How Students Employ Metacognitive Learning Strategies in

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents two major parts that is intended to address two research questions. First section explains how mind mapping technique helps students to develop their metacognitive learning strategies. Second section presents students’ implementation of metacognitive learning strategies in accomplishing the task. It is also followed by the findings and discussion.

A. How Students Employ Metacognitive Learning Strategies in

Accomplishing Weekly Report Assignments in Extensive Reading II Class. According to Hyde and Bizar 1989, in Mariam Muniz-Swicegood, 1994: 1 “metacognitive process are processes in which the individual carefully considers thoughts in problem solving situations through strategies of self-planning, self- monitoring, self-regulating, self-questioning, self-reflecting, and or self reviewing.” Similar to the previous explanation, according to Wenden 1987: 25 metacognitive learning strategy trained students oversee and regulate their learning by planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning activities. There are three categories of learning strategy proposed by O’Malley and Chamot 1995, as cited in Cotterall 2004:1, namely cognitive, socio-affective, and metacognitive. This part was merely intended to explore the metacognitive learning strategies employed by the students during the weekly report accomplishments. The 41 metacognitive learning strategies are strategies about learning process encompassed planning, monitoring, and evaluating Chamot et al., 1999:4. Therefore, this section is divided into three parts. They are planning, monitoring, and evaluating process. As stated by Dirkes 1985, in Mac Mahon, 2004:1 there are three internal process of metacognitive learning strategies which are depicted as follows:

1. Planning

Planning is a crucial element for students to become self regulated learners. In this process, good learners think about how they are going to approach and carry out given tasks. Furthermore, there are three aims of planning that will guide students along the process. First, it promotes students to build the general but comprehensive picture of the concepts or the principles. Second, it assists students to carry out upcoming tasks through strategies proposed before. Third, it enables students to generate a plan for the parts, sequences, main ideas, or language functions to be used in handling a task O’Malley, and Chamot, 1990; Benson, 2001: 82, in Ardi, 2007: 17. In short, planning is how students plan, organize, and schedule events daily, weekly, and monthly Chamot. et. al., 1999: 14. Based on what participants wrote in their weekly reflection sheets, the firsthand experiences to solve the problems became the ground to generate a future plan. Based on the obtained data, there were four kinds of planning strategies i.e. goals setting, time, creativity and steps to finish the report. First, most participants set goals every week based on the situation and priority. Participant no. 3, 10, 11 represented that most participants set goals. They wrote that: [I want to] To get [a] better mark A+ and to have better understanding in reading the articles. Participant no. 3, Reflection III. Searching an interesting article because I will be the presenter in [of] my report. Participant no. 10, Reflection III. [I want to] To improve my reading skill and to expand my knowledge. Participant no. 11, Reflection II. Generally, most participants set goals such as to get a better score, to improve reading skill, to search more interesting articles, and to expand knowledge. It meant most students had good intension to improve their quality of report. Thus, goals setting directed them to focus on what they should do to perform better. In the obtained data, the most frequent goals were to get a better score. Second, it was important to manage the time to finish the report successfully. Participants arranged the time to carry out the goals setting. Based on the informal interview with participants, students had various responsibilities, such