Students’ Perception on the implementation of Group work in

Teaching and Learning Process at English Education Department

A Skripsi Proposal

Submitted to Language Education Faculty as a Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

Ricco Fajar Agustian

20130810189

English Education Department

Language Education Faculty

 Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

2017

Chapter One

Introduction

This chapter presents several points to declare a definite discussion

of the main problem of the research. In this chapter, the researcher talks

about the background of the research, the identification and limitation of

the research, the research question, the purpose of the research and the

significances of the research.

Background of the Research

Teaching and learning process is a formal activity undertaken in

educational context that is supported by a teacher to convey materials

based on the determined regulations. There are some models of teaching

and learning that can be applied by teachers to teach students, such as

presentation, games, students’ centered learning and group work

discussion. Li and Lam (2013) said that presentation, games, group work

discussion and role play are some models of learning commonly used by
teachers. Furthermore, one of the important things in teaching and

learning process is group discussion.

Group discussion is a group which consists of more than one

student to convey their ideas in solving an issue. According to Hyams

(2004), group discussion is listening from the members’ shared

experiences as explanation of their opinion. Basically, group work is an

effective learning model to produce variety of ideas from students. As a

result, students can share and learn each other. As Azer (2004) said that

collaborative learning or working in groups broadly refers to students

work together and use a variety of practices in order to answer questions,

use course materials or to solve problems. One EFL study has been

conducted related to this topic of group work. Sofiandi, Salam and

Riyanti (2013) revealed that group work technique can improve students’

ability in understanding the meaning of words and mentioning the detail

information from the generic structure of reading text.

Whereas group work discussion is one of the important activities in

learning process, there are some problems that faced by students in doing

group work. The problems can be wrong in choosing students and

unclear explanation. According to Bohnsack (2004), some obstacles in

doing group work are teachers’ unclear explanation and students do not

participate well in group. Thus, the ideal in choosing members of group

discussion should be considered by teachers. Hence, group work will run

effectively in learning process.

English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah

Yogyakarta has some courses that provide a lot of activities that is related

to group work. Those courses are listening and speaking for daily

conversation, listening and speaking for formal setting, grammar 3,

principle of teaching and learning, language learning and acquisition,

issues in language teaching and learning, teaching English as a foreign

language, material design, instructional design, curriculum design,

research methodology and academic presentation. Although EED of

UMY students have learned the courses that focus on group work, they

still find obstacles in that group. Based on the researcher's experience,

some problems that commonly faced by students at EED of UMY when

they do group work can be ineffective in choosing group mate and

unclear instruction given by the teacher. Thus, based on the problems

found, it is more effective to do group work when the students already

have the ideal criteria to enable students to contribute well in group

works.

From those cases, the researcher is interested to conduct the study

about the ideal criteria of group work based on the students’ perspective.

Identification and Limitation of the Problem

Based on the researcher’s experienced on group work, the

researcher feels that group work applied by the teachers at EED of UMY

does not effective. There are some problems that make group work does

not effective, such as the teachers only give task and leave the class

immediately in long time. The second problem is that the teachers do not

pay attention to the compatibility of the students’ when deciding the

students to some groups. As a consequence, one of the students in one

group has struggle in communicating to each other in that group. It is

because the student is not comfortable with other students in that group,

so the student just silent in that group. The last problem is that the

teachers were not evaluating all works from all groups. The teachers only

took some works and used as sample. As the consequence, some groups

did not get the result of their work. Thus, it made the students losing their

passion to do group work in the next occasion.

 Hence, from the problems above, the researcher limits those

problems to make this research feasible. The researcher only focuses on

finding the ideal criteria of group work applied by the teachers at English

Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta.

Research Question

The main problem of this research is to disclose the students’

perception of the ideal criteria of group work. More specifically, research

question in this research is set up as follow:

1. What are the criteria of ideal group work based on students'

perception?

Purpose of the Research

The purpose of the study is to find out the criteria of ideal group

work based on students' perception.

Significance of the Research

This research also provides some significances for teachers and students.
 The first significance is for teachers. This research could be useful

for teachers, because teachers become know the ideal criteria that suit to

students when deciding group of work. Thus, the group work will run

effectively.

