because this method dealt with finding students’ opinion and views on something. The participants of this research were students of the English Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University who took Microteaching class in even semester academic year 2009/2010. Questionnaire was used as the research instrument. The questionnaire consisted of two sections, 1 to 4 rating scales and open-ended questions. The number of students who chose each degree of agreement in the rating scale and the answer of open-ended questions determined whether they had positive or negative perception toward reflection contributing to students’ learning awareness.

The research results obtained from the research instrument showed that the degree of agreement frequently chosen by the students were ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’. Besides, most of the students’ response in the open-ended questions showed positive response as well. Most of the students agreed that reflection helped them to obtain four avenues to awareness described by Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) namely finding solution for the learning problems they face and improving what they have done well in the learning, seeing what has happened in the learning, seeing what the learning is, and clarifying their learning feeling. Thus, it could be drawn that most of the students have positive perception toward reflection contributing to their learning awareness. Furthermore, most of the students agreed that they made reflection because it influenced their learning by giving some benefits not only because reflection was assignment or something compulsory. However, there were few students that perceived reflection only as a task.


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viii ABSTRAK

Widyastuti, Arum. 2010. Students’ Perception toward the Contribution of Personal Reflection to their Learning Awareness. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Refleksi memberikan keuntungan jika diterapkan di kelas. Saat siswa membuat refleksi, mereka mengingat kembali dan menganalisa pembelajaran yang telah mereka lakukan sehingga membuat mereka mengetahui apa yang mereka lakukan dan sejauh mana mereka belajar. Namun demikian, siswa mungkin saja tidak mengetahui kontribusi refleksi bagi pembelajaran mereka. Siswa bahkan menganggap refleksi sebagai kewajiban atau tugas yang harus mereka penuhi walau pun pada dasarnya refleksi mampu meningkatkan kesadaran belajar mereka yang dapat membantu mereka dalam belajar. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini bermaksud untuk mengetahui persepsi siswa terhadap kontribusi refleksi dalam kesadaran belajar siswa. Penelitian ini menjawab satu rumusan masalah yaitu apa saja persepsi siswa terhadap kontribusi refleksi dalam kesadaran belajar mereka?

Survei merupakan metode yang diterapkan dalam penelitian ini. Metode ini sesuai karena metode ini berhubungan dengan mengetahui opini dan pandangan siswa terhadap sesuatu. Responden dalam penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma yang mengambil kelas Microteaching di semester genap tahun ajaran 2009/2010. Selain itu, kuesioner digunakan sebagai instrumen dalam penelitian ini. Kuesioner ini terdiri dari dua bagian yaitu kuesioner tertutup dengan 4 tingkatan jawaban dan kuesioner terbuka. Jumlah siswa yang memilih setiap tingkatan jawaban dalam kuesioner tertutup dan jawaban dari kuesioner terbuka menentukan persepsi positif atau negatif yang dimiliki siswa terhadap refleksi yang berkontribusi dalam kesadaran belajar.

Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa tingkatan jawaban yang mayoritas dipilih siswa yaitu ‘sangat setuju’ dan ‘setuju’. Selain itu, mayoritas jawaban siswa di kuesioner terbuka menunjukkan tanggapan yang positif. Mayoritas siswa setuju bahwa refleksi membantu mereka menemukan four avenues to awareness yang didiskripsikan oleh Gebhard dan Oprandy (1999) yaitu menemukan solusi untuk masalah-masalah dalam pembelajaran dan meningkatkan apa yang telah dilakukan dengan baik dalam pembelajaran, melihat apa yang terjadi dalam pembelajaran, melihat apa pembelajaran mereka itu, dan mengklarifikasi perasaan terkait dengan pembelajaran. Oleh karena itu, dapat disimpulkan bahwa mayoritas siswa memiliki persepsi positif terhadap kontribusi refleksi dalam kesadaran belajar mereka. Selain itu, mayoritas siswa setuju bahwa mereka membuat refleksi karena refleksi mempengaruhi pembelajaran mereka dengan memberikan keuntungan-keuntungan bukan hanya dikarenakan bahwa refleksi merupakan suatu tugas atau kewajiban. Akan tetapi ada sabagian kecil siswa yang berpersepsi bahwa refleksi hanyalah suatu tugas tidak lebih.


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ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My greatest gratitude is first addressed to the God Almighty for giving all the goodness so that I am able to finish my thesis entitled “Students’ Perception toward the Contribution of Personal Reflection to their Learning Awareness”.

I would also like to sincerely thank my major sponsor, C. Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd, for all her valuable times, and precious suggestions for the accomplishment of this thesis. I would express my gratitude to the other lecturers in English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University for every precious lesson I have learned from them as well.

I am very grateful to my beloved parents, Bapak and Ibu, for their love, care and motivation, and my relatives Bulik, Mbak Ika, Mas Aji, and Jati for their support and willingness to lend me a hand in dealing with completing this thesis. My special gratitude also belongs to Angon for his loyal company and support during the accomplishment of this thesis. I thank my friends Rika, Yeyen, Farida, Rina and Rusna for wonderful times I spend with all of them.

Finally, my thankfulness is addressed to those who lend me a hand in completing my thesis whose name I can not mention one by one.


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x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ... i

APPROVAL PAGES ... ii

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ... iv

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIK ... v

DEDICATION PAGE ... vi

ABSTRACT ... vii

ABSTRAK ... viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... x

LIST OF FIGURES ... xiv

LIST OF TABLES ... xv

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research Background ... 1

1.2 Problem Formulation ... 3

1.3 Problem Limitation ... 3

1.4 Research Objective ... 3

1.5 Research Benefits ... 4

1.5.1 Students ... 4

1.5.2 Lecturers ... 4

1.5.3 Researchers ... 4


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xi

1.6 Definition of Terms ... 5

1.6.1 Perception ... 5

1.6.2 Reflection ... 5

1.6.3 Awareness ... 6

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Theoretical Description ... 7

2.1.1 Perception ... 7

2.1.2 Self Assessment ... 10

2.1.3 Reflection ... 11

2.1.4 Learning Awareness ... 15

2.2 Review of Related Studies ... 17

2.3 Theoretical Framework ... 18

CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Method ... 21

3.2 Research Participants ... 22

3.3 Research Instrument ... 22

3.4 Data Gathering Technique ... 24

3.5 Data Analysis Technique ... 24

3.6 Research Procedure ... 26

CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research Results ... 28


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xii

4.1.1 Students’ Perception on the Willingness to

Make Reflection... 29

4.1.2 Students’ Perception on the Reasons to Make Reflection ... 30

4.1.3 Students’ Perception on Reflection Contributing to Students Learning Awareness .. 31

4.1.4 Students’ Perception on the Implication of the Implementation of Reflection ... 37

4.2 Discussion ... 40

4.2.1 Students’ Perception on the Willingness to Make Reflection... 41

4.2.2 Students’ Perception on the Reasons to Make Reflection ... 41

4.2.3 Students’ Perception on Reflection Contributing to Students Learning Awareness.. 42

4.2.4 Students’ Perception on the Implication of the Implementation of Reflection ... 44

4.2.5 Propose Plan to Conduct Reflection in Class... 45

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESSTIONS 5.1 Conclusions ... 48

5.2 Suggestions ... 49

5.2.1 Students of Microteaching Class... 49

5.2.2 Lecturers of Microteaching Class... 50

5.2.3 Future Researchers ... 51


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xiii APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1 QUESTIONNAIRE BLUEPRINT ... 54 APPENDIX 2 QUESTIONNAIRE... 56 APPENDIX 3 PARTICIPANTS’ RATING SCALE RESPONSES... 58 APPENDIX 4 RAW DATA OF PARTICIPANTS’ ANSWER OF

OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS... 59 APPENDIX 5 PARTICIPANTS’ RESPONSE OF OPEN-ENDED


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xiv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

