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MICROTEACHING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF REINFORCEMENT SKILL IN MICROTEACHING CLASS
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By Bella Stasia
Student Number: 081214154
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
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A Sarjana Pendidikan Thesis on
MICROTEACHING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF REINFORCEMENT SKILL IN MICROTEACHING CLASS
By Bella Stasia
Student Number: 081214154
Approved by
Advisor
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STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY
I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.
Yogyakarta, October 18, 2013 The Writer
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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Bella Stasia
Nomor Mahasiswa : 081214154
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
MICROTEACHING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF REINFORCEMENT SKILL IN MICROTEACHING CLASS
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal 18 Oktober 2013 Yang menyatakan,
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ABSTRACT
Stasia, Bella. 2013. Microteaching Students’ Perception on the Use of Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching Class. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.
There is a similar aspect learnt in education and psychology field, i.e. behavior. The research deals with behavior of students in a classroom. The teacher needs teaching skills to maintain classroom condition. One of them is reinforcement skill.
There are two problems proposed in this research. The first is what Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class is. The second is what the suggestions of Microteaching students on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class are.
To solve the problems, the researcher conducted a survey research. Survey research is to gain information from a group of people to describe characteristics such as ability, opinions or knowledge through asking question and draw a sample rather than involving all the members of population (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). The samples were Microteaching students who have implemented reinforcement skill in Microteachingclass. The instruments used in this research were questionnaire and focused group discussion (FGD). The participants were Microteaching students who were taking Microteaching course in even semester of 2012.
From the research results in the first problem, it was concluded that Microteaching students had positive perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. The teacher candidates have implemented reinforcement skill in their teaching practice using verbal and non-verbal form. Still, there were teachers who tend to use verbal rather than non-verbal. To solve the second problem, the researcher perceived two suggestions. The first is for the teacher candidates in Microteaching class and the second is for the implementation reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.
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ABSTRAK
Stasia, Bella. 2013. Microteaching Students’ Perception on the Use of Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching Class. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.
Ada kesamaan aspek yang dipelajari dalam bidang pendidikan maupun psikologi, yaitu tingkah laku. Penelitian ini mengenai tingkah laku siswa dalam kelas. Guru memerlukan ketrampilan untuk menjaga kondisi kelas. Salah satunya adalah ketrampilan penguatan.
Ada dua permasalahan yang diangkat dalam penelitian ini. Masalah yang pertama apa persepsi siswa kelas Microteaching terhadap penggunaan ketrampilan penguatan di kelas Microteaching. Masalah yang kedua apa saran- saran siswa Microteaching terhadap penggunaan ketrampilan penguatan di kelas Microteaching?
Untuk mencari solusi permasalahan tersebut, peneliti menggunakan metode survei. Survei digunakan untuk menggali informasi dari sekelompok orang untuk menggambarkan karakteristik seperti kemampuan, pendapat atau ilmu pengetahuan dan lebih menggunakan sampel daripada mengikutsertakan seluruh populasi (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). Penelitian ini menggunakan sampel siswa Microteaching yang sudah mengimplementasikan ketrampilan penguatan dalam kelas Microteaching. Instrumen yang digunakan adalah kuisioner dan fokus grup diskusi (FGD). Partisipannya adalah siswa Microteaching yang mengambil mata kuliah Microteaching di semester genap tahun 2012.
Dari hasil penelitian pada permasalahan pertama, dapat disimpulkan bahwa siswa Microteaching mempunyai persepsi positif terhadap penggunaan ketrampilan penguatan dalam kelas Microteaching. Para calon guru tersebut telah mengimplementasikan ketrampilan penguatan dalam bentuk verbal dan non-verbal ketika berlatih mengajar. Tetapi, ada beberapa calon guru yang cenderung menggunakan bentuk verbal daripada non-verbal. Untuk mencari solusi permasalahan kedua, ada dua saran. Saran yang pertama untuk para calon guru (siswa Microteaching) dan yang kedua untuk implementasi ketrampilan penguatan dalam kelas Microteaching.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to deliver my greatest gratitude to God Almighty, Jesus Christ and Saint Mary because of the blessing during the process of finishing this Sarjana Pendidikan thesis.
I would like to thank my advisor Agustinus Hardi Prasetyo, S. Pd., M.A. for his guidance and patience from passing my proposal until completing the thesis. Also, I would like to express my gratitude to all the lecturers of Microteaching course for their permission and suggestions.
I dedicate my thesis to Bapak Margono, Ibu Indrati, Mbak Awa and Mas Niko. I thank them all for the love, guidance, support and warning. I also thank my best friend, Dyta, for the kindness, generosity and care. My gratitude goes to Bundo Rei, Clara, Delis, Desya, Pyta, Siwi and Okta for the cheer and spirit during this undergraduate program.
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All my happiness and proudness goes to Mr. Prast’s thesis students especially year 2008, I thank you all so I can end my destiny as the last man standing in this umbrella group. My thankfulness is directed to Patemon Kotabaru Family for the experiences, knowledge, laughter, tears and hospitality. I would like to express my gratitude to ICEE corner community, consisting of Tiara, Hani, Dhimas, Ismoyo, Tata and Fani, that presents a family with full of fun and lessons. The last but not the least, my deepest gratitude goes to all my participants during the research, Microteaching students in even semester of 2012 (PBI 2009), for their willingness to fill the questionnaires and attend the focused group discussion.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE………. i
APPROVAL PAGES……… ii
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY……….. iv
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI………... v
ABSTRACT………... vi
ABSTRAK………... vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………... viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS………... x
LIST OF TABLES………. xii
LIST OF FIGURES………... xiii
LIST OF APPENDICES……… xiv
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION………... 1
A. Research Background………... 1
B. Research Problems……… 4
C. Problem Limitation………... 4
D. Research Objectives……….. 5
E. Research Benefits……….. 5
F. Definition of Terms………... 6
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE………. 9
A. Theoretical Description………. 9
1. Perception... 9
2. Microteaching ………... 11
3. Reinforcement Skill ………...….. 17
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CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY………. 29
A. Research Method………... 29
B. Research Setting……… 30
C. Research Participants……… 31
D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique……….. 31
E. Data Analysis Technique……….. 36
F. Research Procedure………... 38
CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………. 41
A. Microteaching Students’ Perception on the Use of Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching class……... 41
1. The Result of Students’ Perception as the Student.... 41
2. The Result of Students’ Perception as the Teacher... 50
B. Microteaching Students’ Suggestions for the Implementation of Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching Class ………... 59
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS……… 63
A. Conclusions………... 63
B. Recommendations………. 66
REFERENCES………... APPENDICES ……….
