10.1 Social or Interpersonal Aspect
24 Murtisari‟s 2015
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experience, claiming that students basically could learn to assume responsibilities as they truly worked according to their own roles in the group. That is to
say, Murtisari emphasized that leadership skills were not necessarily practiced through the role of a leader only, since all roles did matter to enable students to improve their
leadership skills. For that reason, group work may be a good teaching technique to train students to commit to their own duties.
The next data in Figure 2 demonstrate that a huge number of students 80.7 either „disagreed‟ 63.9 or „strongly disagreed‟ 16.8 with the statement that they
often felt alienated by their friends in their group Question 4. This finding contradicts the statement of Börjesson et al. as cited in Hall Buzwell, 2012 claiming that some
dominant members will usually disregard a member whose ideas are not helpful for the task assigned. In other words, it can be implied that the majority of the twelfth graders in
Satya Wacana Senior High School perceived group work as more positive within this aspect. Aside from this, however, it is worth pointing out that around one-fifth of the
students 19.3 also expressed their „strong agreement‟ 1.7 or „agreement‟ 17.6 that they often felt discounted in working with some dominant friends, making the claim
of Börjesson et al. should not be overlooked as well. The following data in Figure 2 reveal a common problem usually faced by
students in group work, explicitly about having an argument among members Question
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Elisabet Titik Murtisari, M.TransStud., PhD, a lecturer of Satya Wacana Christian University, 25 February 2015 personal communication
25 6. With the help of Figure 2, it can be seen that more than half of the students 54.6
either „disagreed‟ 44.5 or „strongly disagreed‟ 10.1 that they often argued with other members during group work. This result indicates that slightly more positive
perceptions toward group work were exposed. In other words, it should also be noted that the total percentage of disagreement 54.6 was not much different from the one of
agreement 45.4, leading to a fact that there were still a number of students who „strongly agreed‟ 5.9 or „agreed‟ 39.5 that they frequently had arguments with
other members due to different working styles they had. The last question under this aspect demonstrates one disadvantage of group work
that a huge number of students 81.7 considered as true. This question discusses about whether too much time was wasted to talk than to finish the task Question 5. From
Figure 2, it can be seen that 24.2 of the students „strongly agreed‟ and 57.5 of them „agreed‟ with this disadvantage. This finding corresponds to Greenbank‟s 2007 study,
revealing his respondent‟s comment who expressed that group work was useless due to its tendency to become a companionship to associate with friends. Regardless of this,
ho wever, 18.4 of students still either „disagreed‟ 16.7 or „strongly disagreed‟
1.7 with such disadvantage. This means, there were still a few students who believed that group work could still be effective since they could concentrate more on finishing the
task instead of chitchatting with friends.
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