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Available online: http://jurnal.ustjogja.ac.id/index.php/ELP

Developing collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in an Indonesian university

Tri Jampi Setiyorini ¹ *, Rr. Hasti Robiasih ¹, Silvester Goridus Sukur ¹, Somchai Watcharapunyawong ²

1 Universitas Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa. Jl. Kusumanegara 157, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

2 Thepsatri Rajabhat University. 321 Narai Maharach Rd, Thale Chup Son, Lopburi 15000, Thailand

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Received: 20 April 2023; Revised: 19 June 2023; Accepted: 30 June 2023

Abstract: This research aims to: (1) develop the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials and (2) reveal the effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills. This research was Research and Develop- ment (R & D). The research instruments were close-ended questionnaires and tests. The subjects of the study were 20 third-semester students of the English education department students in an Indonesian university. The researcher developed the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials based on the needs analysis results. The researcher explained the needs analysis results, developed the course grid as the guidelines to develop the essay writing materials, made the first draft, asked some expert judgments to evaluate the developed essay writing materials, and revised the developed essay writing materials based on expert judgments’ results. The researcher improved the layout appearance to enhance the quality of the developed essay writing materials. Then, the researcher assessed the effectiveness of the developed essay writing materials using paired sample t-test. The results showed that the significance value is 0.00 (0.00 < 0.05). It means that H0 is rejected and Ha is accepted. Thus, it can be concluded that the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials are effective in improving students’ essay writing skills.

Keywords: Collaborative learning approach, essay writing, material development How to Cite: Setiyorini, T. J. S., Hasti Robiasih, Silvester Goridus Sukur, &

Watcharapunyawong, S. (2023). Developing collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials at Universitas Muhammadiyah Purworejo. Journal of English Language and Pedagogy, 6(1), 12-26. https://doi.org/10.36597/jelp.v6i1.13679

Introduction

Indonesian National Qualification Framework Curriculum or Kurikulum Berbasis Kerangka Kualifikasi Nasional Indonesia (KKNI) obliges third-semester university students to learn essay writing. Some types of essays are chronological order essays/ process essays, cause/effect essays, comparison/contrast essays, and argumentative essays (Oshima & Hogue, 2006;

Setiyorini et al., 2020). During the third semester, learners have to learn and write one type of essay for each meeting based on the lesson plan. They must pay attention to content, organization, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation.

The essay writing course in an Indonesian university uses the KKNI Curriculum, but the lecturer sometimes teaches students using teacher-centered learning, the result of which is that learners sometimes do not have an active role in the class. The lecturer uses the lecturing method by giving explanations of the learning material and asking students to write the essay.

He always gives explanations based on the book Writing Academic English by Oshima & Hogue

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(2006). Those problems show that the lecturer does not use the learning approach which supports students’ active participation in the class. Here, the lecturer should use collaborative learning approach to make students actively participate in all learning activities during the learning process.

Based on the researcher’s interview with 20 third semester learners, they say that they faced four problems in writing an essay. The first problem is that students still lack vocabulary. Stu- dents said that the lack of vocabulary makes them unable to finish their essays. Students were also still confused about the word choices in writing an essay due to inadequate vocabulary. It made them difficult to give supporting details in the body paragraph, even they still find it difficult to write the summary statements in the concluding paragraph, so their essays were not well-developed. Here, students’ statements were also supported by students’ essay writing results in which the students still wrote two sentences in the body paragraph, and they wrote one sentence in the concluding paragraph. It means that students still did not have adequate vocabulary to express their ideas, so they could not compose a good essay. It is supported by Wichanpricha’s theory, in which vocabulary is the core of EFL learning as students deliver their thoughts, especially in written form Wichanpricha (2020). Syartika et al. (2020) also report a positive correlation between learners’ vocabulary mastery and their writing skills. Students cannot transmit their ideas without vocabulary, although they have good grammar competence (Wichanpricha, 2020).

The second problem is that the lecturer usually asked students to do peer-writing and never asked them to discuss the topic of the essay in a group consisting of three or more students.