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
3.1 The Schedule of Distributing Questionnaire………..…... 35
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Page Appendix A: Letter of Permission to Conduct Research……….. 71 Appendix B: The Blueprint of the Questionnaire………. 72 Appendix C: Raw Data from Open-ended Questionnaire Questions……... 75 Appendix D: The Focused Group Discussion Result………... 85 Appendix E: Questionnaire………... 90
1 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The title of this research is Microteaching students’ perception on the use
of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. This chapter describes an
introduction that is made up of research background, research problems, problem
limitation, research objectives, research benefits and definition of the terms.
A. Research Background
Education field has a close relation to psychology. There are similar
aspects that are studied in both fields. One of the aspects is the behavior of an
individual. Since this research focus on is teaching education field, the object of
the behavior is a student in a classroom. In a classroom, there is an interaction
between a teacher and the students. The teacher plays important role in the
learning process supported by the students as well. A professional teaching
activity requires a set of standard quality to be achieved. The importance of
personality, theoretical and practical understandings of a subject and skills are the
requirements of being an effective teacher (Cooper, 2011). The unwanted
behavior of a student may occur during the learning process in a classroom
(Fontana, 1985). For a teacher candidate, it might not be easy to deal with the
process of the situation stated by Fontana. Many teaching techniques and skills
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skills. It happens in English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.
Since the subject focus on is English, the students perceive certain understandings of the theory and practice in both oral and written. For the practice in language education especially teaching, the students are introduced and studied a subject named Microteaching. As cited from the academic guidebook of English Language Education Study Program, it is an obligatory course that provides the environment of teaching practice to encourage the students’ self-evaluative skills on the teaching competence and performance. The evaluative skills consist of teaching styles, content mastery and suggestions within. The setting of the classroom is for 20-23 learners (Tutyandari, Prasetyo, Kristiyani & Bram, 2011).
Microteaching is a lesson requiring the teacher candidate (learner) to teach a small group of pupils in a short period of time. The teaching practice consists of a set of skills such as set induction and closure, effective questioning, pupil reinforcement and participation (Brown, 1975: 15). The activity is usually recorded in a video to enable the Microteaching students to evaluate their performances. It also involves an observation for the deeper evaluation.
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positive if a reward is given in return. It is negative when it is expressed by withholding, corrective feedback and punishment (Brown, 1975). The punishment is no longer used since it can decrease the students’ responses. The researcher has interest in positive reinforcement as the subject because it can increase the students’ participation in the classroom. Using positive reinforcement and its techniques in the classroom can increase the students’ participation by observing the class situation and students’ behavior (Brown, 1975). Turney, et al. (1973) say that the teacher can facilitate the learning process, increase the students’ attention, maintain the students’ motivation and improve the expected students’ behavior.
In Microteaching class, the students are no longer trained as students but teacher candidates during the course. The reason is that they practice and demonstrate how to be an English teacher. Then, the rest will be assigned as the students. During the course, Microteaching students have three kinds of progress tests to be completed. Each progress test has different levels of education that should be demonstrated. The levels consist of junior high school, senior high school and university.
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adds that it is a process of organizing and interpreting the stimuli so the individual can create a meaning to define the stimuli. The theory of perception is chosen to obtain the information from the students in academic year 2009 that were taking Microteaching course in even semester in 2012. This is considered as the first research problem.
After solving the first research problem, the implementation of reinforcement skill needs to be evaluated the strengths and weaknesses in aim of improvement and development. The second problem will focus on the suggestions of the implementation. So, the researcher acquires the suggestions for any improvement from Microteaching students after they applied reinforcement skill.
B. Research Problems
By considering the research background, the researcher is going to find the answers to these two research questions:
1. What is Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class?
2. What are Microteaching students’ suggestions on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class?
C. Problem Limitation
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background. There are 7 classes in even semester of 2012. The researcher took all the classes as the participants of this research but only several students of each class were taken. The information needed to answer the problems emphasizes the students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class and the suggestions from Microteaching students on the use of reinforcement skill.
D. Research Objectives
The research has two research objectives related to the problem questions. 1. To find out Microteaching students’ perception on the use of
reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.
2. To perceive Microteaching students’ suggestions on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.
E. Research Benefits
There are some benefits that can be perceived from this research. The benefits are provided for public concern. The descriptions are as follows.
1. Microteaching students as the teacher candidates
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2. Lecturers
The researcher has 7 classes as the sources of the information needed. The lecturers who are in charge of Microteaching class should pay attention on their students’ understanding concerning this teaching skill. They can follow up the development of each student’s performance using reinforcement skill. So, they can go deeper into an evaluation of their students’ performances and see what should be improved. This research also allows the other lecturers and teachers in general to develop their teaching experiences that lead to improvement.
