THE CORRELATION OF METACOGNITIVE PERFORMANCE AND GRAMMATICAL ACHIEVEMENT TO WRITING ABILITY.
ME'l'ACOGNITIVE PERFORMANCE
ACBIEVEMF..NT
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the Degree of
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSGRADUATE SCHOOL
SATATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
1009
A THESIS
THE CORRELATION OF MET ACOGNITIVE PERFORMANCE
AND GRAMMATICAL ACHIEVEMENT
TO WRITING AB!LITY
Marnala Panga ribuan
Registration Number : 0450101 27
English AppUed Linguistics Study Program
State University of Medan
~
This Thesis wL~
eumiaed on Aagast 27. 2009 by the Board of Examiners.
Ai»proval by
Adviser conamiss;ons
-
Adviser I
/
-~
~
-
· .,
(---=====-
Prof. Dr. Jawasi Naibabo.
Dr.
rlia Sibaraai. M.Pd.
NI P: 19570615 198203 I OOS
The Director o the
P~t gn~-
.
~I
Prof. Dr. Relferik Manulbng
NIP: 19471015 197412 l 001
Approval of Board of Examiners
Thesis Examinen of Magister Humaniora
Prof. Dr. Jawui Naibabo.
Dr. Berlia Sibarani, M.Pd.
Prof. Tiaa Mariany A, M.A., Ph.D.
Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D.
· /)r. Busmin Gu rning, M.Pd.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis has been written as partial fulfillment the requirements of the degree of
Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) from the English Applied Linguistics
Department of the .
Graduate Program of State University in Medan.
During the process of writing this thesis, the writer is indebted to many people for their
guidance, help, suggestions, and comments. Therefore, she would like to express her gratitude to
all of them for their generous guidance and assistance. However, she could mention only a few
of them. She is very grateful to both her consultants, Prof. Dr. J. Naibaho and Dr. Berlin Sibarani
M.Pd, for their valuable time, advice, suggestions, and comments. May God bless them in all
activities they do. They are really a very great team work.
The writer would like to thank to Prof. Tina Mariany , M.A. Ph.D., the head of the
department and Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, the secretary of the Departemnt, for their helps in all
administration matters and deep mental support, and all the lecturing staffs who have taught a
lot of knowledge to her. She would like also to thank to her beloved family, especially, her
parents, D. Pangaribuan, D. Hutajulu, and her older sister and brother for their support and
understanding given to her during her academic years at the department.
The writer would like to thank her three reviewers, Prof. Tina Mariany Arifin, M.A.
Ph.D., Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D and Dr. Busmin Guming, M.Pd for their suggestions to
the improvement of the proposal of the thesis.
Special thanks are due to Dr. Tagor Pangaribuan, M.Pd, and Dra. R.A Sipahutar, M.Pd,
who always help, suppor, encourage, give spirit and critics during her study. Thanks Jesus for
sending them as a 'light' in her life. May God bless them in all activities they does.
She
also would like to thank to Drs. Hotman Simbolon, MS, the Dean of FKIP HKBP Nommensen
University and Drs. Firman Pangaribuan, M.Pd as the first vice dean for helping her in this
research and giving her support and comments.
Last but not least, her final thanks go to all her kind friends who have contributed very
much to her improvement in this thesis. Few that the writer can mention here, Krystin, Rebekka,
Minar, and teachers in SMA Kampus Nommensen. To all of them the writer can only hope that
they will look upon the results of their influence and endeavors with pleasure. May God Bless
Us!
Above all, Great thanks to Jesus Christ, God, for guiding her in every step of the way, for
giving her blessings and lessons and undying love. She thanks God because she knows He is
there He will always be there for her. She thanks God for planning her life. Thank you fo r being
father, best friend and her savior.
Medan, August 2009
The writer,
Marnala Pangaribuan
Registration Number: 045010127
ii
ABSTRACT
Pangaribuan, Marnala. 2009. The Correlation of Metacognitive Performance and
Grammatical Achievement towards Writing Ability. Thesis, Applied Linguistics,
Graduate Program STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN (UNIMED).
This research deals with the corrlelation ofmetacognitive performance and grammatical
achievement towards writing ability. The problem focused were as follows: (I) Is there any
significant correlation of student's metacognitive performance to their writing ability? (2) Is
there any significant correlation of student's grammatical achievement to their writing ability?
(3) Is there any significant correlation of student's metacognitive performance and grammatical
achievement to their writing ability?
The objective of this study is to examine the correlation of student's metacognitive
performance, grammatical achievement to writing ability. English proficiency is a set of
complex abilities constituting pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading
and writing, are assumed as discrete or interdependent. As discrete ability some teachers teach
them separately, while others teach altogether. In TEFL learners proficiency are not yet
satisfactory, so this thesis endeavors to examine those skills focused on metacognitive
performances. Metacognitive works in general in the domain learning and this research focus on
composition writing, in learners' developing a plan of action, maintaining/monitoring the plan
and in evaluating the plan. Metacogntive performances answers the problem as follows. (1 )
Before - When you are developing the plan of action, ask yourself: (a) What in my prior
knowledge will help me with this particular task? (b) In what direction do I want my thinking to
take me? (c) What should I do first? (d) Why am I reading this selection? (e) How much time
do I have to complete the task?; (2) During - When you are maintaining/monitoring the plan of
action, ask yourself: (a) How am I doing? (b) Am I on the right track? (c) How should I
proceed? (d) What information is important to remember? (e) Should I move in a different
direction? (f) Should I adjust the pace depending on the difficulty? (g) What do I need to do if
I do not understand?; (3) After- When you are evaluating the plan of action ask yourself: (a)
How well did I do? (b) Did my particular course of thinking produce more or less than I had
expected? (c) What could I have done differently? (d) How might I apply this line of thinking
to other problems? (e) Do I need to go back through the task to fill in any "blanks" in my
understanding?