When the lecturer asked students to do peer-writing, he asked them to discuss the topic before writing an essay, yet they still meet difficulties developing their ideas into an essay. Many of them did not discuss the topic and ideas actively due to a lack of understanding of the topic.

Besides, the lecturer rarely asks learners to compose an essay based on their topic interest.

Topic interest helps learners explore vocabulary used in their writing (Leblanc and Fujieda, 2012; Bonyadi, 2014). The research conducted by Behbudi & Sadeghoghli (2018) also reveals that the topic interest positively affects students’ writing skills.

The third problem is that the lecturer used the Project-Based Learning, but the topics of essays did not improve students’ critical thinking skills. The topics are how to charge a phone battery and how to be yourself. Those topics are not appropriate for college level, but they are more appropriate for junior high school or senior high school level at the tenth or eleventh grade. Viewed from the learning activities, the researcher found that the lecturer never asked students to develop a final project such as writing an essay and sticking it in a wall magazine or collecting students’ essays in the form of a magazine. On the contrary, the core of Project- Based Learning is developing a final project.

The fourth problem is that the book does not support students’ writing skills. The book Writing Academic English does not encourage students to work in a group to do the exercises, so there is no collaboration among students. Students always work individually to do exercises, so they cannot share and exchange their ideas and knowledge. On the contrary, group task promotes information sharing, ideas and knowledge development (Winarti, 2019). Besides, working collaboratively to do exercises can support students’ 21 century learning skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Viewed from explanation, there is no explanation about how to write a thesis statement for logical division of ideas, cause/

effect essay, and comparison/contrast essay. Viewed from exercises, the book does not provide the complete exercises for writing a thesis statement, writing supporting sentences in body paragraphs, and writing a concluding paragraph in all chapters about essays. In the unit of

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‘from paragraph to essay’, there is no exercise of writing a thesis statement. In the unit of process essay, there are no exercises of writing supporting sentences in the body paragraph and no exercise of writing a concluding paragraph. In the unit of cause/effect essay, there are no exercises about writing a thesis statement and writing a concluding paragraph. In the unit of comparison/contrast essay, there are no exercises about writing a thesis statement, writing supporting sentences in the body paragraph, and writing a concluding paragraph. Those exercises are crucial in developing students’ essay writing skills. Viewed from the examples, the chapter of comparison/contrast essay does not provide the example of comparison/contrast essay in point-by-point organization and the chapter of argumentative essay does not provide the example of argumentative essay in point-by-point pattern. Both comparison/contrast essay and argumentative essay provides the model of essay, but there is no explanation whether it uses block organization or point-by-point organization/pattern.

Some researchers also have significant concerns about the collaborative learning approach.

The research conducted by Daud et al. (2018) shows an improvement in students’ writing ability after using the collaborative learning approach, and there was a positive correlation between learning motivation and learners’ writing scores. The research conducted by Ismail et al. (2020) shows that students and lecturers had a positive perception of collaborative learning in concepts understanding, forms of cooperation, writing skills, and a pleasant learning classroom atmosphere. The research conducted by Bhandari (2021) demonstrates that the collaborative learning effectively improved the quality of learners’ writing skills. From those researches, the researcher concludes that the collaborative learning approach effectively enhances students’

writing skills, improves students’ motivation in learning writing, and creates an exciting learning atmosphere. However, there is no research on writing materials development using the collaborative learning approach.

Based on the research background, the researcher focuses on Developing Collaborative Learning Approach-Based Essay Writing Materials in an Indonesian University. The researcher believes that essay writing materials development using a collaborative learning approach enables students to improve their writing skills. It also improves their collaboration and active participation during the learning process.

Based on the research background, the researcher formulates the problem formulation as follows: (1) How is the development of the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials?; (2) How is the effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills?

In line with the research questions, this research then aims to: (1) develop the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials, and (2) reveal the effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’

essay writing skills.

Methods Research Design

This research used educational research and development (R & D). R & D is a process to develop and validate educational products (Borg & Gall, 1983). The steps of this process are preliminary research, development, and assessment (Akker et al., 2013). The researcher used R

& D because she developed the essay writing materials using the collaborative learning approach.