3. Other researchers
There might be other researchers who are willing to conduct research related to this topic for further interest. Hopefully, this research can inspire other researchers to expand educative innovations. Also, it can enhance the global knowledge and references. Then, it can be used as an academic source in how to manage a classroom for a professional teacher.
F. Definition of Terms
In this part, there are three terms that are defined. Those terms are used to list the theories as the base of this research. They are stated as follows.
1. Perception
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recognizes, identifies and observes to perceive the conclusion and interpret the stimulus (VandenBos, 2007). When the stimulus is received for the first time, it needs to be identified then it is changed to an interpretation in somebody’s mind. If an individual experiences the stimulus in the different times, still, he/she will correspond to the earliest stimulus. This perception is intended to provoke the experience of Microteaching students when they implement reinforcement skill in the teaching practice to increase the students’ participation.
2. Microteaching
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3. Reinforcement Skill
9 CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter provides the theories of the related literature to answer the research problems. It consists of theories that will be used as the base of the research and as the references in the further discussion especially in chapter IV. Theoretical description and theoretical framework are explained as follows.
A. Theoretical Description
In this theoretical description, the researcher focuses on the theories related to the key terms that are stated in the introduction. There are perception, microteaching and reinforcement skill that will be discussed in detail and proved by experts’ theories.
1. Perception
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Likewise, Robbins (2001) says perception is a process of an individual interprets and organizes the received sensory so it can give a meaning to his environment. In addition, it affects an individual’s behavior on the perception of what the reality is, not on the reality itself. There are other views stated by Forgus (1966) about the process of perception. The way of an individual obtaining knowledge from his/her surrounding is an important part. There is information from the expansive areas in his/her environment and the individual extracts the information (stimuli) through the individual’s senses. Shortly, perception is a process of receiving or extracting the information from the surrounding environment. Forgus (1966) adds that it becomes the core of acquisition process of cognition or knowledge that is modified by growth, development and experience (p. 2).
Altman (1985) describes several factors that influence the perception of an individual. The factors are as follows.
• Selection of stimuli
When recognizing the surrounding environment, an individual tends to notice the small number of stimuli that the individual perceives. This is a process of selection where the individual selects the specific parts of the stimuli to gain information. So, it can build different perception between one and another individual.
• Organization of stimuli
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a meaning. The brain function is to select the stimuli and put them together into meaningful way that is based on the experience.
• Situation
A person’s familiarity with, the expectation of an individual, the experience and the situation in the past affects what the person perceives from the environment. Perceiving situation is related to how the person responds to the situation through a behavior. So, the situation is regarded as a factor that influences perception.
• Self-concept
The way we feel about and perceive ourselves is known as the self-concept. The way we see our self-concept affects our perceptions. We might regard ourselves as a patient, honest or intelligent person. This is important because the mental picture of ourselves can determine what we perceive and do.
Kalish (1973) adds some factors influencing perception. They are characteristics of the stimuli and the perceiver, such as needs, experiences, set and personal rigidity. In conclusion, all individuals perceive different stimuli so they create different interpretations of the stimuli. Also, a group of individuals who perceive the similar stimuli have a possibility to have different perceptions.
2. Microteaching
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second is the principles of microteaching as a subject including the practical use and purpose within.
a. Definition and its Characteristics
This research focuses on Microteaching subject in English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University that is offered in each semester. Since the course is compulsory, all of the students have experienced a teaching practice in order to complete this KPE 361 Matakuliah Keahlian Berkarya. The students are trained as a teacher candidate in the classroom. Microteaching started to be developed since 1963 at Stanford University School of Education as an experimental teacher education program (Borg, Kelley, Langer & Gall, 1970). Borg, et al. (1970) define microteaching into some characteristics and these are the basic elements as follows.
1) The teacher is presented the teaching skills to be practiced.
2) The teacher practices in a short lesson (reducing the time of the lesson) with a small group of pupils.
3) There is a recorded-video as the result of teaching performance and then the supervisor analyzes the applied skill by the teacher.
4) From the video, a further practice is recommended to conduct the practice again by the teacher with the other groups of pupils and another video will be required.
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about 25 or 30 taught in the microteaching. As cited by Borg, et al. (1970) concerning the elements of microteaching, Allen and Clark (1967) state “some of variables which can be adjusted include lesson length, number of pupils, types of pupils, number of reteaches, the amount and kind of supervision and the use of videotape” (p. 75). According to Allen and Ryan (1969: 2), microteaching presents a situation that has the same characteristic as a real classroom but the complexity is less in degree and the teacher has the feedback after performing his/her practice. Allen and Ryan (1969) provide further evidences of five basic ideas of microteaching viewed from its elements.
1) Microteaching is the real teaching. Even though this is a practice, the teacher and students behave in a genuine situation of teaching.
2) Microteaching involves less a complicated process than a normal classroom. It has the class size, scope of content and also time reduced. 3) Microteaching focuses on completing the specific skills such as the
instructional skills, the techniques of teaching, the mastery of materials or the demonstration of teaching methods.
4) Microteaching can control the aspects of teaching, for example, the practice setting of microteaching, the rituals of time, the students and the methods of feedback and supervision.
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students’ response forms to examine the detail of the students’ reactions in the specific aspect of teaching during the performance. Since the teaching practice is recorded into a video, the teacher can evaluate the performance by playing back the video-recorded and see what should be improved. The last, after this process of assessment, the teacher can re-teach for a further practice.
b. Practical Process in Microteaching
Allen and Ryan (1969) state microteaching can be as a safe practice. A practice is a prior condition for many learning activities. The teaching performance can be improved by practicing. The skill and technique applied in the practice must be suitable with the lesson at that time. Allen and Ryan (1969) say, “microteaching was designed to provide teachers with a safe setting for the acquisition of the techniques and skills of their profession” (p. 4). In addition, between a micro teacher who starts to learn the skill of teaching, and the experienced teacher, microteaching is a realistic setting that can develop professional competencies.