This research is a correlational study, based on a descriptive quantitative approach, and
attempts to describe the relation between metacognitive performance, grammatical achievement
and writing ability, the researcher was uses writing ability test, grammatical test and
metacognitive questioner. The instruments are validated following split-half method for
metacognitive performance and grammatical achievement, and inter-rater correlations for
writing instruments. The population of this research is English department students of FKIP
Nommensen 2005/2006.The sample is purposive and random, the students who are taking
writing subjects. The finding using SPSS 13 states that (I) There is a significant correlation of
the student's metacognitive performance to writing ability ( r"Y = 0,38) (2) There is a significant
correlation of student's grammatical achievement to writing ability. (r xr= 0,55) and there is a
significant correlation between
student's metacogntive performance and grammatical
achievement to writing ability ( rxyz= 0,392 F=33,458) (All in alpha 0,01).
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...............•........................................ i
ABSTRACT ......•............................................ ...................... .iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..... ........ .•............................................iv
LIST OF TABLES •... ...................................... ... ...... .... ........... vii
LIST OF FIGURES•..... ....... ... .•. •.... ....... .. ... ....• ......... ... •..........viii
LIST OF APPENDICES ...................•.... ....... .. ... ...... .............•..• ix
CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
1. 1 The Background of the Study ........ .. ... ......... . ..... .. .. ... ..... .. . ... ... I
I .2 The Problems of the Study .......... . ..... . .. .. ...... .. .. . ... ... .. .. . . .. ..... .. 3
1.3 The Objective of the Study ..... .. .. ... .. ..... .. .. ... .. ... . ... .... .. ... . ........ 3
1.4 The Hypothesis of the Study . . .... . . ..... ... .. . .. .. .. .. . ... .. . .. ............... 3
1.5 The significance of the Study .... ... . .. ... ... ... . .. ... ........ .... .. .. .... ... .. 4
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Aspects ofMetacognition .. ..... . .. . ... .... .... . .......... . ..... . . .... . ...... . . 5
2.1 .1 The Concept ofMetacognition .... . ... .. .. . ........ . ........ . ..... ..... I 0
2.1.2 The Process of Metacognition .. .... . .. ..... .. . ................ .. .. .. .. l 0
2.1.3 Strategy in Metacognition ................ .......... .... . . ... ........... 12
2.1.4 Theoretical Framework . ......... .... .... .. .... ........ .. .... .. ...... .. . 21
iv
2.2 Writing..... .... ......... .... ........ ....... ..................................... 25
2.2.1 Theories of Writing .................................................. .. 25
2.2.2 Factors Affecting Writing Quality .......................... ... ...... . 27
2.2.3 Measurement of Writing.................................... .. ...... . 28
2.3 Grammatical Achievement...... ...... .................. .................. .. . 29
2.4 Metacognitive performance, Writing Ability and Grammatical AchieVement. .......... .... ........ ..... .... ... ....... ................. ................ 33
2.4.1 Metacognition in Second Language Teaching....... ......... ....... 33
2.4.2 How Metacognition Works in Writing........... ... ... ....... ..... 38
CHAPTER
Ill
RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Research Design ......... .... .. .. .... ....... ................................. .... 52
3.2 Population and Sample............................ ........ ........ ..... .....
53
3.3 Instrument for Collecting Data.... ............... ... .. .. ....... ............ 53
3.3. 1 Metacognitive Questioner. .. .. .......... ... ..... ...... ............... 53