In conducting R & D research, the researcher used Akker et al's theory (2013) which consists of preliminary research, development, and assessment/testing. Here, preliminary research

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means that the researcher conducts needs analysis. Development means that the researcher designs, develops, asks experts judgments, and revises the materials development. Assessment means that the researcher implements the materials development and evaluates the materials development effectiveness by comparing students’ essays tests results before and after using the developed materials.

Research Subjects

The research subjects were 20 third-semester learners of the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia in the academic year of 2022/2023 because they learned essay writing in the third semester. There were 44 third-semester students of the English education department (24 students of class A and 20 students of class B). The researcher chose 20 students from class B because they had different writing capacity, the number of students was ideal for qualitative research, and it was appropriate for R & D research.

Research Instruments

The researcher used close-ended questionnaire for needs analysis and test for assessment to obtain the data. The close-ended questionnaire was used to obtain the data about students’

necessities, lacks, and wants in the essay writing course. The test was used to evaluate whether the developed materials were effective or not.

Validity and Reliability Validity

Validity is the extent to which the test measures what should be measured (Sugianto, 2017).

The validity of a measurement instrument is reflected to be the degree to which the instrument measures what it asserts to measure; in this situation, the validity is said to be equivalent to accuracy (Brown & Lee, 2001; Azmi, 2020).

In this research, the researcher used the content validity to measure the validity of the instrument; that is, questionnaire. The content validity will ensure that the questionnaire is accurate, appropriate, and meaningful (Furr, 2011; Ramli et al., 2018). In this research, the researcher used Nation & Macalister’s theory about necessities, lacks, and wants to ensure whether all statements in the questionnaire represent what should be measured. The researcher also asked expert judgments to assess the content of the questionnaire to measure the content validity.

The content validity of close-ended questionnaire was used to measure whether statements in the questionnaires were valid for research. If r table < r count, so the questionnaire is valid (Sujarweni, 2020). When the result of Pearson correlation is more than rtable (0.444), it means that the item is valid.

Based on the Table 1, 28 items in the questionnaires have the significant correlation at the 0.01 level and 2 items in the questionnaires have the significant correlation at the 0.05 level. It means that all items are valid, and it measures what must be measured.

Reliability

Reliability is the measurement consistency and the scores’ stability (Sultana, 2015). Ary et al.

(2010) state that types of reliability are test-retest reliability, equivalent-forms reliability, and internal consistency measures of reliability. The internal consistency procedures require only a single administration of one form of a test. Cronbach's alpha is the most used internal consistency measure, which is generally founded as the mean of all possible split-half coefficients (Hajjar, 2018).

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In this research, the researcher used the internal consistency reliability using Cronbach’s alpha. The result determined whether statements in the questionnaires are reliable for research.

If the result of Cronbach’s Alpha value is > 0.6, so the questionnaire is reliable (Sujarweni, 2020).

Table 1. The Recapitulation of the Validity for the Questionnaire

Total Total

X01 Pearson Correlation .769** X16 Pearson Correlation .644**

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 Sig. (2-tailed) .002

N 20 N 20

X11 Pearson Correlation .559* X26 Pearson Correlation .574

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.10 Sig. (2-tailed) .008

N 20 N 20

X12 Pearson Correlation .576** X27 Pearson Correlation .756

N 20 N 20

Notes:

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rtable for 20 respondents is 0.444 (significant at the 0.05 level) and 0.561 (significant at the 0.01 level).

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Table 2. The Reliability of Close-Ended Questionnaire Reliability Statistics

Cronbach’s Alpha Number of Items

.966 30

Based on the analysis result, the Cronbach’s Alpha shows that the value is 0.966 and it is more than 0.6. It means that the questionnaire was reliable.

Technique of Collecting Data Questionnaire

Questionnaires are used to collect the data about phenomena which are not directly observ- able, such as opinions, interests, value, inner experience and the like (Ilmi & Madya, 2019). In this research, the researcher used close-ended questionnaires to obtain the data about students’ necessities, lacks, and wants because questionnaires were practical and effective. In distributing questionnaires, the researcher asked for permission from the lecturer of essay writing of the English education department, asked for permission from 20 students of class B from the third semester of the English education department, distributed questionnaires, explain how to fill the questionnaires, asked learners to do and submit the questionnaires.

