Knowledge about Writing and Writing Performance of Indonesian EFL Undergraduate Students

RINGKASAN Rofiqoh. 2018. Knowledge about Writing and Writing Performance of Indonesian EFL Undergraduate Students, Dissertation, English Education Program, Graduate Program, State University of Malang. Advisors: (1) Prof. Ali Saukah, M.A., Ph.D.; (2) Prof. Dr. Yazid Basthomi, M.A.; (3) Prof. Utami Widiati, M.A., Ph.D. Key words: knowledge about writing, writing performance, Indonesian EFL undergraduate students The present study investigatesthe relation between knowledge about writing and writing performance. The knowledge covers four aspects: process, system, content, and genre knowledge. The system knowledge is classified into three sub-aspects: vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.The purposes of the present study are twofold –to examine the relation between knowledge about writing and writing performance, and to know the strength of the contribution of the overall and individual aspects and sub-aspects of knowledge about writing to the writing performance. The relation was seen from the whole subjects, more skilled writers, and less skilled writers. This study employed a quantitative correlational research design. The research subjects were 79 undergraduate students taking English Language Teaching Study Program at FKIP UniversitasTadulako, Palu, Sulawesi Tengah. They were at the second year of their study (at the fourth semester). The study was carried out in several steps. The first step was to develop the research instruments, i.e. a test on knowledge about writing and a test on essay writing, to validate them, and to try out them. The next step was to collect the research data through both the test on knowledge about writing and the writing test in two days. On the first day, the students were assigned to write an opinion essay for 90 minutes,and then, on the second day, they were asked to do the test on knowledge about writing for 90 minutes, too. The last step was to analyze the data. To answer the first question, thedata were calculated by using Pearson correlation with SPSSto examine the relation between the overall aspect of knowledge about writing and the writing performance. Then, to answer the second question, the data were calculated by using regression analysis with SPSS to examine the strength of the contributionof each aspect towards the writing performance. For the first question, the present study found positive relation between knowledge about writing and writing performance. The relation was moderate, meaning that the more knowledge about writing the students possess, the better writing performance they obtain.Yet,the relation is not strong. When the relation was seen thoroughly by separating the subjects into more and less skilled writers, the results were different. For the more skilled writers, the relation was not significant,meaning that the more or less knowledge about writing the more skilled writers possess does not influence their writingperformance. For the less skilled writers, the relation was significant, meaning that the more knowledge about writing the students possess, the better writing performance they achieve. For the second question, thisstudy showed that simultaneously the overall knowledge about writing significantly contributed to the writing performance, but partially did not. By using Goodness of fit, the result of analysis showed that the knowledge about writing contributed 33% to the writing performance. It means that the development of the students’ knowledge about writing can enhance only a third of their writing performance. In conclusion, regardless of the finding of the insignificant relation from the more skilled writers, the findings indicate that the knowledge about writing plays an important role in enhancing the writing performance.The pedagogical implication is that all of the aspects of knowledge aboutwriting need to be taught explicitly in writing instruction in order to develop students’ writing skills and to enhance their writing performance. The limitation ofthe presentstudyis on the way of administering the test carried out only once, sothe scores obtained from the measure of knowledge about writing have not reflected the students’ real knowledge yet. For the further study, researchers are suggested tocarry out the test more than once, so the reliability of the instruments will be more accurate, and the scores will be more definite.Another limitation is about the research variables. One predictor variable with several sub-variables as investigated in the present study is considered small for statistical calculation, so therelation and contribution of knowledge about writing to the writing performanceare moderate.The relation and contributioncan increaseby adding the number of variables. Therefore, for a further study, other variables like language proficiency and motivation are also suggested to be included in the investigation.