The second significance is for students. The result of this research

can give more information and new ideas to students about the ideal

criteria of group work, so students can reach maximum cooperation with

their group.

Outline of the Research

This research consists of three chapters which have main points in

every chapter, they are:

Chapter one of this research explain the background of the

research. This chapter talks about why this title is taken, identification

and limitation of the problem, research question, objective of the

research, significances of the research and outline of the research.

Chapter two describes literature review related to this research.

This chapter reviews the definition of teaching and learning process,

group work and conceptual framework.

 Chapter three is methodology. The methodology consists of

research design, research participants, research setting, and data

collection method and data analysis.

Chapter four is finding and discussion. This part consists of the

data description, findings and discussion of the main point that is

elaborated in this chapter which is the ideal criteria of group work.

Chapter five is conclusion and recommendation. This part consists

of the conclusion from the entire chapters and recommendation from the

researcher.
 Chapter Two

Literature Review

In this chapter, the researcher reviews some literatures related to

the topic in this research. There are three subtopics to be reviewed

namely teaching and learning process, group work and conceptual

framework.

Teaching and Learning process

Almeida (2015) this understanding of teaching practice is

reflected in the understanding of education as a complex phenomenon, as

a social practice performed by human beings with human beings, who

change by the actions and relationships established between them. Fenton

and Szala-Meneok (2010) state that teaching involves all faculty,

instructors and graduate students engaged in teaching activities. Good

teachers become aware of their own teaching processes and of the effect

of these processes on student learning. Teachers at this stage are

reflective about what is taking place in their classrooms and may seek out

colleagues with whom to discuss their ideas about how to improve

student learning
Group Work

Group work is a model in teaching and learning used by the

teachers which cannot be done by one student only. Vidal (2004) stated

that group work is a group of people who are working in the same place

for doing a particular project. It means that every group consists of more

than one person. Besides, Vidal (2004) also stated that group in group

work, everyone is provided to learn on how to communicate, cooperate,

coordinate and commonly understand procedures of group work with the

people in a group. Besides, Ibtissem (2013) contends that the teachers

should group the students in order to make the students become active to

speak up in the classroom. It aims to reduce the amount of teachers’ talk

in the classroom, and it will increase students’ talk time with their group

members.

Ideal Criteria of Group Work based on Smith (1996)

There are several ideal criteria of group work which are based on

Smith (1996). These are clearly stated and explained bellow.

Positive interdependence. According to Smith (1996), the main

important point of cooperative learning is positive interdependence.

Furthermore, the students should know that they cannot succeed if they
do not want to cooperate with their members. By this case, it shows that

students must believe that they are linked with others in a way that one

cannot succeed unless the other members of the group succeed (and vice

versa).

Face-to-face promotive interaction. According to Smith

(1996), “once a professor establishes positive interdependence, he or she

must ensure that students interact to help each other accomplish the task

and promote each other's success” (p. 4). It shows that every student in a

group is required to explain orally to each other how to overcome

problems, discuss with each other the nature of the concepts and

strategies being learned, teach their understanding to classmates, explain

to each other the connections between present and past learning, and

help, encourage, and support each other's efforts to learn. Besides, Smith

(1996) contended that students who are not active should be grouped

with the students who are active.

Individual accountability/personal responsibility. According

to Smith (1996), the purpose of group work is to create each member a

stronger individual in his or her own right and in his or her own point of

view. It means that each student is deserved to speak up to explain and

deliver his or her own opinion. Then, they together collaborate to decide

how to solve the problems depending on which opinion that they want to

take.

Teamwork skills. Contributing to the success of a group work

requires teamwork skills. Smith (1996) argued that “Students must have

and use the needed leadership, decision-making, trust building,

communication, and conflict-management skills. These skills have to be

taught purposefully and precisely as academic skills” (p. 5).

Group processing. Teachers need to ensure that all members of

each group work discuss how well they are achieving their goals and

maintaining effective working relationships. Groups need to describe

what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about

what to continue or change. Such processing enables learning groups to

focus on group maintenance, facilitates the learning of collaborative

skills, ensures that members receive feedback on their participation, and

reminds students to practice collaborative skills consistently.

