Tuesday, December 18, 2012

My Final Project of Research Proposal


The Procrastination in English Department students
Of the fifth semester




Ramlan Pakaya





English Department
Gorontalo State University
January. 2012










Background
              In student’s education life, the word assignment is a very well-known term that is very useful for the students. It cannot be separated from the students itself. It has to be given in order to increase the students’ ability in each subject. It also needs to be applied as the implementation contemporaneously asking question whether the students understand about the material or not. The teacher can ensure the understanding of the students about the subject by giving them assignment. Besides, the accomplishment of assignment is also needed by students to sharpen their ability to manage their time.
However, in order to accomplish the assignments, sometimes there are some students who prefer to procrastinate the accomplishment of the assignments. This could be happened because of some nonsense reason such as the nearer deadline comes then the faster brain could think critically, another reason is the ideas always come when the procrastinator (person who does procrastination) is in under-pressure of the deadline. If those reason will be analyzed again, proves are contradict to the facts that procrastinating is only done by the students who are lazy. Laziness is one of the reasons why students procrastinate the assignments. If this habit keep running and be the students’ wont, how will the young generation be in the future?  So that students should not procrastinate the accomplishment of the assignments, otherwise a bad result of the works will always be there.
In fact that can be found in the English department of Universitas Negeri gorontalo that will be my participant, there are many students that have a habit to postpone or delay the accomplishment of the assignments. If seemed to the understanding of the word, procrastination is a tendency to postpone in starting, performing and finishing an activity (Rumiani, 2006), this is not a big problem in education, and notwithstanding it has a big impact to the young generation in the future especially to their skill in managing the time.
Many research have been implemented to study more about procrastination in students and one of them was performed by Rumiani (2006) in her finding suggested that a Procrastination occurred because of two factors: they are internal factors and external factors. Internal factors included lack of motivation and affect by psychology. External factors included the effect of environment, and an overload of assignments. Procrastination which is done by student indicates a lack of motivation in achievement (need for achievement). This could be seen from the examples such as always come late to the class, the preparation takes too long time then the assignment cannot be finished. She furthermore She gave more explanation that procrastination may be affected by two possibilities such as stress and need for achievement. The findings of her research explained that need for achievement has a positive correlation in procrastination especially in university students.
Rumiani’s research (2006) could only give more explanation internal factors of procrastination such as motivational and psychological factor, limitation from the research is only found two kinds of internal factors that affected the students to procrastinate; they are motif for achievement and also personal psychological factor. However, these factors cannot represent my expectation in the procrastination in my participant, because my research is expected to find other kinds of internal factor especially in English department students of Universitas Negeri Gorontalo that is not explored in her research. Besides, another limitation from the research is only found an explanation in external factors such as environmental factors only. My research is expected to find another external factor of procrastination.
Generally, my research expectation finding will be very valuable for many people especially for those who have a tendency to procrastinate their job, beside that this research will not only valuable for the students who procrastinate the assignment but also for the students who are not procrastinators. The other advantages of my research will be for the teacher whose assignments are always procrastinated by students. Furthermore for the society that is being the environment around the students who are procrastinator. By decreasing the tendency of procrastination then a very good result of work from young generation can be increased.
By observed the significances above the purpose of my research is expected to find the factors of procrastination observed from internal and external factors. Internal factors can be from the inner personality of the students who procrastinate the works, whereas external factors can be form outer personality of the students itself. The research tends to find more about the factors of procrastination in English department students, Universitas Negeri Gorontalo.
Research Question
My research questions that expected to be answered are:
1. What are the factors of procrastination in English department students of fifth semester?