Test

Test is a type of evaluation which is as measurement instrument of teaching and learning process, instrument to see learners’ ability, or instrument to take educational decision (Sugianto, 2017). It measures learners’ language proficiency (Setiabudi et al., 2019). The funct- ion of test is to assess an individual’s ability, knowledge, and performance (Furwana, 2019). The researcher used a test because the researcher evaluated whether the developed essay writing materials were effective or not, and whether there was an improvement on students’ essay writing skills. Here, the researcher gave an essay writing test to 20 third-semester students from class B in the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. In administering the test, the researcher asked for permission from the essay writing lecturer, asked for permission from 20 third-semester students of the English education department, explained how to do the test, asked students to write an essay, and asked students to submit their essays.

Technique of Analysing Data

The technique of analysing data 1 (close-ended questionnaire for needs analysis)

After giving the close-ended questionnaire, the researcher analysed the results with the following steps: organizing the close-ended questionnaires, reading the questionnaires results, classifying the questionnaires results, describing the questionnaires results, and interpreting the questionnaires results (Ary et al., 2010).

The technique of analysing data 2 (tests)

After giving the test, the researcher analysed the results of tests. The researcher analysed the descriptive statistics for categorical variables. Then, the researcher assessed normality using Shapiro-Wilk test. When the data distribution is normal, the researcher must use paired sample

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t-test to know whether there is a significant difference between two related samples (Sujarweni, 2020).

Results and Discussion

How is the development of the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in an Indonesian university?

The Results of Close-Ended Questionnaires for Needs Analysis

Viewed from the results of close-ended questionnaires, students have some necessities in the essay writing course. Students need to build the knowledge about the topic to write an essay. In this part, the lecturer needs to provide the topics related to students’ interest. It is in line with the theory that topic interest helps learners explore vocabulary used in their writing (Leblanc and Fujieda, 2012; Bonyadi, 2014). Here, the researcher agrees with Leblanc and Fujieda's theory (2012) because the topic which engages students’ interests will encourage students to explore vocabulary, so they can convey their ideas easily in a well-formed text.

The questionnaires’ results also show that learners also need to learn the structure (organization) of the essay. The structure of essay consists of an introductory paragraph, some body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph (Zemach and Rumisek, 2002; Sinar et al., 2020). In writing an essay, learners need to have good grammar competence. Betoni and Ulfaika (2019) state that good writing needs good grammar competence. Grammar mastery also affects students’ writing skills. It is a crucial component to make good writing (Jamaludin and Nurdiawati, 2021). Learners also need to have a lot of vocabulary in writing an essay. The research conducted by Haryadi et al. (2021) reports a positive effect between learners’ vocabulary mastery on their writing skills. They also need to learn the types of essays (process, cause/effect, comparison/contrast, and argumentative essays). It is in line with Setiyorini et al.'s theory (2020) that the third-semester students need to learn a process essay, a cause/effect essay, a comparison/contrast essay, and an argumentative essay in the essay writing course.

Viewed from the close-ended questionnaires’ results, learners need to learn to write good general statements and a thesis statement in the introductory paragraph. Toba et al. (2019) state that writing good introductory paragraph can stimulate readers’ interest on the essay topic. Then, students need to learn to write the topic sentence and supporting sentences in the body paragraph. They also need to learn to write the summary statements in the concluding paragraph. Toba et al. (2019) state that the concluding paragraph is an important structure of essay which summarizes the main points and signs the end of the essay. In addition, students need to improve the cohesion and coherence of their essays. It is vital to consider cohesion and coherence because both are important for writing a readable text (Gunas et al., 2020).

Cohesion can make students’ texts comprehensible and communicative, and coherence allows students to write a good text (Gunas et al., 2020). Cohesion and coherence can make all sentences logically and linguistically connected, and it can enhance the quality of writing (Lismay, 2020). Students also need to practice writing different types of essays frequently.

