EFL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE ONLINE UNDERGRADUATE THESIS SUPERVISION PROCESS
SKRIPSI
BY
NUNUNG SARI SANDARIA NPM 216.01.07.3.147
UNIVERSITY OF ISLAM MALANG
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
January 2021
ABSTRACT
Sandria, Nunung Sari. 2021. EFL Students’ Perceptions of The Online Undergraduate Thesis Supervision Process. Skripsi, English Education Department Faculty of Teacher Training and Education University of Islam Malang. Advisor I: Atik Umamah, S.Pd, M.Pd.; Advisor II:
Dzurriyyatun Ni’mah, S.S, M,Pd
Keywords: Online Thesis Supervision, Preception, EFL Students’, Undergraduate
During the current Covid-19 pandemic, where all campus activities are carried out online, including online thesis supervision, the researchers decided to elaborate on student perceptions of the online thesis supervision process for students majoring in English Education at the University of Islam Malang. From the background of this research, the researcher formulated a problem, namely about student perceptions of the online thesis guidance process and the purpose of this study was to elaborate students’ perceptions of the online thesis guidance process during the Covid-19 pandemic in the final semester students of the University of Islam Malang.
To achieve the above objectives, researcher used qualitative descriptive research. Data collection procedures were carried out using questionnaires and interviews. To obtain students’ perception questionnaire data, the questionnaire was given to all students online using Google Forms. After the participants filled out all the questionnaires, the researcher interviewed four selected students with two interviews and the duration of the interview was 30 minutes with the aim of exploring their perceptions of online thesis supervision. In the data analysis section, the researcher analyzed the data results using quantitative and qualitative techniques. For quantitative data, the researcher used a student perception questionnaire from Mushoriwa (2014). Student perceptions consist of two types of expressions, namely positive and negative. Periodic handling of qualitative data is carried out based on the comprehensive analysis method by Miles and Huberman (1994). It contains three parallel streams: data reduction, data display, and conclusion.
In this study, students' perceptions of online thesis guidance showed that students' perceptions were more dominant towards positive perceptions such as supervisors providing useful input and helping students in advancing their thesis so that they were able to complete it faster and be more focused when compiling a thesis. The supervisor is also open to consulting and deciding on the relevant
literature section to be included in the thesis and students have no trouble identifying the research subject. Based on the results of the interviews, it is said that participants have positive and negative perceptions of online thesis guidance.
The positive perception is that students can save costs because they don't need to print out, time is more flexible without the need to make an appointment with a supervisor, fewer revisions than face-to-face, getting approval faster, and can prevent transmission. While negative responses from supervisors are taking a long time and comments from supervisors are not understood by students. Things that need to be considered as suggestions are how in the future to add samples in data collection such as adding lecturers as participants so that it is clearer from student perceptions and lecturers' perceptions.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter contains the background of the study, the research problem, the object of the study, the scope and limitation of the study, the significance of the study, and the definition of key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid19) has wreaked havoc on the current order of things. Covid19 is a novel human condition that has never been discovered. According to WHO, Coronavirus illness (COVID-19) is an irresistible infection caused by a recently found coronavirus. Most individuals tainted with the COVID-19 infection will interfere to direct respiratory ailment and recoup without requiring extraordinary treatment. The most perfect way to anticipate and moderate down transmission is to be well educated about almost the COVID-19 infection, the illness it causes, and how it spreads.
Alchamdani (2020), proposed an effort to avoid the spread of Covid-19 by establishing a physical barrier, maintaining physical distance, and remaining at home. The learning paradigm shifts from face-to-face to online learning. The use of online learning was implemented to reach out the students from all over the world. All teaching and learning activities are supplemented by the system of online learning in the pandemic Covid-19 when the course of avoiding all physical interaction and facilitating the adoption of social distancing takes place in
a different place. Covid-19 also now makes almost all final semester students working on the thesis feel apprehensive because initially thesis supervision is done face-to-face, but currently, final semester students have to follow online thesis supervision. This makes the final semester students’ thesis a little hampered because they cannot do field research, the campus is closed so that the final semester students have difficulty finding important information, cannot gather and discuss with colleagues, the direction that is carried out continuously online is not ideal in conditions rampant covid-19. According to Kuhfeld (2020), the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic does not only occur in schools but also affects almost all campuses throughout Indonesia which causes almost all final semester students who are working on their thesis to be nervous because initially thesis supervision is carried out face-to-face, but now final semester students must follow online thesis supervision.
According to Slamet (2021), a student needs supervision by open conversation and in-depth debate during the thesis writing process, which allows for constructive dialogue between them. The perspective of the students and the supervision of the lecturer as the supervisor are supposed to be brought together in the discussion. The supervisor's guidance and suggestions should be responded to explicitly by the pupil. Therefore, if done online, the supervision of thesis writing, which is part of the learning process in higher education, is less successful. This is counter to the aim of distance learning, which is to offer and develop the freedom of learners in learning, even as it is carried out between the instructor and the pupil in various locations and times. Therefore, the lecturers' research monitoring
tasks must be performed face-to-face so that the students grasp the writing process of the thesis well. According to James (2016), many variables impact the supervising process, including the social context, the supervisor and student's personalities, the connection that develops between them, the supervisor's skills, and the wide range of difficulties that students face.