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specific skills, for example, how to increase the students’ participation using a particular method or questioning the students (Allen & Ryan, 1969). The feedback and re-teaching practice can enable the teacher candidate to acquire the teaching skills fluently in a short time.
Allen and Ryan (1969) also state, in a microteaching setting, a good teacher can apply his skill and it is recorded into a video as the result. The basic characteristic of microteaching builds a natural setting that gives a chance to the teacher (the student who practice teaching) to develop the instructional methods of the various teaching skills and techniques. The methods can separate the teaching skill and emphasize the teacher performance so the observers can focus on the teacher’s behavior. The well-performed models of instructional skill have a number of uses, they can be imitated as the example, show the alternative instructional, and stimulate the discussion about a teaching among the student who practices teaching (Allen & Ryan, 1969).
The less number of students, duration and the scope of the lesson can lessen the pressure of the teacher who is practicing. Allen and Ryan (1969) say “one of the key principles of microteaching is to focus on a particular teaching skill or some very clear objective” (p. 7). It is related to this research that is intended to investigate the use of one of the teaching skills, reinforcement skill. So, the safe practice, modeling the instructional skill and focus on a particular teaching skill are a means to achieve the microteaching practice objectives.
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Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students. ELESP offers this course in semester 6 (even semester) and 7 (odd semester) in the undergraduate program. As stated in ELESP academic guidebook, Microteaching is a pre-requisite course before a student takes Program Pengalaman Lapangan as the further training of applying the concept and procedure of English language teaching in a real classroom especially in high schools (Tutyandari, et al., 2011). It is also explained by Suseno and Gilarso (1986) that say the teaching skills training passes two phases, those are a peer teaching –teaching in front of the other Microteaching students– and a real teaching –teaching in a real situation of classroom–. They add, in the peer teaching, a Microteaching student teaches a small group of students which consists of Microteaching students and it is called “Microteaching” or Program Pengalaman Lapangan I.
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Each student who practices in Microteaching lab gets a video record as the result of teaching practice. The researcher took the 2009-academic-year students. There are seven classes chosen as the subject. The focus of this research is on one of the basic teaching skills learnt by Microteaching students especially reinforcement skill. This skill will be discussed further in the next part.
3. Reinforcement Skill
As stated in the introduction of theoretical description, this part will discuss the third specific theory that is reinforcement skill. It will be divided into two points of theory discussion. The first is about the types and techniques of reinforcement. Another part discusses the principles of reinforcement skill used in a classroom.
a. Types and Techniques of Reinforcement
The researcher focuses on this skill as the subject in Microteaching class. According to Allen and Ryan (1969), as cited by Asril (2011), there are 14 components of teaching skill.
1) Stimulus variation 2) Set induction 3) Closure
4) Silence and non-verbal cues 5) Reinforcement
6) Fluency in asking questions 7) Probing questions
8) Higher order questions 9) Divergent questions
10)Recognizing attending behavior 11)Illustrating and use of example 12)Lecturing
13)Planned repetition
However, English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University considers five basic teaching skills to be trained in Microteaching class. It is proved by Suseno and Gilarso (1986), that are used to be the senior lecturers and supervisors of IKIP Sanata Dharma, that there are many teaching skills need to be trained but there are only possible five skills taught in Microteaching course. These are the possible five basic teaching skills.
1) Set induction and closure skill 2) Explaining skill
3) Questioning skill 4) Reinforcement skill 5) Stimulus variation skill
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again by reinforcing the individual with the appropriate and meaningful reinforcer.
Furthermore, there will be other experts’ views about the types and techniques of reinforcement. Generally, based on Turney, et al. (1973), there are two types of reinforcement that is the primary reinforcement –refers to the environment that can be as a reinforcer related to the natural biological needs, e.g. foods, drinks, sex– and the secondary reinforcement –the conditioned or learned reinforcement that is neutral or has no effect on the behavior but it can be a reinforcer when related to other rewarded events– consists of money, verbal praise and peer attention as the examples. The second one consists of several components of skill. The researcher is going to discuss an expert’s idea about two components of reinforcement skill and present the other experts’ ideas as the supporting theories.
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and higher achievement comparing to a classroom where the teachers do not involve the students’ ideas in developing the lesson. It can increase the students’ participation in classroom. Turney, et al. (1973) add some components of verbal form. They are teacher’s comments of praise and encouragement, personalized comments and feedback. Another expert named McNamara (2000) shares identical thought about the verbal reinforcement consisting of praise by specifying the appropriate behavior such as ‘Well presented work!’, personalized positive comments involving the student’s name, showing an interest when engaging in the non-work conversation and calling the students using positive descriptive phrases such as “George looks as if he knows the answer.”
From those theories stated, the experts have a similar belief that praise is a reinforcer in the verbal form. According to Sutherland, Copeland and Wehby (2001), as cited by Walker, et al. (2007), praise is regarded as an effective strategy to support students’ learning and behavior. They also list some guidelines in how to use the effective praise.
1) Praise should be delivered immediately after the behavior exhibited.
2) Praise should be delivered as unobtrusively as possible to avoid an interruption of the continuous classroom activity.
3) Praise should be delivered in a manner that the teacher is sincere.
4) Praise should include a statement of the positive behavior for which the learner is being praised.
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6) Praise for a new behavior should be frequent and it should be less frequent when it is habituated in the beginning stages of learning.