2. How did the internal factors of procrastination affect the students?
3. How did the external factors of procrastination affect the students?
Research Purpose
The purposes of my research are expected to find more explanation about the phenomenon of procrastination in the fifth semester students especially in English Department. Furthermore, this research will be related to the finding of the factors of procrastination observed from the internal and external factors of the students. Besides, the expansion of the finding will also be related to the types of procrastinators in English department students. So that, this research will be very valuable in order to explore the procrastination in English department students.
Significance of Study
This research is hopefully expected to help the students who are procrastinators to decrease the tendency of procrastination their works. The procrastinator actually knows that the habit of procrastination is quiet bad from many sides. From the physical condition (healthy), of course procrastination needs a long-night time to finish the works then it will be very dangerous for the students’ health. Furthermore, from educational side it has a bad impact such as the lack of skills in managing the time, the lack of knowledge in the works that is being finished, because sometimes when procrastinator could not find any idea then plagiarism will be the only one way to solve the problem. By those explanation above it could be concluded that the tendency of procrastination will be decreased if the students know the factors of procrastination.
The impact of procrastination is not only for the students who are procrastinator but also for those who are not procrastinator. The first main impact is when they finished their works first, and then the procrastinator will directly come and plagiarize the result of the works.
Procrastination is not only mean for the assignments or something like works in learning for examination. In a hard condition, it could be postponing or delaying to graduate from university punctually. By decreasing the tendency of procrastination in graduate from university punctually, this can help parents to save their money to defray the budget of study.
There are some benefits of this research for the teachers. The first one is by knowing the factors of procrastination in students then the teachers can help the students who have tendency of procrastination by creating the way of learning with the tips or tricks to avoid the procrastination itself. The second one is by decreasing the tendency of procrastination in students, teacher can ensure the students’ comprehension about the material/ subject which is given. The third one is helping the teacher to decrease the tendency of plagiarism in students.
In this explanation, environment can be meant for the country that this research will help to create a young generation who has a good skill in time management. Another advantage of this research is to create the young generation that has a good result in finishing the works, because the works that start in the beginning of the time can be reviewed many times to be a perfect one. If in the society have many people that avoid the procrastination so that every works result will be very good result.
Literature Review
This part will analyze about the factors of procrastination. There are some researchers that focused on the factors of procrastination. They have found various factors, notwithstanding, this part will not only discuss the factors of procrastination but also the types of procrastinators in educational side.
The internal factors of procrastination
              Almost everybody has the chance to procrastinate the works. This might happen when a need for achievement declined (Rumiani, 2006). Need for achievement is one of the internal factors in procrastination. Furthermore, she gave more explanation that procrastination may be affected by two possibilities such as stress and need for achievement. The findings of her research showed that need for achievement has a positive correlation in procrastination especially in university students. Stress has no correlation to procrastination because for those who are under pressure of stress still lower in procrastination compared to those who lack of need of achievement. Procrastination occurred because of two factors: they are internal factors and external factors. Internal factors included lack of motivation and affect by psychology. External factors included the effect of environment, and an overload of assignments. Another finding of the research found that there was no correlation between academic procrastination, stress and need of achievement observed from gender.