Students also have some lacks in the essay writing course. They have difficulty writing the general statements and a thesis statement in the introductory paragraph, writing the topic sentence and supporting sentences in the body paragraph, and writing the summary statements in the concluding paragraph. On the contrary, writing good introductory paragraph can stimulate readers’ interest on essay topic (Toba et al., 2019). Writing good concluding paragraph also makes readers understand the main points of the essay (Toba et al., 2019). Writing an introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph is necessary since they

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are the organization of essay (Sinar et al., 2020). From the findings, the researcher interprets that students come across difficulty writing an introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. On the contrary, they belong to the essay’s organization to construct a well-formed essay.

From the questionnaires’ results, learners have some grammatical mistakes in their essays and they sometimes do not pay attention to spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in writing an essay. On the contrary, grammar is essential to construct sentences in writing an essay. Stu- dents cannot deliver their ideas in writing an essay without understanding the grammar rules (Etfita, 2019). Learners need to learn grammar and understand its rules to construct a good text (Melati, 2022). Mechanics enables learners to write a comprehensible text (Fahady, 2020).

Students also have inadequate vocabulary. On the contrary, vocabulary is a crucial element in writing since it helps learner deliver their ideas related to the topic in written form (Maesaroh and Reknosari, 2021; Ratnah, 2018). It is in line with the research conducted by Ratnaningsih and Clara (2021) who report that vocabulary mastery affects learners’ writing ability. Learners also have difficulty writing an essay when the topic needs the problem-solving skill. In addition, they have difficulty writing a process essay, writing a cause/effect essay, writing a comparison/

contrast essay, and writing an argumentative essay. On the contrary, those essays must be learned and mastered by the third-semester of the English education department in a university (Setiyorini et al., 2020).

Students also have some wants in the essay writing course. They want to write an essay based on the topic which needs problem-solving skills and want their lecturer to facilitate the learning process through questioning and probing. When the essay topic needs the problem- solving skill, it can enhance students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Here, it can be interpreted that learners want Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in the essay writing course because in problem-based learning, the lecturer facilitates learners’ learning through questioning and probing (Aliyu and Yong, 2019).

Students also want to collaborate in a group to write an essay. Herman (2019) reports that group work can enhance learners’ writing skills, especially on content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. They also want their lecturer to give examples and assessment of each type of essay in the essay writing course. When the lecturer gives examples of essays, it means that the lecturer explains the basic knowledge of essays. It is in line with the theory that explaining the basic knowledge and giving examples belong to the first stage of Problem- Based Learning, namely, basic concept (Qomariyah and Utama, 2021). Then, at the end of the lesson, learners want the assessment, which is also included in the Problem-Based Learning.

Ozan and Kıncal (2018) report that the assessment can improve students’ writing skills. It can also encourage them to learn more, improve their English proficiency, and enhance their learning responsibility (Umar, 2018).

Students also want their lecturer to provide, describe a problem, and give a brainstorming activity, so they can share their ideas. Providing and describing a problem and giving a brainstorming activity are included in the second stage of Problem-Based Learning, namely, defining a problem (Qomariyah and Utama, 2021). Brainstorming helps students express their opinions (Abedianpour and Omidvari, 2018). It also develops their ideas, enhances their critical thinking skills, and helps them find good solution to the problems (Anggraini, 2020). Here, the researcher interprets that providing, describing a problem, and giving a brainstorming activity allows learners to express and improve their ideas in writing. When the lecturer provides and describes a problem, learners can improve their critical thinking skills. Besides, they can

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determine the appropriate solution to the problems. It means that they can enhance their problem-solving skills.

Students also want to have many references to understand the problem, develop their essays, and describe their ideas about the topic of an essay in their group. Those activities belong to the third stage of Problem-Based Learning, namely, self-learning (Qomariyah and Utama, 2021). Besides, they want to work in a group to discuss the references related to the topic of an essay and determine the problem-solving related to the topic of an essay. Those activities belong to the fourth stage of Problem-Based Learning, namely, knowledge exchange (Qomariyah and Utama, 2021). Working in a group can help learners find more ideas and get better knowledge (Herman, 2019). In addition, when students work in a group to discuss the references and determine the problem-solving about the essay topic, group discussion can help learners discover the possible solutions to the problems (Isrokijah, 2020).