3.3.1.1 Questioner on Metacognitive Performance.......... ....
54
3.3.2 Instrument to Measure Grammatical Achievement....... ........ 55
3.3.3 Writing Ability Test. ................ .. .. ........... .................. . 55
3.3.4 Instrument Validation ...... ............. ............... ............... 56
3.3.4.1 Metacognitive Performance Test...................... .... 56
3.3.4.2 Grammatical Avhievement Test ........................... 56
3.3.4.3 Correlation of Raters Scores .. .... .... .... .. ... .......... .. 57
v
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1 Analysis .. ....... ..... .. .... ... .... ... . ... .. ... ...... . . ....... .... ....... ... ..... . 58
4.1.1 Descriptive Statistics................. .. ..... ... .... ........... ..... .. . .. 62
4.1.2 Testing Null Hypotheses ................ ..... ........................... 67
4.1.3 Correlations and Regressions .............. ............ .. .. .... ..... .... 67
73
4.3 Discussion ... . .................. .... .. ... ... ................... .. . ....... ..... .... 73
4.4 Recommendation ........ ........ ...... ....... .......................... ... .... ... 79
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions .. ...... ............................... ...... ... . ..... ..... .. ... .... .. 81
5.3 Suggestions ..... ...... .. ............ ... ..................... ... ... ... ... ......... 81
REFERENCES ..... .... .... ........ ... ..... .. ....... .... .. ............... ....... .. .. 83
APPENDICES ............................................................... ........ 85
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table
.......................... . ........... ......... 19
2.1
Basic Concept of Metacognition
2.2
Metacognitive Construct. ... ...... .. ...... ... ....................................... 21
2.3
Metacognitive Construct: Knowledge .................. .. . ........ . ....... ........ 23
2.4
Metacognitive Construct: Monitor .... .. ... ... ... .. ... ......... ................... 24
2.5
Metacognitive Construct: Control. .................... .. .. ... .... . ......... ........ 25
2.6
Aspects of Metacognitive in Foreign Language ............ . .. .. . ..... . ........ . 37
2.7
Metacogntive Elements .... .... ... ... .... ........................................... 59
2.8
Metacognitive Construct: Knowledge ........................ ............ ... .....50
2.9
Metacognitive Construe: Monitor ........ ....... ........ .......... ..... ....... .... 51
2.10
Metacognitive Construct: Control ......... ....... ... ........... .............. ..... 51
3.1
Metacofnitive performance ......... ... ....... ... .. ..... . ..... ................. .... .54
4.1
Raw Scores of Grammatical Achievement. ................ . ......... ...... ... ....59
4.2
Descriptive Statics .. ...... ........ . ....... ....... ........ ... ....... .. ..... . .. .. .... .. 62
4. 3
Descriptive statistics: V4, V5,V6 .... .. .. ...... . ... .. ...... ................. ....... 63
4.4a
Normal Distribution ofV4 ... ...... ............ ....................... .. .. ... ....... 64
4.4b
Normal Distribution of V5 ...................... ................................... 65
4.4c
Normal Distribution ofV6 .. .. .. ... ....................... ..... ............... ..... 66
4.5
Correlation Grammatical Achievement to Writing Ability .......... .......... 67
4.6
Correlations Metacognitive performance to Writing ability .................. 68
4.7
Descriptive Statistics .................................................................................... 68
Vll
4.8
Correlations Metacognitive Performance, Grammatical Achievement and
Writing ability ................... ..... .. ....... ......... ........................ .....69
4.9
Correlations Model Summary (b) .... ..... ........... ... . ... ... ... .. .... ........ .69
4.10
Correlation Model Summary (c) ..... .... .. .... ...... ... ...... ......... ..... . ..... 70
4.11
Anova (b) ..... ............ ............ ... ................... .......... ......... . ... .. 70
4.12
F Coefficients (a) .. ............. .. ...... ......... .. ....... ...... ... ...... ............ 70
4.13
Regression Standardized Residual Metacognitive Performance, GrammaTical Achievement and Writing Ability .. .................... .. .. .... ........ ....71
4.14
Normal Probability plot: Metacognitive Performance, grammatical AchieVement and Writing ability ............ ...................................... ..... 72
Vlll
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
Page
2.1
Metacognitive Construct. ... .. .... ..... ..... ........ ....... . .. .... . ... .. ... . 6
2.2
Metacognition Rationale Construct. .. ..... .. .. .... . .. ... ... .. ... .. . .. .... 17
2.3
Metacognition Concept. ...... . ..... ...... . ... ... ... .... .. . ...... ... ... ...... 18
2.4
Conceptual Framework ...... .................................... ... .........52
lX
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix
Page
1.
Tryout Metacognitive Performance .... .. ..... .... . .. ..... .............. 85
2.
Tryout grammatical Achievement .............. ... ....... .... ........ ...86
3.
Tryout Writing Ability ........ ... .............. .. ... ............... ...... 87
4.
Descritpve Statistics: V4, V5, V6 .. . ... .... ..... .. ... ...... .... ......... 88
5.
Questionnaire ofMetacognitive .... ... ....... ... .. .. ... ... .. ...... ..... 93
6.
Test of Grammatical Achievement .... ... ..... ....... ......... .. .. .... .97
7.
Test for Writing Ability ..... .... ... .. ... .. .... ............. .... ....... ... 102
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1
The Background of the Study
English students learn to write. They learn to write from writing instruction offered
at English Department. They express ideas in a paragraph or a text in English. To achieve
this, they receive instructions, from sentence to paragraph and from paragraph to meaningful
whole composition as text to make meaningfulness from instruction, they do learning to
write both during the instruction or outside. Learning a language takes complex abilities
( Hun and Ellis 2004; 289) and people commonly forget this process. But in doing learning
such as second or foreign language learning like English, these complex processes take
place. In learning to write students operate their complex capabilities and some of these are
metacognitive performance, and grammatical achievement.
Writing is a process. In simple form, a student expresses the idea in a sentence, a
paragraph or a composition. In second language writing, a student exercises to allocate
words to be meaningful sentences, and then she has to compose a whole set of sentences
into a paragraph, and a whole set of paragraph into a composition. In doing so, she operates
her capacity how to put words together, then sentences together
to be a meaningful
paragraph, and further, how to exercise to compose this meaningful paragraph, into a
meaningful text.
Again, since language learning is a complex process from exercising how to do
allocating words into sentences, then how to put sentences into a paragraph, and further
putting of paragraph into a text are altogether a complex process. First the students express
meaning by allocating the meanings through grammatical sentences. Further, in one aspect a
student doing a paragraph are combining all sentence meanings and communicate function
into a meaningful unit in a paragraph and such paragraph are reconstituted in a thematic
structure of a given new information ( Hun and Ellis 2004; 292). This meaning composition
in nature merits complexity of sentence processing into paragraph and from paragraph
processing into text.