Need for achievements were born when a student has a high motivation. If student has motivation, it will boost the student to reach the purpose of study, it is success. The motivation can be seen from a hard sacrificing from the individual student to get the goal (Woolfolk in Rumiani, 2006). The student could also keep the high spirit of work hard for the sake of his goals. This is contradict to the procrastinator habit who always ignore the works and careless of the purpose of his study. Afterwards Rumiani (2006) also stated that a student who are highly motivated has some characters such as; always work hard, tenacious, never gives up to the condition, and wants to finish the assignment firstly, besides, the student who are highly motivated focuses on his goal so that never let himself  to do something useless or wasting time. A motivated student never let himself to waste the time by diverting the finishing of assignment to another activity that has no purpose (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). In other words, an individual having high level motivation may experience a more successful process in carrying out tasks (preparing for exams, preparing term paper, doing homework) during his/her academic life. So motivation occupies an important place in academic life (Sirin, 2011).
The external factors of procrastination
              Sirin (2011) on her research has brought one of the factors of procrastination in turkey that there are lots of factors influential on the situation in Turkey. For example, because of economic and educational policies, it is hard to be appointed as a teacher (state worker) after graduating from these departments (physical education and sport teaching, trainer education, sport management and recreation) so undergraduates might experience lack of motivation and concentration on their academic tasks. Furthermore, they may have difficulties in setting their targets for their future life. By having no target or goal in studying, it strongly moderated the students to take the academic life flippantly. This condition is identical to the problem in Indonesian now, while many graduations of undergraduate student have no job so that makes the other students feel confident to endure themselves in the university. On the other research finding that the longer student takes the study in university, the bigger tiresome comes repeatedly. It is because most of participant (procrastinator) was chosen from the fifth semester until the twentieth semester.
According to Rumiani (2006) procrastination is a tendency to postpone in starting, performing and finishing an activity. Academic procrastination is a phenomenon which happened in an academic environment. She emphasized that almost 70% of the University Students doing procrastination is a large comprehension (in Ellis & Knaus, 1977). Procrastination can be one of the big enemies for the students to reach their goal in learning. This happened without any self-awareness from the students that they are in the hole of procrastination. They just realize that this is natural and has no impact for their study.
On the other hand, Sirin (2011) suggested “Although procrastination is a common phenomenon on among students and, is thought to be an unfavorable personality trait, it seems hard to find a conventional definition on which all the researcher agree. However, procrastination is stated to be a personality trait intended to put off an existing work, a behavioral tendency or an irrational delay”. She concluded that in postponing the activity, it seemed like personality (psychological) problem that hardly to be explored and it comes without any exact reason. Sometimes the reason is unacceptable because the procrastinator consider that the best way of finishing the assignment is only when the deadline is almost over. Procrastination does not only mean a bad habit overall. This is actually a bad habit on academic life, however procrastination can be a good thing in military life, because in the war, postponing or delaying time to attack the enemy until the best time finally come is a good decision and it also needs a big patient.
The types of procrastinator
              Differentially, the presence of academic procrastination is affected by external and internal factor. Internal factors include of motivation and psychological and external factors include of environment and overload of assignments. Most of the influence factors that affect the students to procrastinate their activities in academic life are the internal (psychological) factors.  This statement also supported by the experience of Sapadin and Maguire have suggested six types of procrastination:
a.       Perfections.
The student is afraid of doing something that imperfect. He has a strong willing the assignment must be very perfect. Something that will be done in order to finish the assignment often considered as useless thing so that the individual tends to postpone the finishing of assignment.
b.      Dreamer.
The student has many great ideas but not implemented. Procrastinator spends most of the time to prepare himself for finding the material that is needed, and make a complete plan but excessive then delay to do the assignment.
c.       Worrier
The student thinks that the assignment will never be a good result. The individual cannot make a good assignment. He worries to be failed then choose to delay the finishing of assignment.
d.      Deifer
The student does not want to be commanded by other people (likes to argue).
e.       Crisis maker
The student always makes a trouble in works because of late in starting. The procrastinator tends to delay and doing the assignment when the deadline is almost over so that sometimes it cannot be finished punctual.
f.       Over doer
The student is overload of assignments. He cannot manage the time wisely then finally cannot finish all of the assignments punctually (Sapadin & Maguire, 2002).