Making the Course Grid and First Draft

After analysing the needs analysis’ results, the researcher developed the course grid as the guidelines to develop the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials. The course grid consists of meeting, every meeting learning outcome, topics, teaching method, du- ration, teaching media, students’ learning experience, assessment (indicator and type), weight, and references. In the course grid, all meetings have 100 minutes every meeting.

To make the first draft of collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials, the researcher used the stages of problem-based learning to arrange the learning activities in the essay writing materials. The stages are basic concept, defining a problem, self-learning, knowledge exchange, and assessment. The developed essay writing materials consist of four units:

introduction to essay (Unit 1), process essay (Unit 2), cause/effect essay (Unit 3), and cause- effect essay (Unit 4).

Experts Judgment and Revision

For the purpose of expert judgments, this research asked 3 experts from the essay writing lecturers of the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia for their judgments. The expert judgment includes the content/explanation, examples, tasks/

exercises, and format/presentation of the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials at an Indonesian university. Experts stated that the content/explanation of materials is good. The materials suited the teaching syllabus, gave clear explanation, and provided interesting topics. For examples, experts stated that examples in the developed essay writing materials were good because each chapter always provided one example of essay and it was equipped with the explanation of the essay’s organization. All examples could help learners learn and write the essay and they are close to students’ lives in the English education department. For exercises, all exercises in the developed essay writing materials were good because they could meet students’ needs, improve their writing skills, and enhance their understanding of materials. All exercises were also interesting and challenging. For presentation, experts stated that each unit has clear and readable font size, has clear texts, and provide interesting illustrations. The layout is good, but it should be improved. For examples, the tables should be colourful to engage students’ interests in learning essay writing.

Revising the Materials

In this stage, the researcher revised the materials based on the results of experts judgments from 3 lecturers of the English Education Department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. One expert gives suggestion to layout to enhance the quality of the developed

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collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials, and the researcher has revised the materials. The researcher has improved the layout appearance and made the tables colourful.

How is the effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills?

In this stage, the researcher discusses the effectiveness of the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. The researcher gave a pre-test and a post-test to 20 third-semester students of the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. Then, the researcher assessed descriptive statistics, normality, and the effectiveness of the developed essay writing materials. To assess normality of the data, the researcher used Shapiro-Wilk test since the samples were 20 students only. They were 20 students of 3B in the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. Then, the effectiveness of the developed essay writing materials was assessed using the paired sample t-test (when the data distribution is normal) or using Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test (when the data distribution is not normal).

Descriptive Statistics of Pre-Test and Post-Test of Writing a Process Essay

Descriptive statistics were used to describe the objects investigated through the sample (Sujarweni, 2020). Here, the objects were the results of pre-tests and post-tests of writing a process essay in class 3B of the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. Below is the result of the descriptive statistics.

Table 3. The Results of Descriptive Statistics of Pre-Test and Post-Test of Writing a Process Essay Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Sum Mean Std. Deviation Variance

Pre-test 20 49 88 1402 70.10 10.954 119.989

Post-test 20 64 93 1629 81.45 8.121 65.945

Valid N (listwise) 20

Table 3 shows that the results of descriptive statistics for pre-tests and post-tests of writing a process essay showed a significant improvement on students’ essay writing skills after using the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials. The minimum score of pre-test was 49, while that of post-test was 64. It means that there was a significant improvement in the minimum score of post-test compared to that of pre-test. Then, the maximum score of pre-test was 88, while that of post-test was 93. It means that there was a significant improvement in the maximum score of post-test compared to that of pre-test. The sum score of pre-test was 1402, while that of post-test was 1629, so the sum scores between pre-test and post test showed a significant improvement. Viewed from the mean score, the mean score of pre-test was 70.10, while that of post-test was 81.45 which demonstrated that students’ scores improved. For standard deviation, the standard deviation of pre-test was 10.954 and the standard deviation of post-test was 8.121. For variance, the variance of pre-test was 119.989, while that of post-test was 65.945. Viewed from the minimum score, the maximum score, the mean score, the standard deviation, and variance between the pre-test and the post- test, it can be interpreted that the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials gives a significant improvement on students’ essay writing skills.