as joining organizations, and part-time jobs. Thus, it was crucial for them to arrange and to prioritize which activities and assignments should be finished first. Participant no.3 and no. 4 conveyed the time planning as follows: I will have much [want to have] better preparation to get [a] better mark in the next reading report. [I want to] To have better preparation, especially, in managing time more efficient. [I must manage my time well] Participant no. 3, Reflection III, IV Finishing the report as soon as possible, then I can prepare the next report better and prepare at least 4 articles for next report. Participant no. 4, Reflection IV It was understood that to pursue a better quality of a report, participants managed their time by preparing the report long before the due date or making the report as soon as possible. To stick to time planning was important in order to finish the weekly reports well. Third, it was interesting to know that few numbers of participants planned to make their weekly report more interesting by adding color on their mind map. It showed their creativity and understood that a mind map as an art. Participant no. 2 and 5 clearly mentioned [I] read [an] article. [I] understood, [I did …] do task. I gave color in my mind mapping and did the task carefully. [I] Asked some friends and lecturer. Participant no. 8, Reflection III ....Trus asyik aja sih pakai mind mapping kan bisa main warna juga kan jadi lebih menarik gitu. Participant no. 5, Interview It was fun to add color in my map. The report became more interesting Fourth, participants carried out upcoming tasks based on steps they proposed in reflection sheets. The most frequent steps were categorized into five main steps namely: accessing the reading materials, selecting reading materials, skimming and scanning, making a mind map, finishing other parts of the report, and last but not least revising the report in terms of mind map, content, grammar, and completeness. From the weekly reflection sheets, several steps proposed became a pattern that regularly executed to finish the report. Several participants stated that: Skimming, scanning, find [finding] important key words, finish [finishing] a report. Participant no. 1, Reflection III Search article [articles] on Friday, read [an] article well, find keywords, make a mind map, and finish[a] report at the latest before submission day Participant no. 5, Reflection I Ya kalau aku sih…..um…pertama sih nyari artikel yang udah sesuai dengan yang aku rencanain sebelumnya. Kalau dah ketemu aku baca-baca trus aku nyari ide pokoknya. Setelah itu aku membuat mind mappingnya. Habis itu reportnya semua. Aku membuatnya draft dulu baru aku ketik. Aku ga bisa kalua langsung. Participant no.7, Interview First of all, I searched articles that suited to my prior plan. After that, I read and searched the main ideas. Next, I finished the mind mapping and all parts of the report. I could not directly type it in a computer so I drafted it on a piece of paper first and then I typed it. 30 minutes for picking the article because I have collections of journals. 2 hours for working on the report. 30 minutes for revising the report. Participant no. 3, Reflection V Participant no. 3 wrote a plan to revise the weekly reports was significant to the quality improvement of the report. However, only few students really checked their reports after finishing the reports. It happened because most of students took much time on making a report. To sum up, the data from weekly structured reflection sheets showed that participants arranged their plan. Planning was categorized into four kinds, namely goals setting, time, creativity, steps to finish report as well. In the reflection sheet, students from Excellent Learner EL, Good Learner GL and Fair Learner FL did plan their weekly report. One students form Fair Learner FL did not make a plan regularly. He did not mention clearly the planning process on reflection sheets. From the discussion above, it was concluded that the planning process was essential to direct the learning process to be well- organized.