2.1 Perceptual Process... 8

2.2 Model of Reflection-on-Practice... 13

4.1 The Frequency in Making Reflection ... 29

4.2 The Students’ Reasons to make Reflection... 30

4.3 The Contribution of Reflection to Find Learning Strengths and Weaknesses... 32

4.4 The Contribution of Reflection to Create Problem Solving Skill... 32

4.5 The Contribution of Reflection to See What Happens in the Learning... 33

4.6 The Contribution of Reflection to Provide Recording of the Learning... 34

4.7 The Contribution of Reflection to Increase Students’ Learning Involvement... 35

4.8 The Contribution of Reflection to Clarify Learning Feelings... 36

4.9 The Implication of the Implementation of Reflection... 37


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xv

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

2.1 Awareness ... 15

3.1 Participants’ Rating Scale Responses... 25

3.2 Raw Data of Participants’ Answer of Open-ended Questions... 25

3.3 Participants’ Response of Open-ended Questions... 25

4.1 The Students’ Reasons to Make Reflection ... 31

4.2 Students’ Opinion on the Benefits of Reflection ... 38


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1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides background information related to the research. It describes six main parts in this research namely research background, problem formulation, problem limitation, research objective, research benefits and definition of terms.

1.1 Research Background

It is beneficial for lecturers to have their students to make reflection in the end of every class meeting. Suskie (2004) states that reflection helps student learn, assesses attitudes, values, and other ineffable, balances quantitative assessments with qualitative information, and yields useful information quickly and easily. Moreover, Santos (1997) adds that reflection helps students to take informed action, avoid pointless blaming, and creates healthy learning environment.

According to Ghaye (1996), reflection is looking back and making sense of your practice, learning from this and using this learning to affect your future action. When students make their reflection, they will look back on their learning which makes them aware of their own learning and find their strengths and weaknesses of the subject. Students, then, learn from their previous learning and improve their learning. Thus, reflection helps students to take responsibilities to their learning and to encourage the desire to engage in the learning process.


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Microteaching class, one of the courses in English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University, demands its students to make reflection every week. The lecturer asks the students to make written reflection at home and submit it in the following week. In the reflection, students are able to write whatever they feel and think of the past learning. Moreover, students are able to give comment and suggestion of the learning.

When students make their reflection, they recall and examine their learning which makes them know what they are doing and how far they have learned. This knowing creates learning awareness which is described by Hendricks (1981) as a willingness to examine all our values, beliefs, and past actions to see if they best serve to overall development. This awareness has a crucial role in their learning. Saljo describes that when people become aware of their own learning in different respects, they will be better at handling learning and reading problems of the kinds encountered in everyday life, or at least, in every researching as cited by Smith (1990). In short, reflection contributes to students’ learning awareness and helps them to obtain better learning.

However, students might not know the contribution of reflection for their own learning. Students might assume that making reflection is a duty that they have to fulfill whereas in fact, reflection creates their learning awareness which will help them to learn better. Hence, this research investigates students’ perception of the contribution of personal reflection to their learning awareness. This research intends to reveal whether the students of Microteaching class have


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positive or negative perception toward reflection and whether reflection contributes to their learning awareness or not.

1.2 Problem Formulation

This research investigates students’ perception toward the contribution of personal reflection to their learning awareness. It answers one research problem which is what are students’ perceptions toward the contribution of personal reflection to students’ learning awareness?

1.3 Problem Limitation

Reflection might be in a form of written and spoken which can be conducted during and after the class. In this research, reflection is limited for after-class written reflection which is conducted every week in Microteaching class. Thus, this research is limited to students’ perception toward the contribution of the reflection to students learning awareness.

1.4 Research Objective

The objective of this research is to present students’ perception toward the contribution of personal reflection to their learning awareness. It figures out whether students of Microteaching class have positive or negative perception toward reflection. Moreover, it presents students’ opinion whether reflection helps them to obtain learning awareness or not.


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1.5 Research Benefits

This research is aimed to give benefits to students, lecturers, researchers, and readers as follows.

1.5.1 Students

This research is to give students understanding of the contribution of reflection for their learning awareness. Hopefully, this research will make students willing to make reflection since it is beneficial for their learning.

1.5.2 Lecturers

This research is to give information to the lecturers whether reflection helps them in their teaching. Lecturers can strengthen the use of reflection or reduce any weaknesses of the use of reflection in their teaching activity.

1.5.3 Researchers

This research provides information for other researchers who want to conduct similar research. Hopefully, this research will bring benefits for the other researchers.

1.5.4 Readers

The benefit of this research is to give an overview to the readers on the contribution of personal reflection to students’ learning awareness. Hopefully, it gives the readers new knowledge of the use of reflection in language learning.


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1.6 Definition of Terms

This research uses the terms of perception, reflection, and awareness. The following is the definition of each term.

1.6.1. Perception

Huffman and Vernoy (1997: 97) state that “perception is a process of selecting, organizing and interpreting sensory data into useful mental representation of the world”. Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts (1985) define perception as the way stimuli are selected and grouped by a person so that they can be meaningfully interpreted. In this research, perception deals with a way people select, organize, and interpret particular things around them.

1.6.2. Reflection

There are some definitions of reflection. First, reflection is looking back and making sense of your practice, learning from this and using this learning to affect your future action (Ghaye, 1996). Second, Watson states that “reflection is activity that consists of transforming given information in order to reach conclusion” (1996: 1). Third, Reflection is a way of thinking about educational matters that involves the ability to make rational choices to assume responsibility for those choices (Burden and Bryd, 1999). In this research, reflection is an activity of looking and thinking back of previous learning which involves the ability of making choices and taking responsibility.


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1.6.3. Awareness

Lier (1996) describes awareness as knowing what you are doing and why. Moreover, Hendricks (1981) defines awareness as willingness to examine all our values, beliefs, and past actions to see if they best serve our overall development. In this research, awareness deals with knowing and examining what we have done in the learning activity.


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7 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter discusses the review of related literature of the research consisting of the theoretical description, review of related studies, and the theoretical framework of the research. The theoretical description discusses some theories which relevant to the research. The review of related studies discusses some studies which are similar to this research. The theoretical framework relates the theories in the former part to this research.

2.1 Theoretical Description

This part reviews some theories related to the research. The theoretical description is divided into four points which are perception, self assessment, reflection, and learning awareness.

2.1.1 Perception

Huffman and Vernoy (2000: 107) state that “perception is a process of selecting, organizing and interpreting sensory data into useful mental representation of the world”. The first process of perception is selecting. Here, the process deals with choosing stimuli to pay attention with. It is difficult to pay attention to many things, on the other hand, it is easier to pay attention to one thing. Thus, directing attention is the first thing to do in creating a perception.


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Organizing is the next process after having selected stimuli to pay attention with. Here, the information obtained from the first process is organized to get an understanding. The last process, interpreting, deals with making judgments and explanation which is influenced by several factors such as cultural factor, early life experience, and personal motivation.

Similar view on the meaning of perception is presented by Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts. They define perception as the way stimuli are selected and grouped by a person so that they can be meaningfully interpreted (Altman, Valenzi, Hodgetts: 1985). Similar to Huffman et al., the process of creating a perception described by Altman et al. begins with selecting stimuli followed by organizing and interpreting the stimuli. Figure 2.1 shows the process which is defined by Altman et al. as a perceptual process.

Figure 2.1 Perceptual Process (Altman, Valenzi, Hodgetts, 1985: 86).