In writing instruction, how the sentence processing into paragraph processing into
text are not well known. Not even known, whether a writer starts from a discourse into text
wording in a to-down processes, or from words into sentences, into paragraph , the bottomup process as many teachers assumes it. The students experiences in writing follows the
writing approach of instruction such as controlled composition,
rhetoric and process
approach. In control composition approach, the teacher controlled the vocabulary and the
structure of the language items and leave the message patterning and processing , to the
learners individuals enterprise. In other words, little attention is given to the process how to
make a coherent paragraph on the basis of how such abilities be gained by training the
learners in their complex thinking abilities particularly their metacognitive performance. In a
rhetoric approach the learner is faced and trained to perceive the complexity of
communication in writer- text-audience line to make a meaningful text for the reader. Again,
the complexity of paragraphing and composing are left to the learner's individual efforts to
the mastery of the writing arts. The aspects of metacognitive are more or less considered as
important factors in developing writing ability. With respect to these paragraphing and
composing aspects in writing ability, this thesis research the relation between metacognitive
2
performance, grammatical achievement and writing ability. In other words, the learners
given exercises in composition is a pragmatic reality.
1.2
The Problems of the Study
Since the research was interested in metacognitive performance, grammatical
achievement and writing ability, the problem of this thesis were as follows.
I. Is there any significant correlation between student's metacognitive performance and
writing ability?
2. Is there any significant correlation between student's grammatical achievement and
writing ability?
3. Is there any significant correlation between student's metacognitive performance and
grammatical achievement and writing ability?
1.3
The Objective of the Study
The Objective of this study, as conveyed in the problem was to examine the
correlation of student's metacognitive performance, grammatical achievement to writing
ability.
1.4
The Hypothesis of the Study
Ha : l. There is a significant correlation between student's metacogntive performance
to writing ability.
3
2. There is a significant correlation between student's grammatical achievement to
writing ability.
3. There is a significant correlation between student's metacogntive
performance and
grammatical achievement to writing ability.
1.5
The Significance of the study.
It is expected that findings of this study will be relevant and useful in some
aspects:
1. This study offers a tentative description of student's metacogntive performance.
2. This study discusses some aspects of metacogntive performance.
3. This study discusses some aspects of writing ability.
4. This study attempts to offer an explanation upon the nature of correlation between the
student's metacogntive performance, grammatical achievement and writing ability.
5. All this information may contribute as input access to the profile of English department
learners in the students under study.
4
CHAPTERV
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION
This chapter inventorizes what the study has carried out. The study is the correlation between
metacognitive performance, grammatical achievement and writing ability. After doing validation,
data collection, data analysis and hypothesis testing, and discussion on findings, thefollowing are the
conclution and suggestion.
5.1 Conclusions
Based on the statistic finding in the analysis,
the following are the statement of the
hypotheses that have been tested.
H 1: There is a significant correlation of the student's metacognitive performance to writing
ability. rxy = 0,38
H2 : There is a significant correlation of student's grammatical achievement to writing ability. r
xy=
0,55
H3 : There is a significant correlation between
student's metacogntive performance and
grammatical achievement to writing ability.
rxyz =
0,392 F=33,458
5.2 Suggestions
Based on the fmdings of this study and the discussion in the previous, the following are
recommendation
81
I. [t is suggested that English curriculum and particularly English subject proficiency
or skills accommodate metacognitive performances in language skills subjects. The
reason tor this is that there are significant correlation and intercorrelation among the
variables of grammatical achievement, metacognitive performance and writing
ability. It means that those variables exists in the students language mastery and
they relate to each other.
2. English instructors or lectures of English department may venture how to
accommodate metacognitive performance in their subjects in order to prove and to
sharpen the performance objective of their subjects, and the way how their syllabus
help improve the construct of the language proficiency they target in the syllabus. In
other words, metacognitive performance may function as governing principles of
the skills or competencies they are endeavoring during the classroom sessions.
3. English instructors in order to get confidence, may venture implementation of
metacognitive performance in their subject through action research in the
classroom ..
82
REFERENCES
Ary, D. 1979. Introduction to Research in Education, Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, Inc.
Arikunto, S. 2002. Prosedur Penelitian: Suatu Pendekatan Praktek. Jakarta: Rineka Cipta
Anderson. 2002. The Role ofMetacognition in Second Language Teaching and Learning.
Brigham University, Online Resources, digests.
Brown H, Douglas. 2000. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Addison
Wesley Longman, Inc.
Dale, P. S.I976. Language Development, Structure andfunction. University of
Washington, Seattle.
Ellis, C., & Hun. 2004. Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology. McGraw
Hill Book Company.
Fakultas Pascasatjana. 1985. Pedoman Penulisan Tesis Fakultas Pascasarjana. Malang.
FPS IKIP MALANG.
Hasan. M. I. 2002 Pokok-pokok Materi statistik 2 (Statistic /nferensif). Jakarta: Burni
Aksara
Harris, P. 1970.Testing English as a Foreig Language), McGraw Hill Book Company ..
Kroll, Barbara. 1979. Second Language Writing. Cambridge University Press.