In the previous study conducted by Jaldemark (2014), his research refers to online supervision. Online supervision relies mostly on written correspondence and electronic drafts, while physical and social hints, visual communication, and draft messages are used in offline supervision. This paper reflects on the written online correspondence of managers regarding drafts of undergraduate student dissertations. The analysis indicates that the consistency of the utterances of managers embraces the disparity between comments, points of view, orders, and questions being applied. This means the value of the knowledge of nature by supervisors and the combination of their utterances if they wish to improve the autonomy of students while supervising electronically. For nearly any student and teacher who engages in higher education, supervision is a relevant teaching activity. Supervisory sessions with students and teachers provide this activity.
Students and instructors discuss copies of the research work of the students at these sessions. "The students are required to perform academic work by engaging in such activity that they cannot accomplish individually," and also do "more in the intellectual realm than he is capable of doing independently," as Vygotsky (1987) put it. In their analysis of master learners, Dysthe et al. (2006) found similar findings. The blending in their case included supervisory classes of
supervisors and their students, self-organized student groups without supervisors, and individual control between the supervisor and her or his student. In addition to the decreased significance of personal chemistry between student and supervisor, they also noticed that "less time was spent on individual supervision"... and that there was less danger to such controversies.
From the two previous studies above, the first from Jaldemark (2014), only explored how online supervision: a theory of supervisors’ strategic communicative influence on student dissertations. Furthermore, the previous study did not explore how students' perceptions of the online thesis supervision process for students who are majoring in English Education. Meanwhile, the second previous study from Dysthe et al. (2006) found that supervisory courses of supervisors and their students, self-organized student groups without supervisors, and individual control between the supervisor and her or his student were all examples of blending in their situation that there was less possibility of such disagreements, in addition to the diminished importance of personal chemistry between students and supervisor. In this scenario, during Covid-19, the researcher decided to elaborate on the students' perceptions of the online undergraduate thesis supervision process for students majoring in English Education at University of Islam Malang.
1.2 Research Problem
Judging from the above background, the research problem can be formulated as follow:
How do EFL students perceive the process of online undergraduate thesis supervision?
1.3 Objective of the Study
The objective of the study is to know the students’ perception of the process of online undergraduate thesis supervision during the Covid-19 pandemic of last semester students at University of Islam Malang.
1.4 Scope and Limitation of the Study
In this study, the researcher restricts only to identifying and analyzing the benefits and challenges of online undergraduate thesis supervision during the Covid-19 pandemic by using online media such as Zoom application which is used by final semester students at University of Islam Malang in the academic year of 2020/2021.
The scope of this research is students' perceptions of the online thesis supervision process during the Covid-19 pandemic with 40 respondents who responded to the questionnaire and four people interviewed in this study. All
respondents are final semester students who are taking their thesis with aspects of how students perceive the process of online thesis supervision, obstacles faced during online supervision, the media used, and students’ opinions about preferring online or offline thesis supervision. In this study, the researcher only interviewed students’ perceptions and did not interview lecturers’ opinions.
1.5 Significance of the Study
In this study, the researcher hoped that readers will get more detailed information about students’ perceptions of the online undergraduate thesis supervision process that can provide information for students, lecturers, and researchers. The researcher hoped that students can overcome the obstacles they experience when conducting the online undergraduate thesis supervision process and find out what media that can be used to consult their thesis to the supervisor during the online supervision process. This study also can give some additional information for lecturers about students’ perceptions and the obstacles experienced by students during the supervision online process and also can be used as a reference for conducting research related to the online thesis supervision process.
1.6 Definition of Key Terms
Definitions of key terms are provided to avoid misunderstanding and ambiguity. There are several terms used in this research that need to be clearly defined below;
1. Perception is the process of using one's senses to comprehend the reality of objects or circumstances, which leads to behavior and actions. In this study, the researcher wanted to know about students' perceptions of the online undergraduate thesis supervision process. Then the researchers conducted interviews by questioning the opinions of students about obstacles and media used during thesis supervision in a pandemic situation.
2. The online undergraduate thesis supervision process is the supervision process given by a lecturer to direct the students in the last semester to do the undergraduate thesis during the Covid-19 pandemic online.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
In this chapter, the research concludes the study, and suggestions are given to the lecturer and next researcher.
5.1 Conclusion
The conclusion taken from the previous chapter is that the students' perception of the online thesis supervision process has a positive and negative perception. Positive, among others, it does not need to pay printing costs, more flexible because students can send their script files at any time without having to schedule time with their supervisor, and do not transmit Covid-19 at this time.
The negative perception is the late feedback from supervisors in responding to students and explanations of supervisors in draft thesis students who are sometimes misinterpreted by students. All students said the supervisor requests to send the thesis file via email, WhatsApp, or zoom application to discuss adjustments during the online thesis guidance process. So it needs to be noted back so that the supervisor is faster in responding to students and use sentences more clearly in commenting the drafts so that online thesis guidance will become more effective.
5.2 Suggestion
Suggestions are given based on the studies linked below:
1. Lecturer
For students who have done online thesis supervision using WhatsApp and E-mail, the slow response from the supervisor is one of the obstacles in the process of completing their thesis. Supervising lecturers are expected to be able to respond and provide feedback quickly during the online thesis supervision process. One of the important things that a supervisor must do is look for other media that can facilitate direct communication (for example, the Zoom application, signals, etc.) to express their opinions to solve the problem of online thesis supervision during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
2. Future Researcher
For further researchers who are interested in researching students’
perceptions of thesis supervision, the researchers suggested adding samples in data collection such as adding lecturers as participants and students’ thesis scores so that the results are more complete from the perceptions of students and lecturers.
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