Furthermore, there is several factors influence someone’s perception which is selection of stimuli, organization of stimuli, the situation, and the person’s self concept. First, selection of stimuli influences someone’s perception. Every person might have different stimuli to select. This makes people might have different perception. Second is the organization of stimuli. As mentioned before, having

stimuli selection of Sensors’ stimuli

Perception, organization,

and interpretation

of stimuli

Behavioural response


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selected the stimuli, the information is arranged to become meaningful while the way people arrange the information might be different one another. Third, situation influences someone’s perception. Expectations, environment situation or past experience influence someone’s perception. When people intend to perceive something the situation around them affects their perception. Fourth, self concept, Altman et al. describe it as the way we feel about and perceive ourselves. Self concept is important factor determining perception. Every people have their own picture of themselves which affects their perception of the world around them. In language learning, students are the actors of the learning process who are able to perceive anything they get in the learning process. They are able to select, organize, and interpret something to create perception. They might have a perception toward the learning activities, materials, or techniques whether it is positive and negative. In accordance to the perceptual process described by Altman et al., after someone, in this case is student, perceive something by selecting, organizing, and interpreting the stimuli, he or she creates behavioral response. As an instance, when the student has positive perception toward reflection contributing for learning awareness, the students’ response of the reflection might be positive as well. Through this perceiving, student will be willing to reflect their learning even making reflection becomes their behavior and the other way around.


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2.1.2 Self Assessment

Boud (1991) defines that students self assessment refers to the involvement of students in identifying standards and/or criteria to apply to their work and making judgments about the extent to which they have met these criteria and standards as cited by Kay, Li and Fekete in Learner Reflection in Student Self-assessment (http://crpit.com/confpapers/CRPITV66Kay.pdf accessed on December 10, 2009). Self assessment contributes to the development of metacognition which helps the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Thus, self assessment is crucial in learning.

Furthermore, Kay et al. describe that there are two elements which have crucial role in creating successful self assessment, learners’ identification of the criteria or standard applied in their work and making of judgments about the extent to which the work meets the criteria or standard. To cover the two elements, teachers have to choose the appropriate task in order to reach the learning goal. Reflection is one of the examples of self assessment covering the two elements. In reflection, student studies the example and assesses them according to the criteria

Similarly, Rayment (2006) describes that self assessment is one of essential assessment. Self assessment brings advantages for students; (a) self-assessment helps to promote ownership of learning and encourages the students to take responsibility for his or her own education; (b) it encourages the students to be aware of his or her own learning process and subsequently the areas where development and improvement are needed; (c) it promotes self-awareness and


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involvement in the education system. (d) it eliminates the danger of damage to self-esteem skills and weaknesses can be identified on personal level; (e) it promotes an active interest in learning and development and encourages the desire to engage in the learning process; it can make learning seem fun; (7) when implemented within a group, students can learn from their peers and group how others are doing while learning from and helping, each other through interpersonal learning.

2.1.3 Reflection

Suskie (2004) states that the best assessments are learners’ learning experiences and opportunities for the teacher to see what they have learned. In this case, reflection places an important role because it is able to assess the criteria. Reflection helps students to assess their own learning experience and to examine their learning achievement. Moreover, students improve their metacognition skill which is learning how to learn and manage their learning by reflecting on how they learn best to prepare lifetime learning.

To get further understanding of the meaning of reflection, here are some views defining reflection. Burden and Bryd (1999) define reflection as a way of thinking about educational matters that involves the ability to make rational choices to assume responsibility for those choices. Race (2002), as cited by Clegg, in Improving Learning through Reflection (http://www.york. ac.uk/admin/hr/training /gtu/student/resources/pgwt/reflection1. pdf accessed on April 2, 2009), describes the act of reflecting is one which causes us to make


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sense of what we have learned, why we learned it, and how that particular increment of learning took place. Moreover, reflection is about linking one increment of learning to the wider perspective of learning - heading towards seeing the bigger picture.

According to Ghaye, reflection is looking back and making sense of your practice, learning from this and using this learning to affect your future action (Ghaye, 1998). Watson states that “reflection is activity that consists of transforming given information in order to reach conclusion” (1996: 1). It includes reasoning the creative production ideas, problem solving, and the awareness of all these mental activities in metacognition. Watson describes the activity further as follows:

For example, in reasoning, a person takes a mental step beyond what is initially presented, as in ‘so she must have known that all the time!’: in problem solving a way toward a solution is sought, ‘we have to work out what time the train will arrive’, and metacognition may involve such self monitoring as I’m finding this really hard to follow’.

Based on the views mentioned before, it can be concluded that reflection in educational matters deals with looking back and examining past action which involves the ability of making choices and taking responsibility to create future action. When students reflect their learning they examine and draw conclusion of what they have learned, take action and responsibility of their learning.

Those are the views discussing the meaning of reflection. Meanwhile, the following discussion will discuss the type of reflection.

There are two types of reflection described by Schon. The term reflection-in-action and reflection-on-practice are used to classify reflection since reflection


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can occur during or after the learning process. Reflection-in-action means reflection during the lesson. Schon describes this term further as “unconscious behavior and is linked to phrases such as thinking on your feet and being adaptable and responsive to a situation” (1998: 3). During the learning process, students are able to reflect their learning unconsciously. They reflect in what they do in the learning and directly adjust themselves to the situation.

The second type is reflection-on-practice. It means reflection after the lesson. Having the learning, students recall what they have done in the learning and examine it. Moreover, Ghaye discusses reflection-on-practice further as a natural process of making sense of professional action which is about using and learning from experience. Figure 2.2 describes a model of reflection-on-practice based on Ghaye. It describes that reflection-on-practice deals with reflecting on context, value, practice and improvement.


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In addition, the model of reflection-on-practice has four characteristic which are cyclical, flexible, focused, and holistic. First, cyclical shows that the process of reflection-on-practice forms a continuous cyclical process. Second, flexible shows that the process is flexible and is not arranged mechanistically because it is possible to reflect-on-practice starting from different positions. Third, focused deals with directing attention to seek ways. Fourth, holistic deals with seeing teaching and learning holistically through the model.

Reflection in educational matters brings benefits for students. First, Gardiner, as cited by Tarvin and Al- Arishi, states that “reflection allows us to put to use what we learn from experience” (1991: 16). Second, reflection helps raise our awareness of ourselves as learners and to see that we can direct and change our learning (Biggs, 1999). Third, Campbell (2000: 33) states that “self-reflection increases students’ learning involvement in their own learning because they begin to perceive the purpose for their assignments”.

Moreover, Santos (1997: 13) describes three benefits of reflection for students, teachers and curriculum which are “it helps us take informed actions, it helps us avoid pointless blaming, and it creates a healthy learning environment”. Suskie (2004) also states that reflection helps student learn, assesses attitudes, values, and other ineffable, balances quantitative assessments with qualitative information, and yields useful information quickly and easily.


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2.1.4 Learning Awareness

Lier (1996) states that to learn something new one must first notice it and the process of the noticing is an awareness of its existence, obtained, and enhanced by paying attention to it. Lier describes the idea further by giving an example of the experience of a man from New Guinea who was taken to big city to see the modern civilization by anthropologists. He was asked to observe the situation in the city. However, when the anthropologists asked him to tell what he had seen, he replied that he had been amazed by the strength of a skinny person pulling a cart that piled high with junk. The anthropologist asked him what else he had seen but he could not answer anything else.

Hence, students have to notice and focus their attention to learn something new. This noticing and focusing can be described as awareness. To get further understanding of the meaning of awareness, Lier uses the following table.

Table 2.1 Awareness

Awareness

Epistemology Axiology

•Focusing attention

•Role of perception

• Know what you are doing, and why

• Conscious engagement

• Reflection

(Lier, 1996: 11)

Hendricks (1981) defines awareness as willingness to examine all our values, beliefs, and past actions to see if they best serve our overall development. When students become aware of their learning, they find the truth about their learning. They examine their learning whether it meets their learning needs which lead them to take on the responsibility of the truth they have found.


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Meanwhile, Saljo describes that when people become aware of their own learning in different respects, they will be better at handling learning and reading problems of the kinds encountered in everyday life, or at least, in every researching as cited by Smith (1990). Learning is something which can be discussed and analyzed. Becoming aware of the learning, students analyze their learning and find problems. They examine it and create solution to handle the problems. Thus, learning awareness gives benefits for the students.