Furthermore, Tuckman (2002) briefly defined procrastinator into two types:
a.       Tense-afraid type: the feeling is under pressure, the way of thinking that is not realistic of time, unsatisfied of the achievement, worry, blaming other people or the condition of failure, lack of self-confidence and sometimes perfectionist. They thought that they are scored according to what they doing that show their ability, however it makes a feel of guilty and afraid of something which is going to be happen. This type encompasses afraid of failure, afraid of success, want to be controlled, or do not want to be controlled, the willingness of always being with someone who is needed.
b.      Relaxed type: this kind of type is called pleasure seeker type, because of disliking assignment which must be done. They tend to postpone assignment by finding something pleasurable to do.
             Based on some researches above, it can be concluded that procrastination academic is a hard willingness to adjourn the assignment or activity that needs to be done before the deadline. A person who does procrastination is called procrastinator. The factors of procrastination are divided into two categories; the first one is internal factors and the second one is external factors. However, the large impact comes from internal factor of the procrastinator. Procrastination in academic has a positive correlation to academic motivation (it is called need for achievement in Rumiani, 2006). The higher motivation that the student has the lower procrastination could be happened. It means that for those who lack of motivation in academic, they have a large possibility to do procrastination.
              By the researches that support my research proposal, I could find some pieces of information about the factors of procrastination. Those could be my next step forward to find more explanation in my research which is expected to find the factors of procrastination in finishing assignment by university student especially the English Department Students in Universitas Negeri Gorontalo.
Methodology
Method
              In this research, qualitative approach will be used as the appropriate approach to my research. Hancock (2012) states that “qualitative research is a research which is concerned with developing explanations of social phenomena. That is to say, it aims to help us to understand the world in which we live and why things are the way they are. It is concerned with the social aspects of our world and seeks to answer questions about: (1) Why people behave the way they do, (2) How opinions and attitudes are formed, (3) How people are affected by the events that go on around them, (4) How and why cultures have developed in the way they have, (5) The differences between social groups. Qualitative research basically attempts to answer the questions.
There are many kinds of qualitative research, however, my research used case study as the specific approach which is appropriate to the case that is being researched. According to Ary et al. (2006) “…a case study focuses on a single unit to produce an in-depth description that is rich and holistic. The underlying question is “What are the characteristics of this particular entity, phenomenon, person, or setting?” Case studies typically include multiple sources of data collected over time”. Furthermore Hancock (2012) states that case study claims to offer the method that will find information deeply which cannot be offered by other method. By capturing as many variable as possible, case study can identify how a complex set of circumstances come together to produce a particular manifestation of occurrences.
              By considering those aspects of qualitative research above, my research appropriately tends to use qualitative approach because the question that needs to be answered in my research are what, and how that phenomenon occurs in my participant. Hereinafter, the kinds of qualitative research that will be used for my research is case study because case study will only focus on a single unit and produce a depth description which is rich and holistic about the case or problem in that unit.
Site
              The site that is chosen is in Universitas Negeri Gorontalo especially in English department. English department is one of the departments in Universitas Negeri Gorontalo. The department is in Letter and Culture faculty. A faculty which has other departments; they are Sendratasik department, Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia department and Tourism department. The English department is located in the back-west of the campus. The building is placed in across of post-graduate building. This department is also located nearby Agriculture faculty and Technology faculty.
This department can be the site for conducting my research because of some factors; the first one is the convenience in order to reach the site because this site is my University included my department where taken for studying. Another reason of choosing the site is in emotional side. I have proximity with the place that simplifies to conduct the research and also choosing the participant.
Participant
Participants who will be chosen are students from English department of Universitas Negeri Gorontalo especially for those who are in nineteenth to twenty-two years old in the fifth semester. The fifth semester of the English department is divided into 5 classes.  The students are not newcomer in the system of learning in English department so that tendency to procrastinate the works is always being there.
The way of selection participants were based on some criterion which have been determined. For those who always tend to procrastinate the works in lecture will be the main purpose to be selected. These participants should not be aware when they were being researched so that the accuracy of the data will be naturally found in order to find more explanation about the phenomenon.
Data Collection
Instrumentation