Benefits of Group Work

According to Li and Lam (2013), there are some benefits of

adopting cooperative learning model in teaching and learning process,

such as learning for all, academic achievement, skilled communication

and psychological health.

Learning for all. Cooperative learning makes sense in inclusive

classrooms because it builds upon heterogeneity and formalizes and

encourages peer support and connection. However, cooperative learning

is not of value only to children with disabilities. Cooperative learning is

of value for all students including those who have been identified as "at

risk," "bilingual," "gifted," and "normal." All students need to learn and

work in environments where their individual strengths are recognized and

individual needs are addressed. All students need to learn within a

supportive community in order to feel safe enough to take risks.

Academic achievement. In experimental-control comparison

studies of the achievement effects of cooperative learning, most found

significantly greater achievement in cooperative than in control classes.

Group goals and individual accountability had to be present for these

academic gains to be present. Research on behaviors within groups that

contribute to learning gains has found that learners who provide and

receive elaborated explanations are those who gain the most from the

activities. (Slavin, 1990) Learners in cooperative learning classrooms

liked the subject areas more than other learners. They also had developed

peer norms in favor of doing well academically.

Skilled communication. Researchers found that learners involved

in cooperative learning activities developed skills for interpersonal

communications more readily than learners who were in other classroom

settings did. They were more considerate of others feelings, worked in

cross-cultural situations more easily, liked their classmates and liked

their teachers more than other learners. Researchers found that they

developed friends from other cultures and kept these friends outside of

class. They had positive expectations toward future interactions. They

had more accurate understanding of others’ perspectives. In conflict

situations, they were more able to negotiate and solve conflicts in a win-

win manner.

Psychological health. Learners who were in classrooms with a

significant amount of cooperative learning were psychologically healthier

than learners who were not. They had higher self-esteem. Learners In

cooperative learning classes have more positive feelings about

themselves than do learners in traditional classes. Slavin (1990) also

documented the findings that these learners had feelings of individual

control over their own fate in school, their time on task was higher and

their cooperativeness and altruism were higher as well

Problems in Group Work

There are seven problems which commonly happen in group

work. Those are student antipathy towards group work, the selection of

the groups, a lack of essential group-work skills, the free-rider, possible

inequalities of student abilities, the withdrawal of group members, and

the assessment of individuals within the groups. These problems are

clearly stated and these problems are clearly quoted from Roberts and

McInnerney (2007) by the researcher.

Student antipathy towards group work. Some students

sometimes do not concern with the idea from their member in their group

work and can be apathetic, or sometimes even actively hostile to the

whole idea. Why should it be this way? Given that it is relatively unusual

for students to volunteer to gather in groups to discuss issues and

solutions outside the classroom tasks, it will seem very surprising.

The selection of the groups. According to Roberts and

McInnerney (2007), the selection of the groups is one of the biggest

problems which commonly happen in group work. Sometimes some

students feel embarrassed when they are grouped with a student who is

smarter than them. However, when the students are grouped with same

level, for example smart students with smart students or vice versa, the

group cannot work well. Selection of groups tends to be easier in an

online environment. Roberts and McInnerney (2007) also contends that

another problem is about ‘how large should each groups should be’

A lack of essential group-work skills. Grouping and telling the

students that they have to work together, it does not mean that they obey

to work cooperatively. According to Roberts and McInnerney (2007), “in

situations where students who have not previously been introduced to

group work, and lack the necessary skills, any instructor who uses group

work as a major component, and does not prepare the students

appropriately, is almost inevitably condemning the students to a

traumatic and probably unproductive experience” (p. 260).

The free-rider. The free-rider commonly happens in group

work. The student only joins the group work without participating or

contributing anything in a group. Roberts and McInnerney (2007) argued

that this case leads bad impact for the student who is free-rider and for

the group where this student joins. First, the free rider student will not get
anything from the group which means that group work will not become

useful for this kind of student. Second, this case can damage the morale

of the other members of the group; and third, of lowering the reputation

of the educator and the institution for fair dealing and justice in

assessment.