Putting aside the description of learning awareness, the following description addresses the avenues to awareness. Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) describe four avenues to awareness namely problem solving, seeing what happens, seeing what it is, and clarifying our feelings.

The first avenue is problem solving. Being aware of the learning, students need to solve problems they face. As an instance, there is a student who got a bad mark for a particular subject. The student tries to understand what causes the bad mark. He finds that he rarely studies the subject. Then, he tries to solve the problem by studying more to understand better. Here, the students changes his behavior and sees what happens in his learning. He gains an awareness of his own learning and practice to solve his problems.

The second avenue is seeing what happens. To see what happens in the learning can be done by trying the opposite to the usual things. For example, a student usually reads the materials before the class that helps him a lot in his learning. To see what happens in the learning, he needs to do the opposite by


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coming to class without reading the materials in advance. Through this learning awareness can be obtained.

The third avenue is seeing what it is. In this avenue, there are two-lane avenues to obtain the awareness. First is contrasting what we do with what we think we do. To accomplish this, keeping record of what we have done is needed. Here, students can obtain their learning awareness by writing a journal. The second lane is considering what we believe in light of what we do. It deals with finding out whether student’s beliefs match the actual processes or not. For example, a student believes that he has done the best he could in the exam. He believes that he will get an A. In fact, he doesn’t get A for his exam which is contradictory to his belief. Thus, to get the awareness of the learning, students can see what the learning is by contrasting what we do with what we think and considering what we believe in what we do.

The last avenue to awareness is clarifying the feelings. By exploring their feelings of the learning, students are able to gain learning awareness. The feelings about thing are able to affect the behavior. Hence, clarifying the emotional side is needed. Personal journals are suited to this avenue.

2.2 Review of Related Studies

Study conducted by Ong shows that reflection helps students in their learning. Ong conducted a qualitative research in which students of Republic Polytechnic became the participant. Ong chose 10 students’ journals randomly from different modules and discipline background and examined the journals.


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The result showed that students demonstrated an increasing in their learning awareness. Moreover, there was an increasing in students’ cognitive skill after making daily reflection. Thus, Ong describes that reflection has an important role in students learning since it relates the new learning material and prior knowledge and enhance learning awareness.

Furthermore, Jensen conducted similar research in using reflective journal to improve students’ learning awareness. The research was conducted in Aalborg University Denmark. The participants of this research were foreign students of Master Engineering educations who took Professional Procedures in a Globalized World course (PTW). To provoke students’ experiences toward the subject, the students were demanded to make a personal portfolio in a form of reflective journal where they could reflect their experiences on the subject. In the research, Jensen examined students’ reflective journal and found that most of the students are aware of what they have learned and 60 % of the students showed improvement in their learning capability.

The studies show that reflection helps students in their learning especially in improving students learning awareness. Thus, reflection is beneficial to be conducted in class.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

Learning awareness is the students’ process of noticing what they learn and the reason to learn. This noticing process is crucial in learning activity. When students notice their learning, they will have willingness to study. Thus, students


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who have this learning awareness will be able to manage their learning. They will be able to solve the problems they face and enjoy their learning process.

Reflection is one of the self assessments which contribute to students learning awareness. By making reflection, students get metacognition skills in which they are able to identify their ability whether they fulfill the criteria or standard of the learning. Furthermore, reflection helps students to find their strengths and weaknesses and helps the students to find what to be improved and to be eliminated. Thus, after making reflection, students will notice their own learning. This activity creates learning awareness which as mentioned before is beneficial for the students.

To investigate students’ perception toward the contribution of reflection to their learning awareness, some theories are taken into account. First, theories on reflection adopted by Ghaye are used in this research to obtain information of reflection. The definition, kinds and models of reflection described by Ghaye are used to get better understanding on reflection which becomes the focus of this research.

Second, theories of awareness adopted by Gebhard and Oprandy are used to investigate the contribution of reflection to learning awareness. To have learning awareness, Gebhard and Oprandy describe that there are four avenues to the awareness namely problem solving, seeing what happens, seeing what it is, and clarifying our feelings. These avenues to awareness described by Gebhard and Oprandy serves as the main reference to formulate the research instrument.


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Third, to investigate students’ perception toward the contribution of reflection to students’ learning awareness, theories on perception adopted by Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts and Huffman and Vernoy are employed in this research. Both of the theories are used to decide perception measuring instrument of the research.


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21 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

This part discusses the methodology of the research. It comprises the research method, research participants, research instrument, data gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure.

3.1 Research Method

The research method employed in this research is survey. Based on Brown and Rogers (2002: 142), survey is defined as follows.

Surveys are any procedure used to gather data and describe the characteristics, attitudes, views, opinions, and so forth of students, teachers, administrators, or any other people who are important to a study. Surveys typically take the form of interviews or questionnaires or both. Similarly, Ary, Jacobs and Razavieh (2002) describe that survey is used for gathering data ranging from physical counts and frequencies to attitudes and opinions. The data gathered from survey is responses of questions that are asked to participants.

Hence, this research employed survey as the research method. This research investigates students’ perception toward the contribution of reflection to their learning awareness. To be exact, it deals with finding students’ opinion and views on reflection. Consequently, survey is suitable method to be employed in this research.


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3.2 Research Participants

In order to answer the research problem, the participants of this research should be students who have experienced in making after-class written reflection. Microteaching class, one of the courses in English Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University offered in even semester academic year 2009/2010, demands the students to make after-class written reflection every week. Thus, the participants of this research were students of the English Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University who took Microteaching class in even semester 2009/2010 academic year.

3.3 Research Instrument

This research used questionnaire as the research instrument to answer the research problem that was supported by Ary et al. (2002) that survey is a method of data collection using questionnaire. Cohen, Manion, Morrison (2000) add that there are several kinds of questions and responses mode in questionnaire for example dichotomous questions, multiple choice questions, rating scales and ended questions. To gather data, this research uses rating scales and open-ended questions.

Cohen et al. describe that scales are used to measure attitudes, values, and other characteristic. The scales measure the degree of the participant that corresponds to their interest. Additionally, Brown and Rogers (2002: 120) state that Likert scales are generally useful for getting at respondents’ views, judgments, or opinions about almost any aspect of language learning. They


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describe Likert scales further that it can be on a 1 to 4 scale, 1 to 5 scale or 1 to 7 scale depending on the intended answers the researcher wants to gain.

Thus, rating scale used in this research is Likert Scales on 1 to 4 scale. The scale provides numbers which correspond to their degree of agreement namely strongly agree (4), agree (3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1). Here, the participants were asked to match 20 statements with their degree of agreement by selecting the number. The scale did not provide ‘no opinion’ option namely undecided or fair because based on Gall and Borg (2007) ‘no opinion’ option might be used by the respondents to express their ignorance. The 1 to 4 scale is able to avoid the respondent to express their ignorance.

Meanwhile, there were three questions in the open-ended section. Here, the participants were asked to write their answer of the three questions. Cohen, Manion, Morrison define that open-ended question invites an honest personal comment from the respondents. In open-ended questions, participants were free to write their answer and explain their responses. Although the responses of open-ended question were difficult to clarify, it provides clear and complete answer of the participant.

In conclusion, this research used two types of questionnaire namely rating scale and open-ended question. Both of them asked the participants about their perception toward the contribution of personal reflection to their learning awareness. The blueprint of the questionnaire and the questionnaire were presented in the appendix.


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3.4 Data Gathering Technique

This research was conducted in Microteaching class of English Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University. The research began on March 26th 2010 and ended on August 19th 2010. The data of this research was gathered from the questionnaires which were distributed to the participants. The answer of the questionnaires served as the data of this research.