Praise is faded when the praised behavior becomes the part of a usual behavior. Reinforcement can be regarded as a reward also. Fontana proves it through his statement that “a reward is something (material or non-material) that appears desirable to the person concerned” (1985: 78). It appears desirably caused by the existence of the expected behavior. Non-material reward categorized by Fontana (1985) has a close relation to the other experts’ theories consisting of the teacher attention, the teacher praise, and the teacher encouragement peer-group attention. The non-material rewards, according to Fontana (1985), are at the most effective point when they are given as immediate as possible, consistently and by a person who has the prestige and status in the eyes of the recipient.
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varying the facial expressions that are friendly and not threatening. Turney, et al. (1973) describe a close definition to the other experts that non-verbal reinforcement contains gestural expressions referring the teacher’s use of smiles, nods or pointing as the non-verbal responses to the students’ performance or behavior.
However, Fontana (1985) includes the material rewards into non-verbal reinforcement such as good marks, good reports, stars, points or gifts in return of the students’ behavior. According to Turney, et al. (1973), the reinforcement in forms of ticks, stars, points and written comments are called token reinforcement. It means the teachers use any symbolic reinforcer in return of the students’ desired performance or behavior. McNamara (2000) states the written form such as personalized comments in an exercise book is one of the reinforcement forms. This type is not popularly used in Microteaching class since the duration and the scope of lesson including the activity are reduced. The verbal and non-verbal reinforcement have effects only after it is delivered to the students. Nevertheless, the written reinforcement may have the effects when each time the students read it, for example, the positive and personalized comments in an exercise book are potential to have a repeated effect (McNamara, 2000).
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corrective feeedback consists of prompts, probes and giving direction (Brown, 1975). It can be combined by positive reinforcement. He adds that the teacher may praise the student at the beginning and give the student information or feedback as a corrective to his/her behavior (Brown, 1975). Cooper (1982) says that giving feeback directly is more effective and one of the reinforcement techniques that is used to increase the students’ participants. In the discussion of theories and results, the researcher would emphasize both positive and negative reinforcement since the focused teaching skill is reinforcement.
b. The Principles in the Use of Reinforcement
There are some bases of rules to conduct reinforcement skill. The students’ behavior change is dependent on the implementation of the principles. There are five important rules in the principles of reinforcement as Walker, et al. (2007) state.
1) Reinforcement is dependant on the exhibition of the target behavior. The teachers must reinforce only certain students’ behavior that is expected and only after it is exhibited.
2) The target behavior is to be reinforced immediately after it is exhibited. When attempting to establish a new behavior or to increase the frequency of an existing behavior, the teachers must reinforce that behavior as soon as it occurs.
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habituated cannot be sustained if it is not reinforced after it exists. The consistency of the reinforcement is essential during the initial stages of the students’ behavior.
4) When the target students’ behavior reaches a satisfactory level, reinforce it intermittently. It will maintain the behavior in satisfactory level. If a student whose behavior is changed does not know when his teacher gives him reinforcement but he knows he will perceive it, he will continue at that satisfactory level.
5) If the tangible reinforcers are applied, the social reinforcers are always applied with them. If the tangible reinforcers such as gifts, stars, points, good reports, they must be followed by other social rewards such as a smile, a pat on the back or praise. After the tangible and social reinforcers can increase the desired students’ behavior, the teachers should eliminate the tangible ones so there will be left the social reinforcers only.
McNamara (2000) adds the idea of a schedule of reinforcement. To increase the desired behavior showed by students, they need to be reinforced immediately, consistently and frequently.
According to Turney, et al. (1973), they share the understanding on the principles in the use of reinforcement. They state four points based on his idea. These are the following general principles of reinforcement skill.
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deliver reinforcement. A reinforcer that is given enthusiastically can give more effective quality compared to expressionless and boring one.
2) Avoidance of negative reinforcement. As cited from Lipe and Jung (1971), even though negative reinforcement and punishment are effective methods but this is still controversial in psychological study. Meacham and Wiesen (1969) suggest using positive rather than negative reinforcement because its effect is more predictable. The emphasis is on the positive reinforcement to students’ correct or appropriate performance.
3) Variety of usage. The teacher should provide the flexible and various manners to develop the reinforcement skill. A repetition of verbal or token (stars) can lessen the effectiveness of the reinforcement. The teachers can distinguish the reinforcement for the whole class group, sub-group or personal.
4) Meaningfulness to pupil. To reach an effective point, the teacher must know how to direct the reinforcement so the students can perceive and relate it to the behavior exhibited, also they find the reinforcement meaningful. Having wrong time and form in delivering reinforcement lead the students to interpret praise insincere and inappropriate rather than reinforcing.
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1) Attention to teacher, peers and objects under discussion 2) Study behavior, book work, reading and chalkboard work 3) Work output (completed pages, assignment sheets)
4) Work quality (neatness, accuracy, aesthetic qualities, thought content) 5) Work improvement (in quality, output or appearance)
6) Behavior categories (task appropriate and inappropriate, verbal, physical and written)
7) Independent work (development of self-directed and managed behavior and self-initiated work activity)
B. Theoretical Framework
The researcher conducted research that aims to find out Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class and their suggestions on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. The researcher used several theories as the base to answer those problem formulations. The first is the theory of perception. According to Altman (1985), perception is the way of an individual reacts to the stimuli from the surrounding environment and interprets it into a meaning to be understood.
Altman also describes the process of occurring perception through this figure.
Figure 2.1 The Perceptual Process Sensor’s
selection of stimuli
Perception, organization, and
interpretation of stimuli
Behavioral response
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The procedure is that an individual selects the stimuli from the environment by specifying the cues. Then he or she organizes and arranges the selected stimuli to be interpreted into the meaningful knowledge or information. Finally, it appears in a behavior response as the result of perceiving the information. Robbins (2001) states a similar idea that perception is a process that individuals organize and interpret the sensory impression to give a meaning to their environment. Those theories help the researcher construct a questionnaire to find out Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.