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Normality Test of Pre-Test and Post-Test of Writing a Process Essay

Normality test aims to know the data distribution in the variables used in the research (Sujarweni, 2020). Here is the result of normality test for pre-test and post-test of writing a process essay in class 3B in the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia.

Table 4. The Normality Tests’ Results of Pre-Test and Post-Test of Writing a Process Essay Tests of Normality

Kolmogorov-Smirnov^a Shapiro-Wilk

Statistic df Sig. Statistic df Sig.

Pre-test .189 20 .059 .932 20 .172

Post-test .135 20 .200^* .945 20 .293

*. This is a lower bound of the true significance.

a. Lilliefors Significance Correction

Sujarweni (2020) states that if the significance value > 0.05, the data has normal distribution.

However, if the significance value < 0.05, that data has abnormal distribution. Here, the researcher used Shapiro-Wilk test. Shapiro-Wilk test is the method to test the normality of the data for small sample size (<50 samples) (Mishra et al., 2019). Based on Shapiro-Wilk test analysis, table 4 shows that the significance value of pre-test is 0.172 and it is more than 0.05, so the data distribution is normal. Then, the significance value of post-test is 0.293 and it is more than 0.05, so the data distribution is normal. When the data has normal distribution, it means that the data is valid and good for research (Sujarweni, 2020). Here, it can be concluded that the normality test of pre-test and post-test of writing a process essay showed that the data distribution is normal, so the data is good and valid for research.

The Results of Paired-Sample T-Test for Pre-Test and Post-Test of Writing a Process Essay The paired-sample t-test is used to analyse data when the data distribution is normal and it aims to know the significant difference between two related samples (Sujarweni, 2020). Below is the result of the paired sample t-test for pre-test and post-test of writing a process essay in class 3B in the English education department at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia.

Table 5.The Results of Paired-Sample t-test for Pre-Test and Post-Test of Writing a Process Essay Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Mean Std. Dev. Std. Error

Mean Lower Upper t df Sig.(2-

tailed) Pair Pre-test –

Post-test

-11.35000 6.87693 1.53773 -14.56850 -8.13150 -7.381 19 0.000

The results of paired-sample t-test for pre-test and post-test of writing a process essay showed that the significance value was 0.000. According to Sujarweni (2020), when the significance value > 0.05, H0 is accepted. However, when the significance value < 0.05, H0 is rejected.

Viewed from the effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills, the results showed that the significance value is 0.00 (0.00 < 0.05). Here, the researcher provides two hypotheses to support the research results.

H0: There is no effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills.

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Ha : There is an effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills.

When the significance value is 0.00 (0.00 < 0.05), it means that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test (Sujarweni, 2020). It means that H0 is rejected and Ha is accepted. Thus, it can be interpreted that there is an effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills.

Conclusion

The needs analysis results showed that students need to build the knowledge about the topic to write an essay, learn the organization of the essay, have good grammar competence in writing an essay, and learn all types of essays (process, cause/effect, comparison/contrast, and argumentative essays). Students also need to learn to write the introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and the concluding paragraph. They also need to improve the cohesion and coherence and practice writing different types of essays frequently. Students still have difficulty writing the introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and the concluding paragraph. They also still have some grammatical mistakes and insufficient vocabulary. In writing an essay, they have difficulty writing a process essay, a cause/effect essay, a comparison/contrast essay, and an argumentative essay. Then, students want the essay writing course uses Problem-Based Learning (PBL) method. This method consists of five stages: basic concept, defining a problem, self-learning, knowledge exchange, and assessment.

The researcher developed the collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials based on the needs analysis’ results. The researcher explained the results of needs analysis, developed the course grid as the guideline to develop the essay writing materials, and made the first draft. Then, the researcher asked some expert judgments to evaluate the developed essay writing materials and revised the materials based on experts’ judgments’ results.

To assess the effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials, the researcher used paired-sample t-test. The results showed that the significance value is 0.00 (0.00 < 0.05). When the significance value is less than 0.05, it means that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test (Sujarweni, 2020). It means that H0 is rejected and Ha is accepted. Thus, it can be interpreted that there is an effectiveness of the developed collaborative learning approach-based essay writing materials in improving students’ essay writing skills.

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