2. Monitoring

To begin with, it is common that students find problems during accomplishing a task. Students need to carefully identify difficulties and then choose strategies to solve problems and it leads to learning progress. Those actions reflected one of the learning autonomy characteristics which is to responsible and actively take part in their learning. A good learner will proactively commit to their learning process and solve their problem actively and appropriately Benson, 2001, in Dafei, 2007:2. However, the success in learning depends on students having a responsible attitude by knowing the most effective learning strategies. There were several difficulties that emerged among students viz. tool, language proficiency, time management, and physical and mental condition. Monitoring refers to a strategy in which students become aware of their errors, verify, and correct understanding or performance in finishing the assignment, for example: students correct their pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary of their speech in order to make their listeners understand Chamot, 1985, in Wenden, 1987:3. In this sense, students correct their diction, grammar, and mind map format. There are two element of monitoring process. First, students monitor how they are doing when they work. Second, students monitor themselves by making necessary adjustments on how they are working Chamot et. al, 1999: 20. Briefly, students use this strategy to measure their effectiveness while accomplishing the task. In the beginning, almost all students said that they faced difficulties in applying mind manager program. Participant number 6, and 9 stated their limitation about the tool. They practiced it outside the classroom so as to become skillful. Itu kesulitannya biasanya ngotak-atik menunya mind map program. Itu kan baru ya buatku di semester ini. Participant no. 6, Interview I found it difficult to optimize all menus in mind map program. It was a new thing in this semester. Ya kan di mind manger itu ada banyak menu..kadang bikin bingung ini itu buat apa Participant no. 9, Interview II Mind manager program is full with menu programs and it with what the menu is used for. As mature learners, they did not give up to learn over again. They practiced the mind manager software outside the classroom. Ya memang harus belajar keras sendiri menggunakan mind manager. Participant no. 1, Interview I must learn to use mind manager by my self. ya…akhirnya jadi terbiasa…kan sering pakai juga, latihan-latihan juga…Participant no. 7, Interview Finally, I got used to mind manager software because of practicing. Ya aku pelajari mind manager di luar kelas lah..di waktu senggang atau pas sekalian baca artiklenya. Participant no. 9, Interview I learned mind manger program outside the class such as in my spare time or when I read the article. A printer sometimes became the problem also. Participant no. 5 told that: My printer sometimes can’t print with the exact color [colors]. For example, in the computer I give [a] pink color but the result is yellow. Participant no. 5, reflection IV Though she was not satisfied with the color, she still printed it and for the next report she planed to print at her friend’ computer or in a computer rental. I can solve it. It’s okay with yellow. Participant no. 5, reflection IV Second, the constraint in finishing the weekly report was a bad time management. There were so many things to do as a university student, either studying in class or joining school’s activities or even running a part timer job. Facing such busy life, students were still responsible to carry out both their compulsory assignments and their jobs. The consequences were they had to spend much time and energy to do all those things. Hence, it was crucial to make priority of what tasks they should carry out first. The self-responsibility played an important role in this case. Most participants reported that they had certain limitation to manage time. Participant no. 5 who joined school activities realized that it was important to set a good time management. She was quite stressful because the due day of submitting the mind mapping task and AMT weekly quiz was on the same day. …the day of report submission is the same with [as] AMT quiz. Participant no. 5, reflection III. She knew that both of those subjects were important. She conveyed that it was difficult to prepare both the Extensive Reading report and the AMT quiz. She solved her problem by finishing the report rightly after school so her weekly report could be finished before the due day and after that she studied for AMT class. I rearranged my schedule and tried to do the task right after studying at the campus. Participant no. 5, reflection III. Almost similar to participant no.5, participant no.10 felt this semester was full with tasks. Moreover, most of assignments needed several amount of time to carry out. As I have a lot if tasks and this task needs a lot of time to work on it. I find it difficult to manage time. Participant no. 10, Reflection III In order to finish her weekly reports, she preferred to stay up late and used her spare time to finish the task. I stayed awake until night to finish my task and decreasing [reduced] my spare time. Participant no. 10, Reflection 3 When most students encountered a limitation to manage time, only participant no.7 showed her persistence to stick to her plan. She did not have problem in managing the time. In her reflection she wrote that: All I have planned work well. Participant no.7, Reflection IV From the explanation above, it can be concluded that most participants from Excellent Learner EL, Good Learner GL or Fair Learner FL encountered a difficulty to manage the time though they had set a plan before. It happened because they had many school assignments and activities. So far they were able to handle the problem and submit their weekly report punctual. Only one participant from Excellent Learner EL division had no difficulty in managing the time. The third constraint is that students also faced difficulty in language proficiency. Every week they had to read one article to report. It was also possible that students found the