Myles, Johanne. 2007. Second Language Writing and Research Writing Process and
Error Analysis in Student's Text, Quinn University. http://www.nada.kth.se/
- martinlkursers/gslt-ia/GSLT
Ransdell, Sarah and Barbier. 2002. New Direction for Research in L2-Writing. Kluwer
Academic Publisher. Amsterdam University Press.
Scott, Rene. 2007. Composition Theory. File: //C:\Df'l/o20TP\composition %20
theory l.htm
Sharpless, Mike. 1999. How we write. New Petter land. London EC4P. AEE.
Spaventa J, Lon. 2001. Writing to learn the p aragraph. The McGraw Hill Companies,
Evenue of the Americas, New York.
83
Steinberg, Danny E, Nagata Hiroshi, and Ale David P. 2001, Psycholingistics: Language,
Mind and The World, Pearson Education LTd, London.
Shoonen, C. B. (2002) interaction to writing: New York: Me Graw Hill, 2002.
84
ACBIEVEMF..NT
~I
BY
~iA
lt.~
"'~-
RN
~tr
AL
-a tio~
m.q~u
ba h~r
ti:r~
Jt!li~:W'
!li~mb":
-;.·,_"'~
P ANGM~
i B UA
'" "-'
Limg
04~17
rl~
~
St
_ .,
N
.....-.._."'-'"'
udy~
the Degree of
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSGRADUATE SCHOOL
SATATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
1009
A THESIS
THE CORRELATION OF MET ACOGNITIVE PERFORMANCE
AND GRAMMATICAL ACHIEVEMENT
TO WRITING AB!LITY
Marnala Panga ribuan
Registration Number : 0450101 27
English AppUed Linguistics Study Program
State University of Medan
~
This Thesis wL~
eumiaed on Aagast 27. 2009 by the Board of Examiners.
Ai»proval by
Adviser conamiss;ons
-
Adviser I
/
-~
~
-
· .,
(---=====-
Prof. Dr. Jawasi Naibabo.
Dr.
rlia Sibaraai. M.Pd.
NI P: 19570615 198203 I OOS
The Director o the
P~t gn~-
.
~I
Prof. Dr. Relferik Manulbng
NIP: 19471015 197412 l 001
Approval of Board of Examiners
Thesis Examinen of Magister Humaniora
Prof. Dr. Jawui Naibabo.
Dr. Berlia Sibarani, M.Pd.
Prof. Tiaa Mariany A, M.A., Ph.D.
Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D.
· /)r. Busmin Gu rning, M.Pd.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis has been written as partial fulfillment the requirements of the degree of
Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) from the English Applied Linguistics
Department of the .
Graduate Program of State University in Medan.
During the process of writing this thesis, the writer is indebted to many people for their
guidance, help, suggestions, and comments. Therefore, she would like to express her gratitude to
all of them for their generous guidance and assistance. However, she could mention only a few
of them. She is very grateful to both her consultants, Prof. Dr. J. Naibaho and Dr. Berlin Sibarani
M.Pd, for their valuable time, advice, suggestions, and comments. May God bless them in all
activities they do. They are really a very great team work.
The writer would like to thank to Prof. Tina Mariany , M.A. Ph.D., the head of the
department and Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, the secretary of the Departemnt, for their helps in all
administration matters and deep mental support, and all the lecturing staffs who have taught a
lot of knowledge to her. She would like also to thank to her beloved family, especially, her
parents, D. Pangaribuan, D. Hutajulu, and her older sister and brother for their support and
understanding given to her during her academic years at the department.
The writer would like to thank her three reviewers, Prof. Tina Mariany Arifin, M.A.
Ph.D., Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D and Dr. Busmin Guming, M.Pd for their suggestions to
the improvement of the proposal of the thesis.
Special thanks are due to Dr. Tagor Pangaribuan, M.Pd, and Dra. R.A Sipahutar, M.Pd,
who always help, suppor, encourage, give spirit and critics during her study. Thanks Jesus for
sending them as a 'light' in her life. May God bless them in all activities they does.
She
also would like to thank to Drs. Hotman Simbolon, MS, the Dean of FKIP HKBP Nommensen
University and Drs. Firman Pangaribuan, M.Pd as the first vice dean for helping her in this
research and giving her support and comments.
Last but not least, her final thanks go to all her kind friends who have contributed very
much to her improvement in this thesis. Few that the writer can mention here, Krystin, Rebekka,
Minar, and teachers in SMA Kampus Nommensen. To all of them the writer can only hope that
they will look upon the results of their influence and endeavors with pleasure. May God Bless
Us!
Above all, Great thanks to Jesus Christ, God, for guiding her in every step of the way, for
giving her blessings and lessons and undying love. She thanks God because she knows He is
there He will always be there for her. She thanks God for planning her life. Thank you fo r being
father, best friend and her savior.
Medan, August 2009
The writer,
Marnala Pangaribuan
Registration Number: 045010127
ii
ABSTRACT
Pangaribuan, Marnala. 2009. The Correlation of Metacognitive Performance and
Grammatical Achievement towards Writing Ability. Thesis, Applied Linguistics,
Graduate Program STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN (UNIMED).
This research deals with the corrlelation ofmetacognitive performance and grammatical
achievement towards writing ability. The problem focused were as follows: (I) Is there any
significant correlation of student's metacognitive performance to their writing ability? (2) Is
there any significant correlation of student's grammatical achievement to their writing ability?