The process of gathering using questionnaire as the research instrument was taken place in four Microteaching classes. The classes were Micro A, Micro B, Micro F and Micro G of which the total number of the students were 86 students. The questionnaires were distributed on April 29th, 2010; May 4th, 6th and 11th, 2010. The number of questionnaires the researcher could obtain was 71 because on the day of the data gathering some students were absent.

3.5 Data Analysis Technique

In this research, there were two types of data from the rating scale and open-ended questions. First, the researcher analyzed the rating scale data. The number of participants who chose each degree of agreement of every statement was counted. Next, the number of students who selected each degree of agreement was converted into percentage. The number of participants who selected each degree of agreement was divided by the total number of participants times 100%. The biggest percentage showed participants’ perception toward the contribution of personal reflection to their learning awareness whether it was positive or negative.


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The collected data from rating scales questions were illustrated using Table 3.1. In Table 3.1, there were three columns; Statements, Number of Participant Selecting Degree of Agreement, and Percentage. The Statements column was used to list the statements. The second column, Number of Participant Selecting Degree of Agreement, had four sub-columns which were used to list the number of participant who selected each degree of agreement. The Percentage column had four sub-columns which were used to list the percentage of each degree of agreement.

Table 3.1 Participants’ Rating Scale Responses

Table 3.2 Raw Data of Participants’ Answer of Open-ended Questions

Participants Question Number

1 2 3 1

2 3 etc

Table 3.3 Participants’ Response of Open-ended Questions

Question

Classification % Example of Responses Number of participants selecting Degree

of Agreement Percentage

Statements 1 Strongly Disagree

2 Disagree

3 Agree

4 Strongly

Agree

1 Strongly Disagree

2 Disagree

3 Agree

4 Strongly

Agree

1

2

3

4


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Meanwhile, the collected data from open-ended questions were analyzed to get further explanation on the participants’ perception on the contribution of reflection to their learning awareness. First, the participants’ response was listed in Table 3.2. In the table, there are two columns namely Participants and Question Number. The Participants column was used to list the participants while the Question Number column was used to list all participants’ answer on each number of questions. The responses listed in the table 3.2, then, were analyzed by classifying the answer. The classification of the responses was presented in Table 3.3.

In Table 3.3, there was one column in the top of the table namely Questions which was used to list the open-ended questions. Below it, there were three subcolumns namely Classification, %, and Example of Responses. The Classification column was used to present the classification of the responses, the % column was used to present the percentage of each classification, and the Example of Responses column was used to present some examples of each classifications.

3.6 Research Procedure

There were several steps carried out in this research. First of all, the topic was selected and the research problem was formulated. Analyzing the research problem, the researcher selected the appropriate method which could be applied. Moreover, the research instrument was selected as well. Because this research used students of Microteaching class as the participants, the researcher asked for a


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permission to conduct the research first. After getting the permission, the researcher began to gather data using questionnaires. The collected data, then, was presented and analyzed descriptively. Finally, the researcher drew conclusion of the research.


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28 CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses the research results and discussion of the research. It presents the data gathered from the method discussed in Chapter III. In addition, it presents the analysis of the data in light of the research problem mentioned in Chapter I.

4.1 Research Results

The research results were gathered through questionnaires in which the participants were students of four Microteaching class of English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. The questionnaires were distributed on April 29th, 2010; May 4th, 6th and 11th, 2010. Because on the day of the data gathering some students were absent, the total questionnaires obtained in this research were 71. The response of the questionnaires (See Appendix 3 and 5) was analyzed to answer the research problem which is what are students’ perceptions toward the contribution of personal reflection to students’ learning awareness?

The research results of this research were divided into four parts namely students’ perception on the willingness to make reflection, students’ perception on the reasons to make reflection, students’ perception on reflection contributing to students learning awareness, and students’ perception on the implication of the implementation of reflection.


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4.1.1 Students’ Perception on the Willingness to Make Reflection

Figure 4.1 The Frequency in Making Reflection

Figure 4.1 illustrated students’ frequency in making reflection. First, most of the students agreed to always reflect what they have learned after class. It was clearly seen from the result that 15.49% of the students strongly agreed to always reflect what they have learned after class, 46.48% of students agreed, 33.80% of students disagreed and 4.23% of students strongly disagreed. Second, most of the students agreed to always do their assignment to make reflection. There were 4.23% of students who strongly disagreed to always do their assignment to make reflection, 33.80% of students disagreed, 39.44% of students agreed and 22. 53% of students strongly agreed. Third, most of the students agreed to make their reflection based on what truly happens on their learning. There were 5.63% of students who strongly disagreed, 16.90% of students disagreed, 25.35% of students agreed, and 52.11% of students strongly agreed.

4.23% 4.23% 5.63%

33.80%

33.80%

16.90% 46.48%

39.44%

25.35% 15.49%

22.53%

52.11%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%

I always reflect what I have learned after class

I always do my assignment to make reflection

I make reflection based on what

truly happens

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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4.1.2 Students’ Perception on the Reasons to Make Reflection

Figure 4.2 The Students’ Reasons to make Reflection

Figure 4.2 showed that most of the students made reflection because it helped them learn better not because it was compulsory. There were 4.23% of students who chose strongly disagree, 36.62% of students chose disagree, 47.89% of students chose agree and the other 11.27% chose strongly agree.

Furthermore, there is one question listed in the in the open-ended questions which asked students perception on the reasons to make reflection. The result showed that 47.89% of the students made their reflection because they perceived that reflection was beneficial for them. The other 35.21% of students made their reflection because it was compulsory and it helped them to gain additional mark while 16.90% of students made their reflection both because of it were beneficial and compulsory. The result was presented further in this following Table 4.1.

4.23% 36.62%

47.89%

11.27%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%

I make reflection because it helps me to learn better not because

it is compulsory

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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Table 4.1 The Students’ Reasons to Make Reflection

Why do you make reflection? Do you make it just to get good mark? Why/ why not? Explain your answer!

Classification % Example of Responses

Reflection is beneficial

47.89% • It will help me to know my strengths and weaknesses. It isn’t only a matter of getting good mark but it is a matter of understanding what we have done in the class that will help me to improve my practice teaching more and more. • Because it helps me to analyze what I

have done and decide what I should do for better performance. It is not only about mark

Reflection is compulsory to gain additional mark

35.21% • I do my reflection because I have to write it. My lecturer asks me to do that. Honestly, I don’t really like to write reflection. I assume that it because I am forced to do that, not based on my willingness. Furthermore, the reflection is written every meeting. I don’t like it • Yes, I make it because it is compulsory

and I have to do it to increase my score Reflection is

beneficial and compulsory

16.90% • Because it is a must. Besides that I can get so may advantages from it. I can improve my teaching skill

• I make reflection so that I can see what trully happens in my teaching.

However, I also make it for getting good mark. Who knows that by writing reflection, I can have additional points

4.1.3 Students’ Perception on Reflection Contributing to Students Learning Awareness

Based on Figure 4.3, most of the students agreed that they found their learning strengths and weaknesses by making reflection. There were 54.93% of students who agreed and 15.49% of students who strongly agreed to the statement “Making reflection helps me to find the strengths I have in the subject”. Meanwhile, there were 56.34% of students who agreed that making reflection


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helps them to find learning weaknesses and the other 22.54% of students strongly agreed on it.