article was difficult to understand. If the article was too difficult to comprehend, it means they needed much time to understand the important information and it might be a burden. Here, participant no. 3, and 9 solved the language proficiency by reading the article more than one. They noted that: When I found difficulties I just read the text again Participant no.9, Reflection II. Ya daripada cape-cape nyari lagi ya tetep ta baca-baca lagi…ta ulang sampai aku dapat poinnya. Participant no.3, Interview I kept reading it until I got the points then searched articles over again. The way participant no.8 solved her constraints in language proficiency differently from the previous participants. She reflected that …I’ll actively ask opinion from friends Participant no.8, Reflection III Participant no.11 often changed the article if it was too confusing. If she thought that the article was boring and difficult to understand, she changed the article and topic. I have many tasks to do this semester so I have difficulties to manage my time. Sometimes I get uninteresting articles and the language is too difficult for me. I used skimming to read faster. I also changed my article with easier on. Participant no. 11, reflection II. From the obtained data, half of the participants kept reading the article until they obtained the main ideas though the language was difficult. Other students were directly changed the articles to save time and energy. Fourth, physical and emotional conditions were constraints which are faced by students. Physical condition can be sickness and tiredness. Emotional condition can be laziness and boredom. Participant no. 11 wrote that laziness and desperation were appeared to be her problem when she found a difficult article. Fortunately, she kept struggling to finish the task. When I found a difficult article, I felt very lazy and desperate to finish it. Participant no. 11, Reflection V I struggle to stay focus and manage my time. Participant no. 11, Reflection V. Yes. During finishing the report, I have got stomachache so that the process of typing the report is a little bit disturbed. It was a bit boring actually Participant no. 2, Reflection IV. It was unavoidable that a student became lazy and bored when she had to face a task that beyond her capacity. They also felt boring when they faced a monotonous task also. However, these internal problems were possible to be overcome by students. It certainly required high a motivation, persistent and willingness to finish assignments. After identifying and solving the problem, students also monitored their progress during the learning process. They way they monitored the learning process was identified as re-reading, and comparing. First, rereading the journal was one of the ways to monitor the learning process. They checked the result of the mind mapping and other parts of the report before they submit. In this case, they were able to revise their mind map, put colors on a mind map, and checked grammar. Participant no. 4 and 3 pointed out the way they monitored their learning process: Ya kan karena kita harus bener bener mengerti bacaanya dulu. Intinya perparagraf, alurnya. Kalau baca pas informasi penting ya aku stabilo. Kalau ga baca sungguh-sungguh, mind mapnya kan ga nyambung dengan isinya tulisan. Jadi agak ribet gitu. Ya aku baca lagi, aku teliti lagi hasil kerjaanku. Kadang muncul ide point penting yang baru ya ta tambah di mind mapping. Participant no. 4, interview I really needed to understand the content of each paragraph and plot in a reading text. I highlighted the important information. If I did not read the text thoroughly, the mind map did not represent the article. So I read over again, and checked my work. If several ideas or important points came up, I added those on my mind mapping. …..2 hours for working on the report. 30 minutes for revising the report. Participant no. 3, Reflection V. Almost similar to participant number 4 and 3, participant number no. 5 said that she corrected her work before submitted it, nonetheless, she sometimes failed to check it again because she run out o time. … Kalau udah jadi ya aku koreksi lagi. Nyambung ga dengan isi bacaan di artikel yang tadi aku baca. Terkadang ngga sempat aku cek lagi karena banyak tugas ini itu…waktunya kurang gitu. Participant no. 5, Interview … After that I corrected [the work] again whether my interpretation was right or wrong. Sometimes, I could not re-check my work because other tasks waited. Second, comparing the latest work to the previous one was also performed by the students to monitor their learning progress. It made the students more aware about strengths and weakness of their weekly reports. Such comment and feedback written by the lecturer really helped students to figure out a better upcoming task. In addition, looking up the previous task was able to control the quality of their work so they can produce better weekly assignments. Below were excerpts from participant no. 2. By looking up his previous reports on his writing style, form of mind map and teacher’s commentary, she wrote a better report. Mind mapping…[A mind mapping technique] I found my self easier to make [a] mind map and set [analysed] the idea of the article. It’s [today’s report was] more understandable than my previous report. Participant no.2, Reflection V. It also happened to participant no. 4. Besides she rechecked her works, she also compared her report to the earlier ones. She found that she made progress on her organizing ideas. Participant no. 6 reviewed that her writing was getting better. My report is getting better especially in the organization of idea. Participant no. 4, Reflection IV. …in the previous article I wrote the main idea too broad. But today’s work I wrote better and clearer Participant no. 6, Reflection 3. On top of it, all the participants, either from Excellent Learner EL, Good Learner GL, and Fair Learner FL monitored their weekly report accomplishment. The monitoring strategies namely re-reading and comparing were carried out by the students to monitor their weekly assignment. Students identified problems and chose effective strategies to result better learning outcome.

