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THE EFFECT OF USING INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING STRATEGY IN THE WRITING ABILITY OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 1 PRAMBANAN KLATEN IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013 A THESIS Presented as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the attainment of the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan in English Education Department by Nurtalina 07202244098 ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS STATE UNIVERSITY OF YOGYAKARTA 2013 APPROVAL SHEET THE EFFECT OF USING INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING STRATEGY IN THE WRITING ABILITY OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 1 PRAMBANAN KLATEN IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013 First Consultant, Second Consultant, S Siti Sudartini S-Pd., M.A. NIP. 19481016 197204 1 001 NIP. 19760311 200501 2 001   v    MOTTOS   “Man Jadda Wa Jadda” With God’s bless, anyone who focuses and has strong willing to reach his dreams then they will come true   $yγ •ƒr'¯≈tƒ z⎯ƒÏ% ©!$# (#θãΖtΒ#u™ (#θãΨ‹ÏètGó™ $# Î ö9 ¢Á9$ Î/ Íο4θn=¢Á9$#uρ 4 ¨β Î) ©!$# yì tΒ t⎦⎪ ÎÉ9≈¢Á9$# ∩⊇∈⊂∪ Believers! Seek help in patience and in prayer, indeed Allah is with those that are patient (QS. Al Baqarah: 153)                       vi    DEDICATIONS I proudly dedicate this thesis to:  My beloved father and mother, (Their support, love, and every prayer for me to finish my thesis, especially my mom who is never ever tired of supporting me and makes me strong)  My lovely husband, (I thank him that always care, love, and hug me when I feel down)  My little brother, (Many thanks him, because he always helps me in everything and accompanies me to do my thesis even until mid night)                         vii    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to praise Allah SWT for the blessing and mercy given to me during my study so that finally I can finish this final project. I really realize that this thesis project is finished with help of many people around me. Therefore, in this opportunity I would like to thank people who have given their ideas, times, and everything to me during the writing of this thesis. They are: 1. My first consultant, G. Suharto, M.Pd. and my second consultant, Siti Sudartini S.Pd., M.A. I would like to express my gratitude for their invaluable time, patience, encouragement, and suggestion in guiding me during the process of writing this thesis. 2. My Academic Consultant, Nunik Sugesti, M.Hum and all lecturers of English Education Department of Yogyakarta State University. I thank them for the guidance, support, and knowledge that they give to me. 3. The Principal of SMP N 1 Prambanan Klaten, M. Suryoto, S.Pd. M.Pd, and the staff for their permission and help during my research in SMP N 1 Prambanan Klaten. 4. The English teacher of SMP N 1 Prambanan Klaten, Aristiyani, S.Pd. I give my most sincere gratitude for her guidance, help and cooperation. 5. My beloved parents, husband, and brother who always trust me and pray for me. I really thank them for supporting me in various ways during my study. x a. The Objective of Teaching writing............................ 15 b. Effective Techniques for Teaching Writing.............. 17 c. The Role of the Teacher............................................ 21 d. Teaching Writing in Junior High School................... 23 3. Inquiry-Based Learning................................................... 25 a. Definition of Inquiry-Based Learning........................ 25 b. The Process of Inquiry-Based Learning..................... 27 c. Advantages of Inquiry-Based Leaning....................... 29 d. The Development of Inquiry-Based Learning Model .................................................................................... 31 e. Using Inquiry to Teach Writing in Junior High School.................................................... 32 4. Narrative Text.................................................................. 33 a. Definition of Narrative Text...................................... 33 b. Generic Structure of Narrative Text.......................... 34 c. Language Features..................................................... 36 B. Relevant Studies.................................................................... 37 C. Conceptual Framework.......................................................... 39 D. Hypothesis.............................................................................. 41 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODS........................................................... 42 A. Research Design.................................................................... 42 B. Population and Sample........................................................... 43 C. Variable of the Research........................................................ 43 D. Instrument of the Research..................................................... 44 1. Research Instrument......................................................... 44 2. Validity of the Instrument................................................ 45 a. Content Validity........................................................ 45 3. Reliability of the Instrument........................................... 48 E. Procedure of the Research..................................................... 48 F. Data Analysis Technique...................................................... 50 1. Descriptive Analysis....................................................... 50 2. Inferential Statistics......................................................... 52 a. Test of Normality........................................................ 52 b. Test of Homogeneity.................................................. 52 c. Test of Hypothesis...................................................... 52 CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDING AND DISCUSSIONS......................... 54 A. Descriptive Analysis.............................................................. 54 1. Experimental Class.......................................................... 54 xi a. The Data of the Pre-Test Scores of the Experimental Class…………………………….. 55 b. The Data of the Post-Test Score of the Experimental Class……………………….......... 