Figure 4.3 The Contribution of Reflection to Find Learning Strengths and Weaknesses

Figure 4.4 The Contribution of Reflection to Create Problem Solving Skill

Figure 4.4 showed that 54.93% of students chose agree and 16.90% of students chose strongly agree on the statement “Making reflection helps me to find my learning difficulties/problems”. The rest of the students chose disagree

1.40% 1.40% 28.17% 19.72% 54.93% 56.34% 15.49% 22.54% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%

making reflection helps me to find their learning

strenghts

making reflection helps me to find their learning

weaknesses

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree

1.40% 0.00% 0.00%

26.76% 50.70% 30.99% 54.93% 33.80% 53.52% 16.90% 15.49% 15.49% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% Making reflection helps me to find my learning difficulties/

problems

Making reflection helps me to solve

my learning problems

Making reflection encourages me to take responsibility of my learning

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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(26.76%) and strongly disagree (1.40%). Moreover, 53.52% of the students chose agree and 15.49% of the students chose strongly agree on the statement “Making reflection encourages me to take responsibility of my learning by improving my learning”. There were none of the students who chose strongly disagree and 30.99% of students chose disagree. Thus, the result showed that most of the students agreed that reflection helps them to find their learning difficulties and encourages them to take responsibility to their learning.

However, Figure 4.4 also showed that most of the students disagreed that reflection helped them to solve their learning problems. There were 50.70% of students who chose disagree on the statement “Making reflection helps me to solve my learning problems”. None of the students who chose strongly disagree on it whereas the other 33.80% of students chose agree and 15.49% of students chose strongly agree.

Figure 4.5 The Contribution of Reflection to See What Happens in the Learning

1.40% 1.40%

18.31%

26.62% 63.38%

54.93%

19.90%

7.04%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00%

Making reflection helps me see the learning behaviour

I normally do

Making reflection helps me see the best technique I do

to learn

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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Figure 4.5 indicated that most of the students agreed that reflection showed them what happens in the learning. Responding on the statement “Making reflection helps me to see the learning behavior I normally do”, 1.40% of students chose strongly disagree, 18.31% of students chose disagree, 63.38% of students chose agree and the other 16.90% chose strongly agree. It was clearly seen that most of the students agreed that reflection helped them to see their learning behavior their normally did. Moreover, Figure 4.5 illustrated that most of the students agreed that reflection helped them to observe the learning techniques their normally did. There were 1.40% of students who chose strongly disagree, 26.62% of students chose disagree, 54.93% of students chose agree and the other 7.04% chose strongly agree.

Figure 4.6 The Contribution of Reflection to Provide Recording of the Learning

Based on Figure 4.6, the students agreed that reflection provided recording of their learning. There were 1.40% of students chose strongly disagree and 21.13% of students chose disagree on the statement “Reflection helps me notice my learning from time to time”. The other 59, 15% of students chose agree and

1.40% 2.82%

21.13%

28.17%

59.15% 59.15%

18.31%

9.86%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00%

Reflection helps me notice my learning from time to

time

Making reflection helps me see the connection of my belief on the learning with

my actual learning behavior

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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18.31% students chose strongly agree. Responding on the statement, “Making reflection helps me see the connection of my belief on the learning with my actual learning behavior”, 2.82% of students chose strongly disagree, 28.17% of students chose disagree, 59.15% of students chose agree and 9.86% of students chose strongly agree. The percentage showed that most of the students agreed that reflection shows the connection of their belief on their learning between their actual learning behaviors.

Figure 4.7 The Contribution of Reflection to Increase Students’ Learning Involvement

Figure 4.7 illustrated that most of the students agreed (64.79% of students chose agree and 5.63% of students chose strongly agree) that reflection increased their learning involvement because they began to perceive the purpose of the assignments given. The rest of the students disagreed on it (28.17% of students chose disagree and 1.40% of students chose strongly disagree).

Moreover, Figure 4.7 showed that most of the students agreed that reflection encouraged them to examine the consequences of their learning action.

1.40% 2.82%

28.17%

36.62% 64.79%

49.30%

5.63% 11.27%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00%

Reflection increases my learning involvement because I begin to perceive the purpose for assignment

given to me

Reflection encourages me to examine the consequences of my action

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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There were 2.82% of students who chose strongly disagree, 36.62% of students chose disagree, 49.30% of students chose agree and the other 11.27% chose strongly agree.

Figure 4.8 The Contribution of Reflection to Clarify Learning Feelings

Based on Figure 4.8, 40.85% of students chose agree and 33.80% of students chose strongly agree on the statement “I express my feelings on the subject in the reflection”. The rest of the students chose disagree (16.90%) and strongly disagree (8.45%). The percentage showed that most of the students agreed that they expressed their feeling on the subject in the reflection.

In addition, Figure 4.8 showed that most of the students agreed that they were able to create communication with the lecturer through reflection. There were 33.80% of the students who chose agree and 22.54% of students who chose strongly agree on the statement “I create communication with my lecturer through reflection because I am able to share anything I feel in my learning”. The rest of the students chose disagree (33.80%) and strongly disagree (9.86%).

8.45% 9.86%

16.90%

33.80% 40.85%

33.80% 33.80%

22.54%

0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00% 35.00% 40.00% 45.00%

I express my feelings on the subject in the reflection

I create communication with my lecturer through

reflection because I am able to share anything I

feel in my learning

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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4.1.4 Students’ Perception on the Implication of the Implementation of Reflection

Figure 4.9 The Implication of the Implementation of Reflection

Figure 4.9 illustrated the implication of the implementation of reflection. It showed that 57.75% of students chose agree and 14.08% of students chose strongly agree on the statement “Reflection helps raise my learning awareness”. The rest of the students chose disagree (26.76%) and strongly disagree (1.40%). Moreover, 56.34% of the students chose agree and 8.45% of the students chose strongly agree on the statement “Reflection gives influence in my learning”. There were 4.23% of the students who chose strongly disagree and 30.99% of students chose disagree. Thus, the result showed that most of the students agreed that reflection influenced their learning and helped them to raise learning awareness.

However, Figure 4.9 also showed that most of the students disagreed that reflection should be applied in every subject. There were 38.03% of students who chose disagree and 12.68% of students who chose strongly disagree on the

1.40% 4.23%

12.68% 26.76% 30.99%

38.03% 57.75% 56.34%

35.21%

14.08%

8.45%

14.08%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00%

Reflection helps raise my learning

awareness

Reflection gives influence in my

learning

Reflection should be applied in every

subject

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree


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statement “Reflection should be applied in every subject”. The other 35.21% of students chose agree and 14.08% of students chose strongly agree.

Meanwhile, there were two questions listed in the open-ended questions which asked students perception on the implication of the implementation of reflection. The result of it was presented in Table 4.2 and 4.3.

Table 4.2 Students’ Opinion on the Benefits of Reflection

What is your opinion toward reflection? Does it give benefits for your learning? Why/ why not?

Classification % Example of Responses

Give benefits 80.28% • Yes, of course, I can know my strengths and weaknesses in teaching

• Yes, because it helps us to reflect what we have done previously, what to do next to improve our learning

No benefits 11.27% • Reflection in my opinion is not really needed. Not really I don’t get any improvement I think.

• Not really beneficial. Because I don’t do that sincerely

Give benefits if ... 8.45% • It will give benefit if we write the reflection and share it not only writing and submitting so we can sahre directly, orally for the whole class (will it be beneficiary (menguntungkan))

• Sometime, when I got feedback I got the benefits but if there is no feedback there is no benefits

Table 4.2 showed that 80.28% of students agreed that reflection gave them benefits and 11.27% of them responded that reflection did not give any beneficial for them. Besides, 8.45% of students responded that reflection sometimes gave them benefits only if reflection was made based on the reality in the learning,


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reflection was conducted in appropriate timing, reflection was not only written but also being shared in the class, and reflection was not a must.

Table 4.3 Students’ Suggestions on the Implementation of Reflection

What are your suggestions of conducting reflection in the class?

Classification % Example of Responses

Kinds of reflection 21.13% • Just make it like diary, so students will be more comfort

• Sharing after making reflection Implementation of

reflection

71.83% • Lecturer can give any feedback so that the students can feel sure that his/her reflection is read

• Don’t be too often. Because sometimes it is boring No response 7.04% • No response

• Nothing.