3. Evaluating

In this process, students are able to reflect their strengths and weaknesses of their learning process after accomplishing the task. The students judge the process and learning outcomes including the strategy use, language proficiency, and the ability to perform O’Malley and Chamot, 1990; Benson, 2001, in Ardi, 2007: 25. Accordingly, Chamot at, al. 1999: 27 said that this process allows learners to observe if they carry out the plans and check how well strategies helped them. It means students will think whether they met the goals or did not they will find why it happened and find what they can do next. In accordance, there are two evaluating strategies which were recognized as process and result. First, students judged the process of their learning. It meant that each student observed if they performed the plans and checked how well the strategies helped them in finishing the report. They should be able to reflect the plans and chose strategies to carry out the task since the process during accomplishing a weekly report certainly influence the learning outcomes as well. It was reflected that almost all participants evaluated their learning process. Participant no. 3 mentioned her strengths and weaknesses after completing the report. She realized that composing a report took much time than typing in computer. Her mind map enabled her to represent the concise idea of a reading passage and then she diminished plagiarism. …lama buatnya kalau aku. Atur ini atur itu …tapi ngetik cepet.. Kalau kelebihannya…ya lebih singkat to the point dan itu bisa represent apa yang ada di artikel tadi. Dan meminimaliasi plagiarism. Participant no. 3, interview I took more time in making areport. I should organise many parts. Fortunately, I was able to type faster. It [mind mapping technique] is concise and it was able to represent the article. It diminished plagiarism. Participant no. 7 wrote in her reflection sheet that after several processes, she finally produced good mind map reports and she made progress in term of reading comprehension, time management and better reports. Yes. I can use mind map more effectively and beautifully. All have made progress in my opinion. Participant no. 7, Reflection V. I feel in progress now because I can use mind mapping well. Participant 8, Reflection III During several weeks, participant no. 9 said that he was accustomed to reading longer articles and moreover he was happy when he applied mind mapping technique seriously. I feel in progress because now I accustomed to read [reading] longer article[articles]. Participant no. 9, Reflection III. I am happy. I got experience [experiences] in using mind mapping technique. Participant no. 9, Reflection III. Likewise, from the reflection sheets and an interview, participant no. 1 truly concerned about her performance in making a mind map from week to week. At the first, all his strategies such as skimming and scanning worked well but his mind map technique did not work well. But then, he evaluated that he finally used mind mapping successfully. My mind mapping isn’t really good. Scanning, skimming work [worked] effectively Participant no. 1, Reflection I. For this report, I successfully using [used] mind mapping. Participant no. 1, Reflection III. Second, evaluating strategy is on evaluating the result of weekly report accomplishments. As a result, they were able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the report result. According to Holec 1981, in Dafei 2007:2 one of the aspects of autonomous learners which are also in line with the evaluation strategies is that students must be able to evaluate what have been acquired. It evaluated how much they accomplished the task and the quality improvement of their product. Some participants in the reflection sheets were aware of the weaknesses of their journal responses. They revealed that their reports were not yet the best of them. They still made an incomplete report, poor grammar composition, and an unclear mind map. This situation aroused dissatisfaction to the participants. For example, in general participant no. 3 stated that she did not create the best report: …since I had a stomachache, I feel [felt] that my report is not optimal. I know I can do it much better actually. Participant no. 3, Reflection IV The article is difficult and [I had a] bad time management I guess. I’m not really satisfied. This time, I learned how to appreciate time and to manage my time to finish the task Participant no. 2, Reflection IV On the other hand, large number of participants showed their satisfaction toward the work. They evaluated that their report was improving from the earlier ones. I feel satisfied with the result. I know that to make a good result I need to experience a process that not always runs well. Participant no. 6, Reflection V. On her fifth reflection, she experienced several unlucky conditions such as her sickness, and her electronic tools. Nevertheless, she successfully overcame such obstacles, even she took those situations as learning experiences. Thus, it made them to be well prepared. Participant no. 1 realized that he was not skilful in applying mind manager program. He was willing to learn over again until he was skilful in running the program. Even so, he conveyed that he enjoyed the weekly task because he did all the weekly report as exercises to obtain much information. I haven’t understood the mind mapping technique well so I want to try it more. Participant no. 1, Reflection I This task trains my self to get more information and then inform report it to another. Participant no. 1, Reflection I Even though mind mapping technique is my new way in reading. But, I’m satisfied. For this report, I successfully using mind mapping. Participant no. 1, Reflection III In sum, all participants from all divisions were able to perform evaluating strategies by judging the quality of their report result and also assessed how well they carried out such plans and strategies in the process of accomplishing the report. Even though, most of participant did not write clearly on the reflection sheets, they certainly apprehended what they had experienced. Metacognitive learning strategies were exhibited by the students represented students’ active engagement and control over their learning in a good level. The students indeed planned, monitored and evaluated the report completion. While accomplishing the project, students encountered constraints and solved it using available resources. They certainly obtained great number of learning experience and there’s no teacher’s interfere in their learning which means they successfully employed metacognitive learning strategies after all.

B. How Mind Mapping Technique Developed Students’ Metacognitive Learning Strategies