(3) Is there any significant correlation of student's metacognitive performance and grammatical
achievement to their writing ability?
The objective of this study is to examine the correlation of student's metacognitive
performance, grammatical achievement to writing ability. English proficiency is a set of
complex abilities constituting pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading
and writing, are assumed as discrete or interdependent. As discrete ability some teachers teach
them separately, while others teach altogether. In TEFL learners proficiency are not yet
satisfactory, so this thesis endeavors to examine those skills focused on metacognitive
performances. Metacognitive works in general in the domain learning and this research focus on
composition writing, in learners' developing a plan of action, maintaining/monitoring the plan
and in evaluating the plan. Metacogntive performances answers the problem as follows. (1 )
Before - When you are developing the plan of action, ask yourself: (a) What in my prior
knowledge will help me with this particular task? (b) In what direction do I want my thinking to
take me? (c) What should I do first? (d) Why am I reading this selection? (e) How much time
do I have to complete the task?; (2) During - When you are maintaining/monitoring the plan of
action, ask yourself: (a) How am I doing? (b) Am I on the right track? (c) How should I
proceed? (d) What information is important to remember? (e) Should I move in a different
direction? (f) Should I adjust the pace depending on the difficulty? (g) What do I need to do if
I do not understand?; (3) After- When you are evaluating the plan of action ask yourself: (a)
How well did I do? (b) Did my particular course of thinking produce more or less than I had
expected? (c) What could I have done differently? (d) How might I apply this line of thinking
to other problems? (e) Do I need to go back through the task to fill in any "blanks" in my
understanding?
This research is a correlational study, based on a descriptive quantitative approach, and
attempts to describe the relation between metacognitive performance, grammatical achievement
and writing ability, the researcher was uses writing ability test, grammatical test and
metacognitive questioner. The instruments are validated following split-half method for
metacognitive performance and grammatical achievement, and inter-rater correlations for
writing instruments. The population of this research is English department students of FKIP
Nommensen 2005/2006.The sample is purposive and random, the students who are taking
writing subjects. The finding using SPSS 13 states that (I) There is a significant correlation of
the student's metacognitive performance to writing ability ( r"Y = 0,38) (2) There is a significant
correlation of student's grammatical achievement to writing ability. (r xr= 0,55) and there is a
significant correlation between
student's metacogntive performance and grammatical
achievement to writing ability ( rxyz= 0,392 F=33,458) (All in alpha 0,01).
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...............•........................................ i
ABSTRACT ......•............................................ ...................... .iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..... ........ .•............................................iv
LIST OF TABLES •... ...................................... ... ...... .... ........... vii
LIST OF FIGURES•..... ....... ... .•. •.... ....... .. ... ....• ......... ... •..........viii
LIST OF APPENDICES ...................•.... ....... .. ... ...... .............•..• ix
CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
1. 1 The Background of the Study ........ .. ... ......... . ..... .. .. ... ..... .. . ... ... I
I .2 The Problems of the Study .......... . ..... . .. .. ...... .. .. . ... ... .. .. . . .. ..... .. 3
1.3 The Objective of the Study ..... .. .. ... .. ..... .. .. ... .. ... . ... .... .. ... . ........ 3
1.4 The Hypothesis of the Study . . .... . . ..... ... .. . .. .. .. .. . ... .. . .. ............... 3
1.5 The significance of the Study .... ... . .. ... ... ... . .. ... ........ .... .. .. .... ... .. 4
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Aspects ofMetacognition .. ..... . .. . ... .... .... . .......... . ..... . . .... . ...... . . 5
2.1 .1 The Concept ofMetacognition .... . ... .. .. . ........ . ........ . ..... ..... I 0
2.1.2 The Process of Metacognition .. .... . .. ..... .. . ................ .. .. .. .. l 0
2.1.3 Strategy in Metacognition ................ .......... .... . . ... ........... 12
2.1.4 Theoretical Framework . ......... .... .... .. .... ........ .. .... .. ...... .. . 21
iv
2.2 Writing..... .... ......... .... ........ ....... ..................................... 25
2.2.1 Theories of Writing .................................................. .. 25
2.2.2 Factors Affecting Writing Quality .......................... ... ...... . 27
2.2.3 Measurement of Writing.................................... .. ...... . 28
2.3 Grammatical Achievement...... ...... .................. .................. .. . 29
2.4 Metacognitive performance, Writing Ability and Grammatical AchieVement. .......... .... ........ ..... .... ... ....... ................. ................ 33
2.4.1 Metacognition in Second Language Teaching....... ......... ....... 33
2.4.2 How Metacognition Works in Writing........... ... ... ....... ..... 38
CHAPTER
Ill
RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Research Design ......... .... .. .. .... ....... ................................. .... 52
3.2 Population and Sample............................ ........ ........ ..... .....
53
3.3 Instrument for Collecting Data.... ............... ... .. .. ....... ............ 53
3.3. 1 Metacognitive Questioner. .. .. .......... ... ..... ...... ............... 53