All of the Microteaching students have experienced to conduct the basic teaching skills including reinforcement. Each student is by turn assigned as a teacher, observer and student referring to the characteristic of Microteaching course in English Language Education Study Program. Before conducting teaching practice, Microteaching students have to construct a lesson plan and material then consult it to their supervisor for comments and revise for final (Suseno & Gilarso, 1986).
Allen and Ryan (Brown, 1978) define a cycle of Microteaching process as follows.
Figure 2.2 Original Microteaching Cycle
Based on that cycle, each cycle has to maintain one component skill such as set and closure, effective questioning, pupil reinforcement or participation as the exercise. After constructing the lesson plan and material, the teacher has to apply
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all what he or she prepares in limited time of teaching. The observer, meant to the student who is assigned as the observer, and the supervisor give comments and feedback what should be improved during the teaching practice. After having the comments and feedback, the teacher may revise it to re-plan another teaching practice until he or she has acquired the teaching skill.
29 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter is to describe the method used in this research to answer the problem formulations as stated in the introduction. This chapter consists of research method, research setting, research participants, instruments and data gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure.
A. Research Method
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However, the researcher used score of percentage in the questionnaire result in order to determine the students’ perception.
The researcher had population of participants in order to solve the research problems. The selected population was Microteaching students who were taking Microteaching course in even semester of 2012. They were ELESP students of year 2009 that have experienced reinforcement as a teaching skill. Since this is a survey research, the researcher drew a sample for the representatives rather than used the population, as stated by Fraenkel and Wallen (2009). There were 108 members in the population. The researcher chose the sample randomly because the members have an equal chance of being selected (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). The participants were listed from number 1 to 108. There were 54 participants who belonged to the odd numbers in the process of sampling.
B. Research Setting
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C. Research Participants
The research certainly demanded participants to obtain the information needed. The participants in this research were the students of Microteaching class in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University from year 2009 who were taking the course in even semester of 2012. The logical reason for choosing them as the participants was because they have experienced the process of teaching practice. They have learnt how to teach for professional and master the teaching skills especially reinforcement skill as the focus of the research. There were 7 classes to be surveyed, from class A to G. There were 145 students but only 108 participants who returned the questionnaires. Several questionnaires did not fulfill the criteria to be analyzed because of the broken (incomplete) pages and incomplete responses also comments for each question. For the need of analysis, the researcher needed samples as the representatives of the population. The samples were 54 participants as stated in the research method.
After having the result of the questionnaire, the researcher chose 19 participants for the focused group discussion. It is to gain more information that was not provided in the questionnaire. The researcher chose those participants based on their responses in the questionnaire (both negative and positive response). They were as the representatives of each Microteaching class.
D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique
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researcher used focused group discussion rather than personal interview. Those
instruments were commonly used in survey research. These are the descriptions of
the instruments used.
1. Questionnaire
According to Fraenkel and Wallen (2009), questionnaire was used as one
of the research instruments that commonly used in a survey to perceive the
information of Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement
skill in Microteaching class. It was divided into two parts. The first was
close-ended part. It consists of multiple choices that allow the participants to choose the
answer based on their perceptions. The close-ended part was separated into two
subparts. The subject in the first close-ended subpart was designed to gain the
information of students’ perception as the student (who was assigned as the
student during teaching). Then, the second subpart was subjected to gain the
information of students’ perception as the teacher (who was assigned as the
teacher during teaching). The aim was to investigate the perception when
Microteaching students delivered the reinforcement and oppositely as the
recipient of reinforcement. Each close-ended subpart consists of 10 questions that
have 2 scales of agreement and disagreement.
The last part was open-ended questions. It consists of three questions that
provide spaces for the participants to state their reasons into words or paragraphs.
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intended topic without having the influence from the other aspects including the researcher.
2. Focused Group Discussion (FGD)
The second instrument was focused group discussion that was used to gain the further information of Microteaching students’ participation on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. In a survey research, one of the procedures applied to solve the problems is interview (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). However, Fraenkel and Wallen (2009) add that the weaknesses of conducting personal interview are that quite longer in the time allocation and difficult to contact the participants. So, in this research, the researcher used focused group discussion rather than personal interview. It is similar to questionnaire that has a set of questions to be answered by the participants.
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Morgan (1998) says that the moderator is to maintain the continual communication between the moderator and participants as well as among the participants themselves to avoid the domination. This condition allowed the moderator and participants to probe the information or statement that might be unclear or ambiguous. Each participant had chances to express the idea and the others might state the same or different opinions. There were 19 students chosen for FGD as the representatives from 7 classes. There were 2-3 representatives for each class.
The researcher arranged the data gathering technique after set the instruments. First of all, the researcher put the interest in Microteaching course because it has an environment that imitates a real classroom condition. According to Suseno and Gilarso (1986), there are five basic teaching skills that are possible to be learnt, one of them is reinforcement. The researcher has experienced this skill when taking the course in the previous semester. Then, the researcher asked the information whether the basic teaching skills are introduced in Microteaching class to a lecturer who was responsible for the course. After having the evidence that this skill is taught in Microteaching course, the researcher asked Microteaching lecturers for permission to conduct research on reinforcement as a basic teaching skill. The permission was to gain information from their students about the implementation of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class done by the students.
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without any intervention when collecting the data (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). They add, it allows the researcher to meet and communicate with the participants at the same time and place. By using the theories and information, the researcher set a questionnaire to investigate Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill during teaching practice in Microteaching class.
Then, the researcher distributed the copies of questionnaire to all the members of Microteaching class in order to get the further information about the implementation of reinforcement skill. This was the time schedule of distributing the questionnaires.