Possible inequalities of student abilities. Many researchers

have expressed the hope that the online environment would, of itself,

produce more equal levels of group participation than might be expected

in a face-to-face environment (Harasim, 1993; Harasim et al, 1995;

Sproull & Kiesler, 1991). This hope has not always been well-founded,

however, with certain individuals or groups often dominating discussion

(eg Herring, 1993). Winkworth and Maloney (2002) state that a

fundamental dilemma in groups can be the need to temper the individual

students’ needs with those of all the students in the group. In successful

groups, individual students may need to sacrifice some aspects of their

individuality for the benefits of learning in a group (Roschelle & Teasley,

1995). One of the supervisor's tasks is to monitor the groups to try to

ensure that the strengths (and not the weaknesses) of individual students’
abilities are activated, while trying to ensure the success of the group as a

whole.

The withdrawal of group members. Courses conducted online

or by distance education notoriously suffer from higher than average

attrition rates (eg Simonson, 2000), often because of feelings of isolation

(Hara and Kling, 2000). In a more conventional learning environment,

one where group work is not being used, the withdrawal of a student

normally has little or no direct effect on the work or grade of other

students. Of course, this may not be strictly true, since the student may be

in an informal study group, or have developed a friendship with other

students, etc; but students learn and are officially 264 assessed on an

individual basis. With group work, it is common for those students who

remain in the group to feel disadvantaged if one or more of their

members officially withdraws, or disappears from the group for whatever

reason.

The assessment of individuals within the groups. The

traditional view of assessment has always been something along the

following lines: assessment is about grading. One or more instructors

assess the work of the students, with the primary – and perhaps sole - aim
of assigning fair and appropriate grades to each of the students at the end

of the course. An alternative view, and one that has claimed a large

number of adherents in recent years, is that assessment can and should

play a vital part in the learning process itself (Bain, 2004; Roberts, 2005).

No matter where one stands on this issue, however, at the end of the day,

individual students must be assessed. How can this be done fairly if

group work is used? Assigning group grades without attempting to

distinguish between individual members of the group is both unfair and

deleterious to the learning process, for many reasons which should be

apparent from earlier discussion, and may in some circumstances even be

illegal (Kagan, 1997; Millis and Cottell, 1998).

Related Studies

There are two related studies for this research which are from

some researchers. These are totally showed below.

Previous study conducted by Wahyuni (2013) entitled the

effectiveness of group work in reading of narrative text. This research

was quantitative research as the research design. This research was

conducted to two different classes with two different techniques in

Madrasah Aliyah Al-Mukhlisin Bogor. Besides, this research used group

work as experimental class and Grammar Translation Method (GMT) as

controlled class. This research took 25 students as sample in each class.

The result of this research showed that students who joined in group

work had better achievement in reading narrative text than GMT’s

students. Thus, this previous study had same with the current study in

part of group work. However, there are differences between the previous

and the current study such as the research design and the purpose of the

study. The previous study used quantitative research design, while this

study uses qualitative. Furthermore, the purpose of the previous study

was to find out the effectiveness of group work in reading narrative text,

whereas the purpose of the current study is to carry out the ideal criteria

of group work. Thus, these researches are correlated and support each

other in part of group work.

Umiyati (2011) conducted a research about the effectiveness of

using small group interaction in teaching reading comprehension at the

seventh grade of SMP Sunan Bonang Tanggerang. This research aimed

to find out the empirical evidence of the differences between students’

achievement in the learning and of reading comprehension using small

group interaction than whole-class teaching technique. Besides, there

were 92 students who became the participants of this research. Last, this

research found that using small group interaction is more effective in

teaching reading comprehension than whole-class teaching.

The research by Umiyati (2011) is related to this research

because this study is also about group work. However, the study by

Umiyati was about the effectiveness of using small group in teaching

reading comprehension. It means that, the difference is Umiyaty used

experimental while this study will use qualitative. In additional, the study

Umiyaty focused on the effectiveness of using small group interaction,

while this study will be focused on the ideal criteria of group work.
Conceptual Framework
 Chapter Three

Methodology

In this chapter, the researcher discusses research methodology. The

first part of this research discusses the research design. The second is

research participant. The next is research setting. The fourth is data

collection method. The last is data analysis.