3.3.1.1 Questioner on Metacognitive Performance.......... ....
54
3.3.2 Instrument to Measure Grammatical Achievement....... ........ 55
3.3.3 Writing Ability Test. ................ .. .. ........... .................. . 55
3.3.4 Instrument Validation ...... ............. ............... ............... 56
3.3.4.1 Metacognitive Performance Test...................... .... 56
3.3.4.2 Grammatical Avhievement Test ........................... 56
3.3.4.3 Correlation of Raters Scores .. .... .... .... .. ... .......... .. 57
v
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1 Analysis .. ....... ..... .. .... ... .... ... . ... .. ... ...... . . ....... .... ....... ... ..... . 58
4.1.1 Descriptive Statistics................. .. ..... ... .... ........... ..... .. . .. 62
4.1.2 Testing Null Hypotheses ................ ..... ........................... 67
4.1.3 Correlations and Regressions .............. ............ .. .. .... ..... .... 67
73
4.3 Discussion ... . .................. .... .. ... ... ................... .. . ....... ..... .... 73
4.4 Recommendation ........ ........ ...... ....... .......................... ... .... ... 79
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions .. ...... ............................... ...... ... . ..... ..... .. ... .... .. 81
5.3 Suggestions ..... ...... .. ............ ... ..................... ... ... ... ... ......... 81
REFERENCES ..... .... .... ........ ... ..... .. ....... .... .. ............... ....... .. .. 83
APPENDICES ............................................................... ........ 85
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table
.......................... . ........... ......... 19
2.1
Basic Concept of Metacognition
2.2
Metacognitive Construct. ... ...... .. ...... ... ....................................... 21
2.3
Metacognitive Construct: Knowledge .................. .. . ........ . ....... ........ 23
2.4
Metacognitive Construct: Monitor .... .. ... ... ... .. ... ......... ................... 24
2.5
Metacognitive Construct: Control. .................... .. .. ... .... . ......... ........ 25
2.6
Aspects of Metacognitive in Foreign Language ............ . .. .. . ..... . ........ . 37
2.7
Metacogntive Elements .... .... ... ... .... ........................................... 59
2.8
Metacognitive Construct: Knowledge ........................ ............ ... .....50
2.9
Metacognitive Construe: Monitor ........ ....... ........ .......... ..... ....... .... 51
2.10
Metacognitive Construct: Control ......... ....... ... ........... .............. ..... 51
3.1
Metacofnitive performance ......... ... ....... ... .. ..... . ..... ................. .... .54
4.1
Raw Scores of Grammatical Achievement. ................ . ......... ...... ... ....59
4.2
Descriptive Statics .. ...... ........ . ....... ....... ........ ... ....... .. ..... . .. .. .... .. 62
4. 3
Descriptive statistics: V4, V5,V6 .... .. .. ...... . ... .. ...... ................. ....... 63
4.4a
Normal Distribution ofV4 ... ...... ............ ....................... .. .. ... ....... 64
4.4b
Normal Distribution of V5 ...................... ................................... 65
4.4c
Normal Distribution ofV6 .. .. .. ... ....................... ..... ............... ..... 66
4.5
Correlation Grammatical Achievement to Writing Ability .......... .......... 67
4.6
Correlations Metacognitive performance to Writing ability .................. 68
4.7
Descriptive Statistics .................................................................................... 68
Vll
4.8
Correlations Metacognitive Performance, Grammatical Achievement and
Writing ability ................... ..... .. ....... ......... ........................ .....69
4.9
Correlations Model Summary (b) .... ..... ........... ... . ... ... ... .. .... ........ .69
4.10
Correlation Model Summary (c) ..... .... .. .... ...... ... ...... ......... ..... . ..... 70
4.11
Anova (b) ..... ............ ............ ... ................... .......... ......... . ... .. 70
4.12
F Coefficients (a) .. ............. .. ...... ......... .. ....... ...... ... ...... ............ 70
4.13
Regression Standardized Residual Metacognitive Performance, GrammaTical Achievement and Writing Ability .. .................... .. .. .... ........ ....71
4.14
Normal Probability plot: Metacognitive Performance, grammatical AchieVement and Writing ability ............ ...................................... ..... 72
Vlll
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
Page
2.1
Metacognitive Construct. ... .. .... ..... ..... ........ ....... . .. .... . ... .. ... . 6
2.2
Metacognition Rationale Construct. .. ..... .. .. .... . .. ... ... .. ... .. . .. .... 17
2.3
Metacognition Concept. ...... . ..... ...... . ... ... ... .... .. . ...... ... ... ...... 18
2.4
Conceptual Framework ...... .................................... ... .........52
lX
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix
Page
1.
Tryout Metacognitive Performance .... .. ..... .... . .. ..... .............. 85
2.
Tryout grammatical Achievement .............. ... ....... .... ........ ...86
3.
Tryout Writing Ability ........ ... .............. .. ... ............... ...... 87
4.
Descritpve Statistics: V4, V5, V6 .. . ... .... ..... .. ... ...... .... ......... 88
5.
Questionnaire ofMetacognitive .... ... ....... ... .. .. ... ... .. ...... ..... 93
6.
Test of Grammatical Achievement .... ... ..... ....... ......... .. .. .... .97
7.
Test for Writing Ability ..... .... ... .. ... .. .... ............. .... ....... ... 102
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1
The Background of the Study
English students learn to write. They learn to write from writing instruction offered
at English Department. They express ideas in a paragraph or a text in English. To achieve
this, they receive instructions, from sentence to paragraph and from paragraph to meaningful
whole composition as text to make meaningfulness from instruction, they do learning to
write both during the instruction or outside. Learning a language takes complex abilities
( Hun and Ellis 2004; 289) and people commonly forget this process. But in doing learning
such as second or foreign language learning like English, these complex processes take
place. In learning to write students operate their complex capabilities and some of these are
metacognitive performance, and grammatical achievement.