Table 3.1 The Schedule of Distributing Questionnaire
Date Class Number of
Questionnaire Activity
A 21 Distributing questionnaire
May 28th, 2012
B 21 Distributing questionnaire!
C 22 Distributing questionnaire!
May 29th, 2012
D 19 Distributing questionnaire!
E 21 Distributing questionnaire!
F 22 Distributing questionnaire!
May 31st, 2012
G 19 Distributing questionnaire!
The process of distributing the copies of questionnaires took place in the Laboratory of Microteaching. The researcher delivered a mini presentation about the research. It was held before the students left the lab.
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discussion on June 18th of 2012 at K.10. K.10 is one of the classrooms in ELESP.
The researcher chose the class as the place to conduct group discussion because it
has facilities of tables, chairs, wide space and air conditioner. All of the
participants have implemented five basic teaching skills including reinforcement.
The researcher recorded the process of discussion in a video. It was to enable the
researcher to make the transcription. Then, the transcription was presented and
analyzed in the next chapter.
E. Data Analysis Technique
In the next chapter, the researcher would report and analyze the data. Here,
there is a brief explanation of the steps to proceed the analysis. The close-ended
part would be reported in the form of percentage and presented in a table. The
researcher described the percentage into words as the interpretation. Firstly, the
researcher selected the questionnaires that would be analyzed. It was because the
researcher avoided the data that were invalid. It means that there were double
answers or misunderstandings with the questions so it did not answer the research
problems. This was one of the threats found in collecting the data. The
close-ended part provided Likert scale of agreement and disagreement to help
Microteaching students respond to the written statement. Likert scale is a form of
ordinal scale to measure how perceptive a participant is toward a statement (Ary,
Lucy & Christine, 2002). There are a lot of types of Likert scale. The researcher
chose four levels from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The scales were
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!"
___ x 100% !n
The researcher reported the close-ended part of the questionnaire in form
of numbers. The result of each statement needed to be calculated into percentage.
The researcher used a formula to know the score of each scale in a percentage
form.
The formula is
!" = the number of participants that choose same scale in each statement
!n = total participants
Each statement had four scales to be measured. Each scale used that formula to
show the students’ perception of the statement. The explanation of the percentage
for each statement was in words. The last part in the questionnaire was
open-ended questions. The researcher transcribed it into a table of data for the need of
analysis. The transcription was to enable the researcher to classify into some
points. The points were used to support the percentage (number) score of the
close-ended part. Then, the complete data of raw open-ended data was put in the
appendix (see Appendix C).
For the FGD result, the researcher needed to transcribe the statement from
the participants to have a thorough understanding of Microteaching students’
perception about the implementation of the use of reinforcement skill. Then, it
would be used in the next chapter to strengthen the result of the questionnaire and
perceive the students’ suggestions on the implementation of reinforcement skill to
find out what should be improved for the further development. The result of the
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researcher in the discussion and data analysis to answer the research problems on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.
F. Research Procedure
First of all, the researcher put the interest on Microteaching class especially the basic teaching skills that have been implemented. It would focus on
the reinforcement skill. The researcher defined two research problems to be investigated. There was a need to compose a proposal addressed to the researcher’s supervisor describing the willingness to conduct the research on the
use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class to assure whether the research was possible to be conducted.
As stated in ELESP Academic Book (see chapter II), Microteaching is a further training of applying the concept and procedure of English language teaching (Tutyandari, et al., 2011), there are five basic teaching skills taught in the course including reinforcement skill (Suseno & Gilarso, 1986). In the previous semester, the researcher also experienced the skill and the curiousity about the use
of reinforcement skill was started from taking the course. The researcher collected the information about the reinforcement skill in Microteaching class from a lecturer who was responsible for the course. Microteaching students played the
role as the teacher and student during the course. To gain the information related to their perceptions, the lecturer also suggested that the researcher had better
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questionnaire and focused group discussion. The questionnaire had two parts, close-ended and open-ended. The focused group discussion was designed to allow the researcher and all the participants to have discussion and not dominate other participants when exchanging their ideas.
The researcher chose Microteaching students of year 2009 who were taking the course in even semester of 2012. There were 7 classes chosen for the
target of distributing the questionnaire. As this research using sampling to gather the data, the reason of choosing them was that the participants have implemented teaching practice demonstrating reinforcement within the basic teaching skills.
Before the distribution, the researcher needed to ask permission in order to conduct research in an institution, i.e. English Language Education Study
Program of Sanata Dharma University. Furthermore, it was necessary to ask the lecturers of Microteaching course to have their students as the participants. There were 145 questionnaires ready to be distributed after the time of the class was
over. The researcher allowed the participants who could not stay longer in the class to carry the questionnaires in other places to retain the reliability of the
answer. Then, they were asked to return the questionnaires in the following day. There were 108 participants returning the filled questions on the following day. The total returns were reduced by the broken questionnaires and incomplete
response for each statement. For being valid, the researcher took half of the total questionnaires as many as 54 participants.
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41 CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, there are detail discussions about the research results,
analysis and discussion related to the theories. In reporting the data, the researcher
divides the data into two parts, based on questionnaire and focused group
discussion (FGD) result. Then, it goes to analysis and ends up in a discussion to
answer the first research question that is Microteaching students’ perception on
the use of reinforcement skill. The last part presents the suggestions from
Microteaching students on the use of reinforcement skill to answer the second
research problem.
A. Microteaching Students’ Perception on the Use of Reinforcement Skill in
Microteaching Class
This part reports the data from questionnaire and focused group discussion
(FGD) results. There are two parts that will be discussed in this section. The first
part is students’ perception as the student and the second one is students’
perception as the teacher. Both perceptions are intended to answer the first
problem formulation.