Table 4.3 showed some suggestions of conducting reflection in class stated by the students. The students’ responses on the suggestions were classified into three points namely kinds of reflection (21.13%), implementation of the reflection (71.83%) and no response (7.04%). The students revealed that the kind of reflection was crucial in conducting reflection in class. Various kinds of reflection as an instance oral-reflection or written-reflection could be used to avoid the students’ boredom. Besides, the students suggested some points to improve the use of reflection in class which are teacher should give feedback and clear reflection instruction, students should make reflection based on the reality in the class, reflection should be conducted directly after class, and reflection should not be graded.


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4.2 Discussion

This research answers one research problem which is what are students’ perceptions toward the contribution of personal reflection to students’ learning awareness? To investigate whether reflection contributes to students’ learning awareness theory of avenues to awareness described by Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) were employed. Based on Gebhard and Oprandy, there are four avenues to obtain awareness namely problem solving, seeing what happens, seeing what it is, and clarifying feelings. This theory was used to formulate the questionnaire.

In the questionnaire, the students who frequently chose ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ in the rating scale would have positive perception toward reflection contributing to their learning awareness. On the contrary, the students who frequently chose ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’ would have negative perception toward it. The research results obtained from the research instrument showed that the degree of agreement frequently chosen by the students were ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’. Besides, most of the students’ response in the open-ended questions showed positive response as well. Hence, it could be drawn that most of the students tend to have positive perception toward reflection contributing to their learning awareness.

The discussion of it was described in the following section namely students’ perception on the willingness to make reflection, students’ perception on the reasons to make reflection, students’ perception on reflection contributing to students learning awareness, students’ perception on the implication of the implementation of reflection, and propose plan to conduct reflection in class.


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4.2.1 Students’ Perception on the Willingness to Make Reflection

Based on the research result, students’ willingness to make reflection was high enough. From the percentage, it was noticed that most of the students always reflected what they have learned after class. They always looked back on their past learning and examined it. As a result, the students were willing to make reflection as their weekly assignment. The percentage also revealed that most of the students agreed that they always did their assignment to make weekly reflection.

Furthermore, most of them made their reflection based on the reality of the learning process. If the students are willing to make reflection, they will make the reflection based on the reality happened in the learning process. On the contrary, if the students are reluctant to make reflection, they will make their reflection unseriously. The results showed that most of the students agreed that they reflected on the reality of their past learning which indicated that the students were willing to make reflection.

4.2.2 Students’ Perception on the Reasons to Make Reflection

The results showed that there were three main reasons why the students made their reflection. First, most of the students made their reflection because reflection was not only an assignment or something compulsory but it also helped them to learn better. They perceived that reflection gave them benefits. Reflection helped the students to understand their own learning. It helped them to see their learning, draw conclusion and take appropriate action as a solution or


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improvement. These students felt enjoy to do the reflection. Although they were not asked to make reflection, they would be willing to make reflection because they perceived that reflection gave them those benefits.

Second, on the contrary, some students stated that they made their reflection because they had to do it. They perceived that making reflection was a duty for them and reflection did not give any benefits for them. If they were not asked to make the reflection they would not do it. Third, the students made their reflection because they perceived that reflection gave benefits but reflecting their learning was compulsory for them. If they did not have a duty to make reflection, they would not do it although they knew that by making reflection they would obtain benefits which would help them to learn.

4.2.3 Students’ Perception on Reflection Contributing to Students Learning Awareness

Most of the students perceived that reflection contributed to their learning awareness. Based on Gebhard and Oprandy (1999), the awareness could be obtained by being able to solve learning problems, seeing what has happened in the learning, seeing what the learning is, and clarifying feelings. The results of this research showed that most of the students perceived that the fourth avenues to get awareness could be obtained by making reflection.

First, the students perceived that they were able to know their learning strengths and weaknesses. In the process of making the reflection, the students looked back on their previous learning and found their strengths and weaknesses.


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They analyzed their strengths and took action to improve what was done well and what needed to be improved in their learning. In the reflection, the students also found their learning problems and analyzed it to find solution and take action to solve it. Through this, the students were able to eliminate their learning weaknesses as well. Thus, the students would be able to have problem solving skill by making reflection.

Second, reflection helped the students to observe what happened in the learning process. When the students made their reflection, they examined their past action. They observed the learning which they have done. Here, students were able to see what they normally did in their learning. They examined the result when they did a certain learning behavior. Through this activity, students would find the best technique to learn.

Third, making reflection students would have a recording of their own learning. Students made the reflection every meeting as consequences they were able to notice their learning from time to time. They were able to look back on their past learning experiences by reading their reflections. Their past learning experiences served as reference for them to have better learning. Besides, the recording of the learning showed whether their belief of the learning matched with the actual learning they did. Students were able to create belief or opinion toward their own learning. They might think that they have or have not understood a particular topic in the subject. In this case, the reflection served as a document of their learning which could be used to prove whether their belief of the learning matched with their actual learning.


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Fourth, reflection clarified the students’ feeling on the learning. The students’ feeling on the learning affected their behavior. Hence, lecturer needed to know the feeling of the students toward the learning. By making reflection, the students were able to share anything they felt on the learning to the lecturer. They created communication with their lecturer so that their feelings on the learning were clarified well.

In summary, students perceived that four avenues to awareness described by Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) were covered by reflecting their learning. Most of the students agreed that they were able to find solution for the learning problems they face and improve what they have done well in the learning, see what has happened in the learning, see what the learning is, and clarify their learning feeling by reflecting their learning.

4.2.4 Students’ Perception on the Implication of the Implementation of Reflection

Most of the students tend to have positive perception toward the implementation of reflection. Most of the students perceived that reflection influenced their learning since it gave them benefits. They stated that by making reflection they found their strengths and weaknesses which served as a reference for them to decide what to do next to improve their learning. Hence, it was noticed that reflection should be considered to be applied in class. It helped the students to recall what they have learned in the previous learning as a reference to do better learning.


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However, some of the students stated that reflection gave them benefits in some conditions. A student stated that reflection would be beneficial if they got feedback from the lecturer. Lecturer needed to give some comments or suggestion on the students’ reflection in order to make the students sure that their reflection was not useless. A student also stated that reflection would be useful if the reflection was not only written by the students but also shared to the other friends. Writing and submitting reflection would be useless without any feedback from the lecturer or friends. Sharing after making reflection would be a better solution in implementing reflection in the class. Moreover, a students stated that conducting reflection too often would not give any benefits for students instead of making the students bored and do not know what to reflect on. Deciding appropriate time to make reflection played a crucial role here.

Apart from the students’ positive perception on the implementation of reflection, the students perceived that reflection should not be applied in every subject. They stated that the students would be bored and full of burden to do reflection in every subject. Thus, reflection was not suitable for all subjects. Conducting reflection was suitable for any subjects which demand the students to learn from their past learning experience. Microteaching subject or any subjects which focused on practice became suitable subject to apply reflection.

4.2.5 Propose Plan to Conduct Reflection in Class

Determining students’ suggestions in the research result and the conditions to make reflection beneficial mentioned in the section before, there were some


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suggestions to improve the implementation of reflection. First, reflection should be conducted not too often. Lecturer could conduct a type of reflection (written/oral only) in the beginning, middle and end of the semester in order to avoid the students boredom. If the lecturer conducts a type of reflection too often, the students will be bored. Thus, asking the students to make a type of reflection only in the beginning, middle, and end of the semester will be beneficial.

If the lecturer want to conduct weekly reflection, it will be better to apply different types of reflection to avoid the students’ boredom or use interesting form of reflection instead of writing and submitting reflection only. The lecturer could combine some types of reflection (written or oral-in group) during the semester. As an instance, lecturer could ask the students to make written reflection at home and in the following weeks the lecturer could ask the students to reflect their learning in group or vice versa. Another alternative to conduct weekly reflection which was able to avoid students’ boredom was the lecturer could ask the students to make reflection in a form of diary or publish their reflection in blog. The use of diary or blog became interesting way to encourage the students to make reflection. Thus, although the reflection was conducted weekly, the students would not be bored by applying those plans.