56 c. Comparison between the Pre-Test and Post-Test of the Experimental Class......................................... 57 2. Control Class.................................................................... 58 a. The Data of the Pre-Test Scores of the Control Class........................................................ 59 b. The Data of the Post-Test Score of the Control Class....................................................... 60 c. Comparison between the Pre-Test and Post-Test of the Control Class.................................................... 61 B. Inferential Analysis................................................................ 62 1. Pre-Testing Analysis........................................................ 63 a. Normality Test........................................................... 63 b. Homogeneity Test...................................................... 64 2. Hypothesis Testing........................................................... 65 C. Interpretation.......................................................................... 67 D. Discussion.............................................................................. 70 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS…... 76 A. Conclusion.............................................................................. 76 B. Implication.............................................................................. 78 C. Suggestions............................................................................. 79 REFERENCES..................................................................................................... 80 APPENDICES...................................................................................................... 85 xii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: The Standard of Competency and the Basic Competency of JuniorHigh School Grade VIII of the Second Semester................ 24 Table 2: Design of the Research……………………………………………..... 42 Table 3: English Writing Competences of Junior High Schools Grade VIII of the Second Semester…………………………………………...... 44 Table 4: The Blueprint of the Writing Ability test………………………….... 45 Table 5: Aspect Evaluate in Writing………………………………………… 47 Table 6: The Value of Reliability Coefficient………………………………. 48 Table 7: The Schedule of the Research……………………………………... 49 Table 8: Score Categorization……………………………………………….. 51 Table 9: Descriptive Analysis of the Experimental Class in the Pre-test……. 54 Table 10: Frequency Distribution of the Pre-test score on Students’ Writing Ability of the Experimental Class………………………………….. 55 Table 11: Descriptive Analysis of the Post-test of the Experimental Class…... 56 Table 12: Frequency Distribution of the Post-test Score on Students’ Writing Ability of the Experimental Class………………………….............. 56 Table 13: Statistical Data of the Pre-test and Post-test Scores of the Experimental Class............................................................................. 57 Table 14: Descriptive Analysis of the Control Class in the Pre-test………….. 59 Table 15: Frequency Distribution of the Pre-test score on Students’ Writing Ability of the Control Class………………………………................ 59 Table 16: Descriptive Analysis of the Post-test of the Control Class………… 60 xv LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page A : Lesson Plan…………………………………………………......... 85 B : Course Grid………………………………………………............. 160 C : Computation……………………………………………................ 174 D : Sample of Pre-test and Post-test…………………………............... 188 E : Students’ Score……………………………………………............. 191 F : Sample of Students’ Work………………………………................ 200 G : Documentations……………………………………………........... 220 H : Research Permits…………………………………………... .......... 225 xvi THE EFFECT OF USING INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING STRATEGY IN THE WRITING ABILITY OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 1 PRAMBANAN KLATEN IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013 By: Nurtalina NIM 07202244098 ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to find out whether there is a significant difference in terms of writing ability improvements between grade VIII students of SMP N 1 Prambanan Klaten who are taught inquiry-based learning strategy as a method and those who are not in the academic year 2012/2013. This study involved 64 students from two groups, Class VIII D (32) as the experimental class and Class VIII E (32) as the control class. The experimental class used inquiry-based leaning strategy as teaching method in the teaching and learning process, whereas the control class was not taught by using the teaching method. The data were obtained by using an essay writing test. It was administered to the two classes as the pre-test and post-test. The pre-test was given to both classes before the treatment was given and the post-test was given after the treatment finished. The data of the pre-test and post-test of both groups were analyzed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics. After the data were tested and found to be homogeneous and normal, the hypothesis was tested using the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The results of the data analysis are as follows. First, the mean value of the post-test in the experimental class (82.10) is higher than that in control class (66.09). Second, there is a significant difference in the writing ability between the students who were using inquiry-based learning strategy and those who were not. It can be seen in the result of the hypothesis testing using ANCOVA. The significant value of 0.00 is less than the significance level of 0.05 (0.00 < 0.05), which means that the data of this study are considered to have a significant difference. Therefore, the hypothesis of this study is accepted. It means that inquiry-based learning strategy improve significantly the students’ writing ability in the English teaching and learning process in SMP N 1 Prambanan Klaten. 