The most widely used tools in qualitative research are interviews, document analysis, and observation (Ary, et al: 2006). However, my research will use two instruments in collecting data. In this section, there will be two instruments of collecting data. The first one is observation and the second one is interview. According to Bungin (2007) there are three kinds observation, such as: 1) participation observation, 2) unstructured observation, and 3) group observation (in Rahardjo 2011). Group observation will not be used because there will no group researcher that study about the same case in this research. The second one interview, at least there are two kinds of interview; 1). Structured interview and 2) semi structured or unstructured interview. Structured interview can be asking the same question to the participants. The questions might be in one thought or arranged in limited range of responses be able to be raised. Furthermore, semi structure interview consists of open-ended question according to the topic that the researcher wants to cover by the questions. The open-ended questions should be naturally questioned the topic which is being researched however the question should give the opportunity for both of interviewer and interviewee to have discussion to be more detail (Hancock, 2012).
Procedure
In the procedure of collecting data, the first step is conducting an observation to site that is being the place of research. Kinds of observation that will be used are participation observation where the researcher directly come and be mingled with the participants. In this case, at the time the participants should be in the condition of procrastinating some works and or assignments without knowing by the participants that they are being observed. By doing this step, there will be a clear sight which participants has more tendency in procrastination. This step should be a determinant factor for the next step in collecting further data.
The next step is conducting interview, the first interview will be structured interview where the participant will be asked some questions which are typically same with other participants. The questions will only about seeking the factors of why they have tendency to procrastinate the works or assignment. It is not enough about using unstructured interview because there will be a comparison between the students who have tendency of procrastination with students who less of tendency in procrastination. In this case the semi structured interview will be conducted in order to find the factors of procrastination in their perception. Semi structured interview will not be limited in the range of the topic; the question can be expanded to any discussion between researcher and interviewee. The period time that will be needed for collecting data will be six months or in one semester to find more accurate data of research.
Data Analysis
Miles and Heberman (Cited in Putra, 2009:53) defined the steps of data analysis firstly, reducing data, by sorting and converting the data from the field. Secondly, presenting the data, they are combining and arranging the information into form of unity, selective and understandable. Thirdly, formulating and concluding, that is performing re-observation in the field to check the truthfulness and validity that occur there. The result that is found will be interpreted, and then will be presented in narrative.
My analysis data will go through some ways bellow; firstly the data which are collected by conducting interview to the participants in the field will be separated into two categories according to the topic; which one will be in the external factors of procrastination and which one will be in the internal factors of procrastination. The data which are separated will be presented in narrative text that is in form of selective and understandable text. Those data can be formulated or concluded into the form of the specification the types of procrastinators according to the way they procrastinate the works and also by those data, the conclusion of avoiding the tendency of procrastination can be identified. After analyzing the data overall, the researcher should conduct recheck in the field whether the data that are being collected according to the truth or not. The point is to find the accurateness and the validity of the data.
Validity
In order to find the accurateness of data, some ways of proofing data validity will be conducted:
Prolonged time
The first one is prolonged time. In conducting research the more time we need to collect and analyze the data the more accurate and valid of data will be found in the field. So that the time duration which will be needed in order for accomplishing the research should be more than 3 months.
Triangulation
The second one is triangulation. Triangulation is a technique of verifying the validity of the data by using something outside of the data itself for the necessity of checking or as the comparison of the data. In this case, according to Bachri (2010) triangulation can be categorized into three kinds; they are sources triangulation, technique triangulation and time triangulation.
Triangulation which will be used is technique triangulation. In this case, to check whether the data are valid or not, researcher will recheck the data credibility to the same sources of data (participants) by using three different techniques; they are observation, interview and document (questionnaire). The only purpose is to find the same result and also the same data in the researcher with the field.
The triangulation has been chosen as one of the way to verify the data validity because triangulation is a validity checker that is appropriate to the qualitative case study especially my topic of research.
Member checking
The third one is member checking. Member checking is a technique of verifying data validity by directly comes to the participants and has a discussion about the finding of the research before presenting the result of the research. The purpose of member checking is to know whether the data which are collected according to the data which are given by participants.
By conducting those techniques of verifying data validity, so that the accurateness and the credibility of the research will not be doubted.