1. The Result of Students’ Perception as the Student
This section presents the result of questionnaire data. There are two parts
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perceive the scale of the participants’ agreement and disagreement and
open-ended part to elicit information for detail explanation of their views of the use of
reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. In addition, FGD result exists to
support the information gained from the questionnaire.
In order to find out the perception as the student, there is a table that
presents statements and also involves the percentage as the result of the research.
There are ten statements in the table. Each statement has its own result in a form
of percentage and number of participants.
Table 4.1 The Result of Students’ Perception as the Students (Close-ended) student who responds to a question in class discussion
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The first up to fourth statements discuss verbal form of reinforcement and the perception from the students. Those statements emerged from the theories of
Brown (1975) related to the use of praise and help as positive reinforcement. Also, Cooper (1982) states that giving feedback directly is more effective and a
technique used of reinforcement is to increase students’ participation. In the first statement, the result showed positive perception whether the teacher gives praise to the student who answers correctly. It is proved that as many as 20 (37.04%)
participants stated strongly agree and 32 (59.26%) participants stated agree with Frequency
When the teacher uses the students’ idea, the students become enthusiastic involving in the lesson.
1
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the statement. However, as many as 2 (3.7%) participants disagreed if the teacher
praises the student who answers a teacher question correctly and none of the
participants stated strongly disagree.
In the second statement, the result showed that there were 38.89% of the
total participants strongly agreed that the students feel motivated in responding to
teacher’s question after they are given positive brief responses, 32 (59.26%)
participants agreed and the rest (1.85%) stated disagree with the statement. None
of them stated strongly disagree with the statement provided. Thus, it can be
regarded as positive response because Microteaching students agreed if the
students feel motivated in responding to teacher’s question after they are given
positive brief response.
As can be seen in the third statement, there is not much different view
from the previous result. A positive response is showed by 33 participants who
agreed (61.11%) and 17 participants who strongly agreed (31.48%) with the aim
of teacher’s praises is aim to develop the students’ confidence in learning activity.
There were as many as 7.41% of the total participants who disagreed and none put
a tick in the column of strongly agree in this third statement.
According to Brown (1975), reinforcement can be used in other teaching
situations such as a group discussion. This is the base for the fourth statement
conveying whether teacher’s praise to the group member of students who
complete task in a group discussion is to encourage the other groups. The result
showed positive perception based on the sum of agreement level (61.11%) and
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teacher’s praise to the students who complete difficult task in a group discussion encourages other groups to perform expected student behavior. This statement contains two effects at the same time. When the teacher praises the group, it will give them a glow of satisfaction (Brown, 1975) and encourage other groups to
show expected behavior. The student behavior based on Turney, et al. (1973), as stated in chapter II, covers attention to teacher, peers and objects under
discussion, work output, work quality and work improvement. However, there was one participant (1.85%) disagreed with this statement and none of the participants put a tick in strongly agree column.
The fifth and sixth statements discuss reinforcement in form of feedback as a corrective to the students’ behavior in classroom activity (Brown, 1975). For
example as stated in the fifth statement, the teacher helps the student to understand the lesson by giving corrective feedback if they make mistake in response. The researcher calculated the result of the answer and found that there
were 20.37% of the total participants strongly agreed and 75.93% of the total participants agreed with the statement. Both scores are equal to 96.3% that
showed positive perception of the statements. Whereas, there were two participants (3.7%) disagreed and no one chose strongly disagree to be filled.
In the sixth statement, it is said whether corrective feedback builds
positive self-image in the students after the students make a response. According to Brown (1975), besides having praise as the reinforcement from the teacher to
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feedback can be in form of prompts, probes and giving direction (p. 123). The
data reported from this statement showed percentage level of agreement reached
88.89%. It is gained from the sum of the participants who agreed (75.93%) and
strongly agreed (12.96%). As many as six participants (11.11%) disagreed with
the sixth statement and 0% for the strongly disagree.
The seventh statement is about the use of students’ idea that can make the
students become enthusiastic during the lesson. As cited from Rosenshine (1971),
Flanders and Simon (1969) stated that using students’ ideas is a special form of
reinforcement and it can result in pupil achievement and positive attitudes
(Brown, 1975). The ideas may be acknowledged, accepted with enthusiasm,
restated or summarized in the end of discussion. The result showed that there were
one (1.85%) participant strongly disagreed, 15 (27.78%) participants disagreed,
29 (53.70%) participants agreed and as many as 9 (16.67%) participants strongly
agreed. From the sum of agree and strongly agree percentage score, there were
70.37% of participants showed positive perception of this statement.
The eighth statement discusses the use of students’ idea to get them
involved in a discussion. This statement is based on the theory that students’ idea
can be used as assistance to develop any further discussion (Brown, 1975). A
teacher may ask the student about the student’s idea and compare to other students
by asking the same topic. It aims to make the students get involved into a
discussion. By using one of their ideas, it may lead them to continue to make
contribution (p.127). The obtained data showed that no one strongly disagreed, 5
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participants strongly agreed with the eighth statement. The participants had positive perception of the eighth statement because the total of agree and strongly agree reached 90.74%.
The next statement is about non-verbal reinforcement. It is stated whether the teacher uses encouraging gesture such as smiling, nodding head to indicate the response to students’ idea. Cooper (1982) conveys this non-verbal reinforcement can be through physical messages such as eye contact, facial expressions, body positions and gestural expressions. In the ninth statement, the researcher found that no one strongly disagreed, 3 (5.56%) participants disagreed, 33 (61.11%) participants stated agree and the rest, 18 (33.33%) participants, strongly agreed with the statement. From the sum up of those who agree and strongly agree, it can be inferred that there was positive perception related to the use of encouraging gestural expression for the students’ response.
