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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING COOPERATIVE LEARNING

STRATEGY IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION


OF THE 2nd GRADE OF STUDENTS OF SMK NEGERI 1
PURWOKERTO
OF 2017/2018 ACADEMIC YEAR

A Thesis Proposal

Written by:

AHMAD AZKA PRASETYO

MAGISTER OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING


UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH PURWOKERTO
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Problem
A language is a systematic means of communication by the use of
sounds or conventional symbols. It is the code we all use to express ourselves
and communicate to others. It is a system for communicating ideas and feelings
using sounds, gestures, signs or marks. A language is the written and spoken
methods of combining words to create meaning used by a particular group of
people.
For various historical and economic reasons, English has become the
dominant language of the world in the twenty-first century. English is the
language of science, air traffic control, and tourism, the Internet and to a very
large extent of trade and export. So that is why improving the quality in teaching
English is very important to prepare the learners of English as a Foreign
Language can be competitive as the human resource in their life.
There are infinite procedures teachers use to achieve desired effects
from their students, but there are general patterns these motivational tools follow.
In order for teachers to communicate with their students, they must identify with
their needs on an individual basis (Gawel, 1997). It is important to think about
motivation as the essence of language teaching because of the stark realities of
learning English. The condition which happens in class is the students feel afraid
of English as one of their subject. It is because they feel that English is very
difficult to learn. So that, most students do not have enough motivation to learn
and to get involve in the activity of learning. Because of these adverse conditions,
the students have to have extraordinary motivation in order to succeed at
learning English.
In teaching learning process, students’ motivation is very essential.
Students’ motivation in learning English can be a good modal for enhancing the
teachers’ objectives in their class.
Because of the importance of motivation, the teacher should be more
creative in order to enhancing students’ motivation in the class. It’ is necessary to
apply an affective learning technique remembering learning strategy is one of the
important tools which bring the significant role in the learning process.

B. Identification of the Problem


According to Prayitno (1989: 94) there are some aspects on teaching
which can influence students’ learning motivation. They are teacher, student,
material, media, method, and evaluation.
Based on the Prayitno statement above, method brings also the
significant influence in the success of the process of teaching learning, especially
in terms of improving students’ motivation in the class. So that, the effective
strategy should be applied by the teacher in achieving class objectives. There are
some strategies in learning. According to Johnson & Johnson (1991), there are
four types of learning. They are Competitive Learning, Individualistic Learning,
Collaborative Learning and Cooperative Learning.
1). Competitive Learning
Competitive learning exists when one student goal is achieved; all other
students fail to reach that goal. (Johnson & Johnson,1991). Competitive
learning can be interpersonal (between individuals), where rows are most
important or intergroup (between groups), where a group setting is
appropriate. Competitive learning can also be a cooperative activity when
the students formulate their own term and rules of the contest, giving them
ownership of the activity (Johnson & Johnson,1991).
2). Individualistic Learning
This type of learning exists when the learning or achievement of one student
is independent and separate from the achievements of the other students in
the class (Johnson&Johnson,1991). Individual learning implies that
knowledge and cognitive skill are assets that teacher can transfer to the
learner (Saloman & Perkins, 1998). This learning can be described as
teacher-centered; that is, the teacher provides the major source of
information, assistance, criticism and feedback. Students work alone and are
not expected to be interrupted by other students. In this regard, students may
be seated as far from each other as space permits.
3). Collaborative Learning
Collaborative learning takes place when students cooperate to construct a
consensus to an open-ended activity. Collaborative learning shares many of
the same traits as cooperative learning. It differs from cooperative learning
by being more students centered than teacher centered. Collaborative
learning provides a vehicle for social constructivism, where students are in
control of their own learning and ultimately, the outcome of their learning.
Cooperative learning is more concerned with a specific outcome based on
teacher facilitation and knowledge transition (Panitz, 1996). Collaborative
learning is best suited to an arrangement of groups, where students can
freely interact with each other and construct their ideas together.
3). Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning occurs when students work collaboratively towards a
common goal (Panitz, 1996). Achievements are positively correlated with the
other cooperating students. Students work together in small clusters or
groups.
C. Limitation of the Problem
The problem of this study is limited to the effectiveness of
cooperative learning as a strategy in English learning to increase students’
motivation for 2nd grade students of SMK Negeri 1 Purwokerto of 2017/2018
Academic Year.
D. Formulation of the Problem
From the identification and limitation above, the problem of this
research is “Is the any significant difference between learning motivation of
students who are taught using cooperative learning and those who are taught
without it?”
E. Objectives of the Research
The objective of this research is to find out whether there is any
significant difference between learning motivation of students who are taught by
applying Cooperative Learning and those who are taught without it.

