THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PEER ASSESSMENT STRATEGY IN IMPROVING STUDENTS

WRITING ABILITY
BY: RODIAL HADI
NPM:170114035

ABSTRACT
Zulfiani: "the effectiveness of peer evaluations in improving the writing skills of fourth
semester students at STKIP HAMZANWADI SELONG University 2013-2014.
This study aims to get an overview of the effectiveness of peer assessment in improving
the writing skills of fourth semester students from the English department of the 2013-2014
Academic Year. In this study, the approach used was a qualitative approach with a type of
classroom action research. The number of students used as a sample of 133 students.
This research is in accordance with the introspection that the researcher did after analyzing
the habits of students who received new languages from elementary school to university level.
From the results of this analysis, student interest declined due to a lack of time for writing
activities and less use of background knowledge. Students need to enter their own unique goals
or approaches to writing. If the student cannot enter the goal given the previous knowledge,
students will be lazy and cause depression and that can make writing motivation low.
After looking at these facts the researchers wished to improve the ability of students to
write using the technique of The Effectiveness of Peer Assessment Strategy In Improving
Students Writing Ability.

Keywords: Students ability, Peer Assessment Strategy.

Introduction

As well –known that writing skill is one crucial elements in four language skills
listening,speaking,reading,and writing- to master in communicational means. A great user of the
language must master the skills. In order to realize it, the skill should be support by clear
explanation and instruction of writing proses by (depdiknas, 2006). The main purpose of
teaching English is to develop students’ competence in language skills. Generally, those
language skills divided into two categories skill; receptive skill (listening and reading) and
productive skill (speaking and writing). In productive skills especially writing, students demand
tobe able to produce or express their ideas, fellings, or knowledge inform or written language. It
is the most difficult skill tobe mastared by students because student have to think about aspects
of writing and call their prior knowledge about the topic of writing.

It caused the most teacher provide less portion of time for witing activities and they find
some difficulties in teaching writing. These situation affect student ability in writing. Due to the
writing pocess, students as must be able to draw on background of knowledge and it is comples
mental proses in developing new insight. To write well, students need to incorporate the purpose
or frompt into their own unique approach to writing. If the students cannot incorporate the
purpose and recall their prior knowledge, the students will get stuck and cause the student’s
depression it drivers the students motivation in learning writing become low.

Peer assessment is not just for giving assessment but its more than how to involve students
in teaching process. In peer assessment, students work with their peers to evaluate their works’.
Students discuss and share the paper or writing to get the regular feedback. It can improve
students’ writing ability because when students learn to evaluate the work of their peers’ they are
extending their own opportunities to learn how to write (cramer, 1982, cited in O’ malley, 1996,
p.156), it drivers student to learn more about writing and responsibilities as an evaluator of his or
her peer. It is also decrease students fear of being assessed by teacher and create the fun learning
classroom atmosphere. Students have chance to edite re-their works after being assessed by their
peers or classmates.

Concidering the advantages of peer assessment, the present researcher was interested in
investigating the effectiviness of peer assessment strategy in improving students’ writing ability
of the fourth smester of English department of STKIP Hamzanwadi selong in the academic year
2013/2014.
Literature Review
Improving Students Writing Ability
Writing ability is one of the skill or ability that has to be mastered by students because its support
all school subjects. Students would be able to express their ideas and feeling by English
writing.learning writing as a foreign language was not as easy as learning native language;
student will meet all of learning problems dealing vocabulary, grammer, and structure to
overcome those problems, teachers had to use appropriate techniques or method so that the
students’ writing ability could be improved such as using peer assessement
“It must be significant i.e. it should tell the audiences/ reader something they want or
need to know; it must be clear i.e. easy to fine/ understand the meaning; it must be unified and
well organized; it must be economical; not long winding and wasting time when reading it; it
must add quality development i.e. key points must be supported, and it must be grammatically
accepted i.e. no mistakes in usage and mechanics.”