Research Design

The aim of this study is to describe and analyze the ideal criteria of

group work from students’ perception. It means that this study will

describe some ideal criteria in choosing the member of group work.

Students’ participation in this research are requested to express their

feelings and share their experiences dealing with the ideal criteria of

group work at English Education Department of Universitas

Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta.

In this research, qualitative research is used to collect the data.

Qualitative research is a method to study about people’s experiences and

feelings. According to Lewis (2015), qualitative research is a research

process in identifying patterns about the meaning of participants’

feelings. Besides, Creswell……… It means that the result of qualitative

research should be in a description. It is similar to this research that is

going to observe the ideal criteria in choosing member of group work, so

qualitative approach is suitable for this research.

Research Participant

Research Setting

This research will be conducted at English Education Department

of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. The research is set

qualitatively. There are some reasons in choosing EED of UMY as the

setting. The first, there are some subject courses that focus in teaching

group work discussion. The second, there is a phenomenon that some of

EED of UMY students have problems in choosing member of group

work discussion. It can be seen when they already in that group, some of

them are only silent in that group. The third reason because the

researcher is currently studying at EED of UMY, so it is easy and

accessible to collect the data through interview.

Data Collection Method

This research will use standardized open-ended interview as a data

collection method. Standardized open-ended interview will be used to

find further data of research and it is suitable for this research. According
to Cohen., Manion, and Morrison (2011), standardized open-ended

interview is structured questions to be asked to participants. Thus, the

researcher needs to have interview guidelines when interviewing

participants. Furthermore, the researcher will use open-ended questions

in order to allow the participants’ answer deeply. The reason why the

researcher will apply this data collection method is to give the detail

information about the ideal criteria of group work from the participants’

feeling. The interview will use Bahasa Indonesia for participants’ ease.

Participants will be interviewed one by one.

Data Analysis

The last step after conducting the interview is analyzing the data

from the recording. This step is called by data analysis. According to

Ritchie and Spencer (2002), data analysis is the process of defining,

categorizing, theorizing and mapping which are fundamental to the

analysis’s role. Before the researcher does analyze the data, the first thing

to do is transcribing the recording into the written form. It enables the

researcher easier to analyze the data.

After transcribing the recording into the written form, the

researcher needs to do member checking with the participants to measure

whether the data accurately capture or not. According to Harper and Cole

(2012), member checking is the researcher gives the opportunity to

participants to recheck for accuracy. Doing member checking is essential

in order to make sure the validity of the data gathered. Thus, in this

research the researcher has to do so.

The next step after member checking is coding the data. In coding

the data, the researcher firstly analyzes the script of the recording. It

means that the researcher infers what the participants mean by their

answer in each question. This activity is done in open coding. Secondly

is analytical coding. In this step, the researcher translates or interprets the

participants’ statement. Thirdly is axial coding. In axial coding, the

researcher classifies each item of statement which has same meaning

from all of the participants. The last is selective coding. A selective

coding is the researcher identifies the core categories of the text data.

After coding the data, the researcher reports the result of the data by

using descriptive qualitative.

 References

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Pesquisa, 41(3), 589-597.

Fenton, N. E., & Szala-Meneok, K. (2010). Research on Teaching &

Learning Guidebook. McMaster University: Hamilton.

Ibtissem, S. (2013). The significance of using cooperative group work

technique to improve learners’ speaking skill in EFL classes.

(Unpublished dissertation). Kheider University, Biskra.

Li, M. P., & Lam, B. H. (2013). Cooperative learning. The Active

Classroom, The Hong Kong Institude of Education, 1-33.

Othman, Gorgeen, Hozan. (2015) A Study On Kurdish Students' Attitudes

To Group Work in The EFL Classroom, Department of English

Language, University of Zakho, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Roberts, T.S., & McInnerney, J. M. (2007). Seven problems of online

group learning (and their solutions). Educational Technology &

Society, 10(4), 257-268.

Umiyati. (2011). The effectiveness of using small group interaction in

teaching reading comprehension. (Unpublished dissertation).

Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta.

Wahyuni, Y. G. (2013). The effectiveness of group work in reading of

narrative text. (Unpublished dissertation). Syarif Hidayatullah

State Islamic University, Jakarta.