F. Significance of the Research


1). For the teacher, it can be useful information about the effectiveness of
applying the Cooperative Learning strategy in the class.
2). The school can see how far Cooperative Learning influences the process of
English learning in improving students’ motivation.
3). The significance for English Education Department of Yogyakarta State
University is enriching and enlarging the knowledge of English Education
practitioners in making policies and arranging curriculum or lecturers’ method
in teaching.

CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED THEORIES

A. Literature Review
1. Motivation
a. The Definition of Motivation
Motivation is internal and external factors that stimulate desire and
energy in people to be continually interested in and committed to a job, role, or
subject, and to exert persistent effort in attaining a goal. Motivation is the
energizer of behavior and mother of all action (Business Dictionary, 2002).
Motivation is the internal condition that activates behavior and gives
it direction; energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior. The term is generally
used for human motivation but, theoretically, it can be used to describe the
causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation.
According to various theories, motivation may be rooted in the basic need to
minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure, or it may include specific needs
such as eating and resting, or a desired object, hobby, goal, state of being, ideal,
or it may be attributed to less-apparent reasons such as altruism, morality, or
avoiding mortality.
b. Types of Motivation
c. The Measurement of Motivation
2. Cooperative Learning
a. Definition of Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is defined as a system of concrete teaching
and learning techniques, rather than an approach, in which students are active
agents in the process of learning through small group structures so that students
work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning (Kagan, 1995).
Richards, Platt & Platt (1992) stated that cooperative learning is a
system of teaching and learning techniques in which students were active agents
in the process of learning instead of passive receivers of the product of any given
knowledge. They also pointed out that cooperative learning activities were often
used in communicative language teaching.
Cooperative learning is more than just groupwork. A key difference between
cooperative learning and traditional group work is that in the latter, students are
asked to work in groups with no attention paid to group functioning, whereas in
cooperative learning, groupwork is carefully prepared, planned, and monitored
(Jacobs, 1997; Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Ng & Lee, 1996). Instructional models
and structures have been designed, which teachers can adopt and adapt, to help
the group work operate more effectively by creating an environment for
interactive learning (Abrami et al, 1995).
With so many similarities in essence, cooperative learning was used
as a set of teaching methods or techniques to embody the spirit of
communicative language teaching by activating the students to work together in
small group.
b. The elements of Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which
small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of
learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a
team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping
teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students work
through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and
complete it.
Cooperative efforts result in participants striving for mutual benefit
so that all group members:
 gain from each other's efforts. (Your success benefits me and my success
benefits you.)
 recognize that all group members share a common fate. (We all sink or
swim together here.)
 know that one's performance is mutually caused by oneself and one's
team members. (We can not do it without you.)
 feel proud and jointly celebrate when a group member is recognized for
achievement.
Kagan (1995) shown that cooperative learning techniques:
 promote student learning and academic achievement
 increase student retention
 enhance student satisfaction with their learning experience
 help students develop skills in oral communication
 develop students' social skills
 promote student self-esteem
 help to promote positive race relations
He also stated that in principle, cooperative learning stuck to the
following five elements,
(1) Positive interdependence
a. each group member's efforts are required and indispensable for group
success
b. each group member has a unique contribution to make to the joint effort
because of his or her resources and/or role and task responsibilities
(2) Individual accountability
a. keeping the size of the group small. The smaller the size of the group, the
greater the individual accountability may be
b. giving an individual test to each student
c. randomly examining students orally by calling on one student to present
his or her group's work to the teacher (in the presence of the group) or to
the entire class
d. observing each group and recording the frequency with which each
member-contributes to the group's work
e. assigning one student in each group the role of checker. The checker
asks other group members to explain the reasoning and rationale
underlying group answers
f. having students teach what they learned to someone else
(3) Group processing
a. group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and
maintaining effective working relationships
b. describe what member actions are helpful and not helpful
c. make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change
(4) Face-to-face interaction
a. orally explaining how to solve problems
b. teaching one's knowledge to other
c. checking for understanding
d. discussing concepts being learned
e connecting present with past learning
(5) Interpersonal and small group skills
Teaching social skills such as leadership, decision-making, trust-building,
communication, and conflict-management skills.
c. Implementing Cooperative Learning in Teaching English
Cooperative learning as an effective teaching method in foreign
language education is the essential part in teaching English. Further
examinations on cooperative learning and language acquisition could be
inspected through three vital variables of input, output, and context, which
contributed to language acquisition to a great extent (Krashen, 1985; Kagan,
1995). An investigation revealed that cooperative learning had a dramatic positive
impact on almost all of the factors critical to language acquisition (Kagan, 1995).