Peer assessment stategy

Peer assessment strategy was one of the ways to improve students’ involvement in teaching and
learning process so that the students were not getting bored since it is the most difficult skill to
be mastered. It was important for the teachers in order to create fun learning classroom
atmosphere. The present researcher limited the field of the study as follow: the subject of study
was limited to the fourth semester students of English department of STKIP Hamzanwadi selong
in the academic year 2013/2014 while the object of the study was limited to the effectiveness of
peer assessment strategy in improving students’ writing ability.
Metodology
Research Design
Research design is defined as a planning and an otline on how the researcher comprehends
the interrelation forms among the variables which are investigated (Anggoro. Et al, 2007, citedin
Husniati, 2011, p. 20). In order to achieve the aims of the research, it is necessary to apply a
suitable method among various kinds of metods that could be used. Therefore, the present
researcher counducted an experimental research which aimed at finding the effectiveness of peer
assessment strategy and how does it worked to influence the students writing ability. By
manipulating made a difference on the subject of research.
The present researcher chose pre-experimental design that involved a single group which
had given the pre-test, treatment, and the post-test. The result of the pre-test and the post-test
compared and analyzed by the present researcher using statistical computation to see the
percentage of students achievement in writing ability after the treatment. The present researcher
used one single group pre-test-post-test design because this design was simpler than one shot-
case study although it still has some weaknesses.

Participants
The subjects of the study were of the fourth semester students of English Departement Of STKIP
Hamzanwadi Selong in the academic year 2013-2014. This university is a university within the
scope of the Nahdlatul Wathon boarding school located in Pancor-Selong, East Lombok, West
Nusa Tenggara. with the number of classes in semester IV is 133. class IV A 28 people, class IV
B 35 people, class IV C 35 people and class IV D 35 people.

Technique of data colletion

In collecting the data, the researcher took data from the students’ pre-test and post-test score
which assessed base on the scoring rubric above.
a. Pre-test
 Pre-test was given to the subjects before applying peer assessment. It was aimed at
measuring the degree of students’ writing ability before treatment. The test was asubjective
test informof instructions.
b. Treatment
After giving the pre-test, the present researcher explained about the material by using peer
assessment strategy. In this case, the students were asked to write some genre of text which
consists of students’ arguments, comparison, and couse and effect relation. The work was
submitted by present researcher, and distributed again to the students to be assessed by
their peer’s based on the rubric scoring that had been given by the present researcher.
Before assessing the work, the researcher explained a little about the scoring rubric which
was given to the student. The students had to give feedback to their peer’s work before
return it back. This treatment was conducted for few meeting along with some exercising
in every meeting.
c. Post-test
Mean while, post-test was given to the subject after applying peer assessment in teaching
and learning process. The instrument in this research was in form of written test as well as
the pre-test.

Findings
Based on that opinion, the test absolutely needed to measure the students writing ability in
teching and learning process. It was aimed at knowing the succesfull of peer assessment in
teaching writing skill. Before giving the test to the students, the tests had to pass through the
readability test.

Dicussion
After calculating the data, the present researcher found that peer assessment strategy was
effective improving students writing ability. It can be seen from the mean score of pre-test and
post-test. It was 65.5 for pre-test and 73.21 for the post-test. It also can be seen from the result
standar defiation of both pre-test and post-test. The satndar defiation of pre-test was 7.68 and
8.42 for post-test. In peer assessment, the student shad chance to explore their knowledge in
writing and assessing their peers work because theirs conference activities that the mean them
tobe responsible for their work eit her as writer or assessor. In conferencing the work, students
this cused subjects mostly aspects of writing and it was really interested for them. It created fun
learning classroom atmosfhere.

Conclusion
Referring to the result of study either mean score, standard deviation, or test the present
researcher took some conclusion.
It mean that peer assessment was significantly effective in improving students’ writing ability of
the fourth semester of English department of STKIP Hamzanwadi selong in the academic year
2013/2014. In teaching writing especcislly by applying peer assessment strategy, there are some
main point that must be noticed by lecturers to achieve the goal of teaching easily. Those are:
students interest of the subject, students involvement in teaching and learning process, the
chance for students to explore their knowledge or ideas, the importance of lecturers feedback for
students work.
References
Cramer,R. L. (1982) informal approaches to evaluating children’s writing. In
J.J.pikulski and T . eds., approaches to the informational evaluation of
reading, 80-93. Newark, del:international reading association.
Depdiknas. (2006). Peraturan menteri pendidikan nasional No: 22. Jakarta:
Direktorat pendidikan dasar dan menengah.
Husniati. (2011). The effect of organizing and copying strategy toward students’
structure mastery for the eight grade of Mts. NW aik Anyar in the school
year 2010-2011 . undergraduate thesis. Unpublished. STKIP Hamzanwadi
selong.
O’ Malley, J. M. and Pierce, L. V. (1996). Authentic assessment for English
language learners. Practical Approaches for teachers. United State of
Americs: Addision-Wesley Publishing Company.