Writing is a process. In simple form, a student expresses the idea in a sentence, a
paragraph or a composition. In second language writing, a student exercises to allocate
words to be meaningful sentences, and then she has to compose a whole set of sentences
into a paragraph, and a whole set of paragraph into a composition. In doing so, she operates
her capacity how to put words together, then sentences together
to be a meaningful
paragraph, and further, how to exercise to compose this meaningful paragraph, into a
meaningful text.
Again, since language learning is a complex process from exercising how to do
allocating words into sentences, then how to put sentences into a paragraph, and further
putting of paragraph into a text are altogether a complex process. First the students express
meaning by allocating the meanings through grammatical sentences. Further, in one aspect a
student doing a paragraph are combining all sentence meanings and communicate function
into a meaningful unit in a paragraph and such paragraph are reconstituted in a thematic
structure of a given new information ( Hun and Ellis 2004; 292). This meaning composition
in nature merits complexity of sentence processing into paragraph and from paragraph
processing into text.
In writing instruction, how the sentence processing into paragraph processing into
text are not well known. Not even known, whether a writer starts from a discourse into text
wording in a to-down processes, or from words into sentences, into paragraph , the bottomup process as many teachers assumes it. The students experiences in writing follows the
writing approach of instruction such as controlled composition,
rhetoric and process
approach. In control composition approach, the teacher controlled the vocabulary and the
structure of the language items and leave the message patterning and processing , to the
learners individuals enterprise. In other words, little attention is given to the process how to
make a coherent paragraph on the basis of how such abilities be gained by training the
learners in their complex thinking abilities particularly their metacognitive performance. In a
rhetoric approach the learner is faced and trained to perceive the complexity of
communication in writer- text-audience line to make a meaningful text for the reader. Again,
the complexity of paragraphing and composing are left to the learner's individual efforts to
the mastery of the writing arts. The aspects of metacognitive are more or less considered as
important factors in developing writing ability. With respect to these paragraphing and
composing aspects in writing ability, this thesis research the relation between metacognitive
2
performance, grammatical achievement and writing ability. In other words, the learners
given exercises in composition is a pragmatic reality.
1.2
The Problems of the Study
Since the research was interested in metacognitive performance, grammatical
achievement and writing ability, the problem of this thesis were as follows.
I. Is there any significant correlation between student's metacognitive performance and
writing ability?
2. Is there any significant correlation between student's grammatical achievement and
writing ability?
3. Is there any significant correlation between student's metacognitive performance and
grammatical achievement and writing ability?
1.3
The Objective of the Study
The Objective of this study, as conveyed in the problem was to examine the
correlation of student's metacognitive performance, grammatical achievement to writing
ability.
1.4
The Hypothesis of the Study
Ha : l. There is a significant correlation between student's metacogntive performance
to writing ability.
3
2. There is a significant correlation between student's grammatical achievement to
writing ability.
3. There is a significant correlation between student's metacogntive
performance and
grammatical achievement to writing ability.
1.5
The Significance of the study.
It is expected that findings of this study will be relevant and useful in some
aspects:
1. This study offers a tentative description of student's metacogntive performance.
2. This study discusses some aspects of metacogntive performance.
3. This study discusses some aspects of writing ability.
4. This study attempts to offer an explanation upon the nature of correlation between the
student's metacogntive performance, grammatical achievement and writing ability.
5. All this information may contribute as input access to the profile of English department
learners in the students under study.
4
CHAPTERV
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION
This chapter inventorizes what the study has carried out. The study is the correlation between
metacognitive performance, grammatical achievement and writing ability. After doing validation,
data collection, data analysis and hypothesis testing, and discussion on findings, thefollowing are the
conclution and suggestion.
5.1 Conclusions
Based on the statistic finding in the analysis,
the following are the statement of the
hypotheses that have been tested.
H 1: There is a significant correlation of the student's metacognitive performance to writing
ability. rxy = 0,38
H2 : There is a significant correlation of student's grammatical achievement to writing ability. r
xy=
0,55
H3 : There is a significant correlation between
student's metacogntive performance and
grammatical achievement to writing ability.
rxyz =
0,392 F=33,458
5.2 Suggestions
Based on the fmdings of this study and the discussion in the previous, the following are
recommendation
81
I. [t is suggested that English curriculum and particularly English subject proficiency
or skills accommodate metacognitive performances in language skills subjects. The
reason tor this is that there are significant correlation and intercorrelation among the
variables of grammatical achievement, metacognitive performance and writing
ability. It means that those variables exists in the students language mastery and
they relate to each other.
2. English instructors or lectures of English department may venture how to
accommodate metacognitive performance in their subjects in order to prove and to
sharpen the performance objective of their subjects, and the way how their syllabus
help improve the construct of the language proficiency they target in the syllabus. In
other words, metacognitive performance may function as governing principles of
the skills or competencies they are endeavoring during the classroom sessions.
3. English instructors in order to get confidence, may venture implementation of
metacognitive performance in their subject through action research in the
classroom ..
82
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