B. Conceptual Framework
The concept of this study is shown by this following diagram.

Motivation

Teacher Student Material Media Method Evaluation

Strategy

Cooperative Learning

C. Hypothesis
Based on the above stated theory, the hypothesis can be formulated
as follows: “There is a significant difference between motivation of students who
are taught using Cooperative Learning and those who are taught without it”.
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD

A. Research Type
This research is a quantitative research. This study can be classified
into a quasi-experimental study. The design used is an in-tack group pretest-
posttest design that involves a group of students who belong to the experimental
group and the one belongs to control group. In this study, the treatment which is
given is applying cooperative learning in teaching learning process. (Arikunto ,
2010).

B. Variables of the Study


There are two variables. They are independent and dependent
variable. The independent variable of this study is cooperative learning. This
variable is represented by X. The dependent variable is students’ motivation
which is represented by Y.
The design of the research can be shown in this table.
Group Independent Dependent
Experiment X Y
Control - Y

C. Research Population and Design


The population on this study is two classes of the 2nd grade students
of SMk Negeri 1 Purwokerto of 2009-2010 Academic Year.
No. Class Classification (Group) Number of Students
1. XI TKJ 1 32 students
2. XI RPL 2 32 students

The selection group for the experiment and non-experiment (control


group) will use coin toss. The experiment group will be given cooperative learning
activities and no treatment for the second group. Here are the distribution of
treatment in the research.
Group Class Treatment Number of Students
Experiment XI TKJ 1 Cooperative Learning 32
Control XI RPL 2 - 32

D. Research Instrument
1. Instrument of the research
This study will use questionnaire as the instrument of the research
to gain data to see the significant result of students’ motivation.
2. Validity of the instrument
To see the validity of the instrument, the researcher uses Product
Moment Correlation formula.

3. Reliability of the instrument


The researcher uses Alpha Formula to check the reliability of the
instrument.

E. Data Collecting Technique


Data collection in this study uses the motivational questionnaire in
order to understand the students’ motivation toward learning English before and
after the treatment, a questionnaire containing some items was developed by the
researcher.

F. Data Analysis Technique


The technique of data analysis is examining the effects of the results
of the motivational questionnaire. As for the analysis of the motivational
questionnaires, each student’s responses to some items in the questionnaire are
scored with the help of the computer software of SPSS. The statistical results of
the questionnaire are compared for experiment and control group analysis.
REFERENCES

Abrami, P.C., Chambers, B., Poulsen, C., DeSimone, C., d’Apollonia, S., &
Howden, J. (1995) Classroom connections - Understanding and using
cooperative learning, Toronto: Harcourt Brace.
Adams, D.N. & Hamm, M.E. (1990) Cooperative learning - Critical thinking and
collaboration across the curriculum, Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.
Arikunto. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian Suatu Pendekatan Praktek. Jakarta : PT.
Rineka Cipta.
John, & John (1991). Learning Together and Alone. Minnesota: University of
Minnesota.
Jacobs, et al. (1997). Cooperative Learning in the Thinking Classroom.
Singapore.
Johnson, D.W. & Johnson, R.T. (1994) Learning together and alone (4th ed.),
Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Kagan, M., Robertson, L. & Kagan, S. (1995) Cooperative learning structures for
classbuilding, San Clemente, CA: Kagan Cooperative Learning.

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