Second, lecturer needed to give clear instruction to make reflection. Before the lecturer asked the students to reflect on their learning, the lecturer needed to give reflection guideline. The guideline told the students what to reflect on and how they make the reflection. This clear instruction would make the implementation of reflection systematic and useful.


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of reflection

22 -

Reflection should be submitted every meeting

-

23 -

- Do it seriously cz it can give you lots of benefits on improving your teaching performance - It reflecst what you have -done Tells you the streghts and weaknesses

-

24 -

Weekly reflection, done by students, so teacher can monitor students’ knowledge

-

25 -

In my own

opinion, reflection is not suitable applied in every class, but it is helpful in

microteaching. It is so because we can feel and know our own improvement.

-

26 -

Not every meeting, just every week/ at the end of the semester

-

27 -

I think we should reflect only our performance

-

28 -

Reflection is good, but not in huge portion. It will be better to conduct a reflection just in the end of semester


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93  

No. Kinds of reflection Implementation

of reflection No response

29 - By writing what

the truly happens -

30 -

I think if it is weekly reflection, it will make students bored, so it will be better if it is monthly

reflection.

-

31 -

The lecturer doesn’t accept the reflection from our handwritten. I hope it will be accepted because sometimes when I writing and typing I have different feeling

-

32 -

I suggest the reflection should be real in students feeling.

-

33 -

I THINK ALL SUBJECT SHOULD CONDUCT IT

-

34 -

I think reflection should be made (should be assigned) but not too often. Then, I think the lecturer should give feedback so that the students can know how to make improvement

-

35 -

Reflection should be applied based on the students willingness. If they don’t want to make reflection. Don’t force them. ☺


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of reflection

36 -

Reflections don’t be made every week

-

37 - Reflection not

every week maybe - 38 -

Students have freedom to write what they want

-

39 - It’s very good -

40 -

Reflection doesn’t need to be weekly. Because not every person has the same perception & willingness to do reflections.

-

41 -

- There are response & feedback from friends & teacher - It should be optional. If you want to have it just make, if not just don’t. So that students will not feel burdored

-

42 -

It would be better if the reflection conducts in every meeting of the subjects and the lecturer should check it

-

43 -

I think, in one week we should only have one reflections

-

44 -

It should be checked by the lecturer

-

45 -

Give more time


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95  

No. Kinds of reflection Implementation

of reflection No response

46 -

I suggest that reflections only 3-5 times

-

47 -

Write reflection not every week, but when we have something to share because usually the obstacles that we face is same.

-

48 -

Reflections should not be submitted every week. Probably every month. That would be nicer I think.

-

49 -

I think it is important to make reflection, not every week maybe. It can be once or twice in a month

-

50 - Please comment

our reflection!!! -

51 -

Reflection should be made at the end of the semester in each subject

-


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vii

Widyastuti, Arum. 2010. Students’ Perception toward the Contribution of Personal Reflection to their Learning Awareness. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

Reflection is beneficial to be conducted in class. When students make their reflection, they recall and examine their past learning which makes them know what they are doing and how far they have learned. However, students might not know the contribution of reflection for their own learning. Students might even assume that making reflection is a duty that they have to fulfill whereas in fact, reflection creates their learning awareness which will help them to learn better. Hence, this research intends to investigate students’ perception of the contribution of personal reflection to their learning awareness. It answers one research problem which is what are students’ perceptions toward the contribution of personal reflection to students’ learning awareness?

Survey was implemented as the research method in this research. It was suitable because this method dealt with finding students’ opinion and views on something. The participants of this research were students of the English Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University who took Microteaching class in even semester academic year 2009/2010. Questionnaire was used as the research instrument. The questionnaire consisted of two sections, 1 to 4 rating scales and open-ended questions. The number of students who chose each degree of agreement in the rating scale and the answer of open-ended questions determined whether they had positive or negative perception toward reflection contributing to students’ learning awareness.

The research results obtained from the research instrument showed that the degree of agreement frequently chosen by the students were ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’. Besides, most of the students’ response in the open-ended questions showed positive response as well. Most of the students agreed that reflection helped them to obtain four avenues to awareness described by Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) namely finding solution for the learning problems they face and improving what they have done well in the learning, seeing what has happened in the learning, seeing what the learning is, and clarifying their learning feeling. Thus, it could be drawn that most of the students have positive perception toward reflection contributing to their learning awareness. Furthermore, most of the students agreed that they made reflection because it influenced their learning by giving some benefits not only because reflection was assignment or something compulsory. However, there were few students that perceived reflection only as a task.


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viii ABSTRAK

Widyastuti, Arum. 2010. Students’ Perception toward the Contribution of Personal Reflection to their Learning Awareness. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Refleksi memberikan keuntungan jika diterapkan di kelas. Saat siswa membuat refleksi, mereka mengingat kembali dan menganalisa pembelajaran yang telah mereka lakukan sehingga membuat mereka mengetahui apa yang mereka lakukan dan sejauh mana mereka belajar. Namun demikian, siswa mungkin saja tidak mengetahui kontribusi refleksi bagi pembelajaran mereka. Siswa bahkan menganggap refleksi sebagai kewajiban atau tugas yang harus mereka penuhi walau pun pada dasarnya refleksi mampu meningkatkan kesadaran belajar mereka yang dapat membantu mereka dalam belajar. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini bermaksud untuk mengetahui persepsi siswa terhadap kontribusi refleksi dalam kesadaran belajar siswa. Penelitian ini menjawab satu rumusan masalah yaitu apa saja persepsi siswa terhadap kontribusi refleksi dalam kesadaran belajar mereka?

Survei merupakan metode yang diterapkan dalam penelitian ini. Metode ini sesuai karena metode ini berhubungan dengan mengetahui opini dan pandangan siswa terhadap sesuatu. Responden dalam penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma yang mengambil kelas

Microteaching di semester genap tahun ajaran 2009/2010. Selain itu, kuesioner

digunakan sebagai instrumen dalam penelitian ini. Kuesioner ini terdiri dari dua bagian yaitu kuesioner tertutup dengan 4 tingkatan jawaban dan kuesioner terbuka. Jumlah siswa yang memilih setiap tingkatan jawaban dalam kuesioner tertutup dan jawaban dari kuesioner terbuka menentukan persepsi positif atau negatif yang dimiliki siswa terhadap refleksi yang berkontribusi dalam kesadaran belajar.

Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa tingkatan jawaban yang mayoritas dipilih siswa yaitu ‘sangat setuju’ dan ‘setuju’. Selain itu, mayoritas jawaban siswa di kuesioner terbuka menunjukkan tanggapan yang positif. Mayoritas siswa setuju bahwa refleksi membantu mereka menemukan four avenues to awareness yang didiskripsikan oleh Gebhard dan Oprandy (1999) yaitu menemukan solusi untuk masalah-masalah dalam pembelajaran dan meningkatkan apa yang telah dilakukan dengan baik dalam pembelajaran, melihat apa yang terjadi dalam pembelajaran, melihat apa pembelajaran mereka itu, dan mengklarifikasi perasaan terkait dengan pembelajaran. Oleh karena itu, dapat disimpulkan bahwa mayoritas siswa memiliki persepsi positif terhadap kontribusi refleksi dalam kesadaran belajar mereka. Selain itu, mayoritas siswa setuju bahwa mereka membuat refleksi karena refleksi mempengaruhi pembelajaran mereka dengan memberikan keuntungan-keuntungan bukan hanya dikarenakan bahwa refleksi merupakan suatu tugas atau kewajiban. Akan tetapi ada sabagian kecil siswa yang berpersepsi bahwa refleksi hanyalah suatu tugas tidak lebih.