References
Agusta, I. (2008). Pengolahan dan analisis kualitatif menggunakan NVIVO (qualitative data analyzes using NVIVO. Retrieved November 26, 2012. From http://iagusta.blogspot.com//2008/2006/pengolahan-dan-analisis-kualitatif.html.
Ary, D., Jacobs, l., Sorensen, C., Razavieh,  A.  (2010). Introduction to research in education (8 nd  ed). USA: Wadsworth ceangage learning.

Bachri, B.S ( 2010). Meyakinkan Validitas Data Melalui Triangulasi Pada Penelitian Kualitatif. Journal of education technology, vol 10, no 1. Retrieved December 12, 2012 from http://tp.jurnal.unesa.ac.id/1_6/meyakinkan-validitas-data-melalui-triangulasi-pada-penelitian-kualitatif

Motivasi dan isnpirasi. (2012 June, 10). 4 alasan kita selalu melakukan penundaan. [web log message]. Retrieved from http://dreamssucces.blogspot.com/2012/10/4-alasan-kita-selalu-melakukan-penundaan.html
Page, S.,(2002). Procrastination Across Variable. Retrieved November 15, 2012 from http://www.mwsc.Edu /psychology/research/psy302/fall96/stephanie_page.html

Rahardjo, M. (2011) Metode pengumpulan data kualitatif. Retrieved November 11, 2012 from http://mudjiarahardjo.com/artikel/336.html?task=view
Sirin, F.S., (2011). Academic Procrastination Among Undergraduates Attending School of Physical Education And Sports: Role of General Procrastination, Academic Motivation And Academic Self-Efficacy. Academic journal, 6, 447, 445. Retrieved November 17, 2012, from http://www.google.co.id/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=procrastination+research+paper&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CDYQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.academicjournals.org%2FERR%2FPDF%2FPdf%25202011%2FMay%2FSirin.pdf&ei=ya-nUPeyHMWIrAf2koH4Dw&usg=AFQjCNF7MsTD98IeuWx5bAtPHDEQeGwKqg
The McGraw Center (2012). Understanding and Overcoming Procrastination. Retrieved November 18, 2012 from


Yusuf, u., Yanuvianti, M. & Coralia, F. (2011). Rancangan intervensi berbasis “cognitive-behavioral therapy” untuk menganggulangi prokrastinasi akademik pada mahasiswa fakultas psikologi unisba. Proceedings of seminar nasional penelitian dan PKM: social, ekonomi dan humaniora. Retrieved November 18, 2012 from http://www.google.co.id/search?q=penundaan+dalam+membuat+tugas&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-beta

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Assignment 2


Learning Language
Learning language is very important for us as a human being. We need language to be communicated with others. Of course, to know about a language we need to learn the language itself. In language learning, many obstacles will be faced, however, with a strong willingness we can survive from those obstacles then finally we can master the language. According to skinner (cited in Az-Zahro at al, 2012) explores that an ability of speaking and understanding a language was acquired from environment. This cannot be argued because the proof that could be seen is the dialect of each community is affected by their community
My experience when learning a language (English) is very hard. I faced many obstacles in learning the language. One of the obstacles is lack of self confidence to speak or practice with other students who are learning the same language. This problem could be solved by joining some activity that related to the language such as join the English club, join a debate competition and so on, so that I can speak confidently now.
In this last paragraph I would like to tell you about my friend’s experience when learning English. Since the first time she learned about English, she was very enthusiasm in her study. Ask many questions to the teacher, studying from many sources such as internet, books, etc. One time she finally found her sodden. She was very bored of learning English. This could be happened to everyone. She finally solved the problem by took some refreshing to another good place (beach and mountain) she forgot about learning English for that time. After coming back from her refreshing she learned English again with a new spirit.

References:
Az-Zahro, N.F., Handiri, P.M., Sanjaya, R., Estantri, S.D (2012) Teori belajar bahasa dan asal usul bahasa. Politeknik Kesehatan Surakarta. Retrieved November 7, 2012 from: http://perantauan-tw.blogspot.com/2012/03/teori-teori-belajar-bahasa-dan-asal.html
Dardjowidjodjo, S (2005) Psikolingistik: Pengantar Pemahaman Bahasa Manusia Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia
Chaer, A (2003) Psikolingistik Kajian Teoretik. Jakarta: PT Rineka Cipta