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Problem In studying English there are four skills that must be learnt by foreign language students, they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The skills are the crucial elements in studying English, and among those skills, writing is considered the most difficult skill than others because writing is a merging process of ideas and opinions to be expressed in written language. Sometimes the learners feel difficult to write because they have to pay attention to every detail in their writing. Besides, in expressing ideas, the students will use assorted sentences such as compound sentence and complex sentence and they also will use assorted clauses. Therefore, writing is very complex like as mentioned by Richards and Renandya (2002:309) that written language is complex at the clause level. In order to improve the students’ writing ability in classroom, an English teacher has to choose the appropriate learning methods, right materials based on the students’ need, and suitable activities for the students. From those supporting factors involve choosing learning methods, choosing learning materials and choosing appropriate writing activities in classroom will make students enjoy to learn English especially writing. The students who love English will be easy to learn English writing so that they will be easy to express their ideas. It is almost the same with students who 4 some effective techniques in teaching writing. One of them is by using inquiry activity. Graham and Perin (2007) state that inquiry activities engage the students in analyzing immediate, concrete data to help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task. It is a kind of teaching technique that helps the students to develop their writing ability because the learners can observe immediately the object of learning. Considering those problems, it is important to improve the students’ writing ability especially in junior high school. Thus, this study tries to find out an alternative solution to improve the result of teaching writing. B. Identification of the Problem There are three factors that influence the students’ writing ability. They are factors that related to the teacher, student and the process. 1. Problem related to the teacher It means that the problems which come from the teachers, the problems can be divided into three parts. They are method, material, and media which the teachers use when they teach in the classroom. a) Method In the class, teachers are promoters. They take control in classroom during the lesson until times up. Based on the observation at SMP N 1 Prambanan, the teacher did not use an interesting method in teaching in the class. She just explained the material in front of the class, after that she asked 5 her students to do the exercises. There was no interesting way to teach so that it made the students did not enjoy following the lesson. b) Material The teachers took the material of the subject from LKS and textbooks. It made the students bored and unmotivated, because there is no variation in material which is used. Then, students who have less motivation to learn English would get poor scores in the final examination of the subject. c) Media The teacher did not use any interesting media, she just used whiteboard. Thus, many students had less concentration during the lesson in the class. In teaching English, the use of media is an important thing to support teaching and learning process. By using media the teacher can convey the material with different and more attractive ways. Students will be interested in learning English if teachers use teaching media such as power point, picture, games, teaching object etc. 2. Problem related to students The problems do not only come from teacher but also from students. It means that the problems which come from the writer, or usually known as personal factors. The factors deal with the students’ interest and self- motivation. a) Interest Some students are less interested in English because they did not enjoy the teacher’s teaching methods that there is no variation. Interest is the 6 crucial part that influences the students’ ability in English because it is the key to master foreign language. b) Motivation Motivation is personal factor which comes from the students that make them interested in doing something. Students who are interested in English absolutely will have high motivation to learn English. On the other hand, students who are not interested in English certainly they will have low motivation to learn English and as the result, they will feel difficult to understand the material of the subject. 3. Problem related to process The last factor that influences students’ writing ability is the relation of the learning process and classroom activities. a) Learning process Learning process in the class is unattractive because there is no variation in the way learning process conducted so that the students will get bored. They just sit and listen to the teachers explaining the material in front of the class. As the result, the students didn’t enjoy the lesson. b) Classroom activities Less variation of classroom activities also gave bad effects for the students’ interest and the students’ motivation to learn English. However, in many schools, there are some bored activities such as working assignments in the class on the textbook, doing exercises from LKS and at the end of the time teachers will give so many homeworks for students. 9 3) For the researchers, to give more insight or find out suitable method of teaching for their students in writing skill. 10 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED THEORIES A. Theoritical Description This chapter reviews some related theories and studies upon which the hypothesis of this study has been built. The discussion of this chapter is divided into three main parts: theoretical description, conceptual framework, and hypothesis. 1. Writing a. Definition of Writing Writing is the process of arranging words to sentences or paragraphs which are meaningful. The sentences or the paragraphs are the result of someone’s ideas and thought, their feeling and sometimes their opinion that they want to convey for the readers. It can be a message or medium for communication to other people. Chesla (2002:2) stated that writing is the way a writer expresses his ideas about a subject to an audience for a purpose. Similarly, Byrne, Hedge and Tribble in Mc Donough and Shaw (2003:161) argue that writing is a process of putting message into words. In foreign language learning, writing is a process where the foreign learners try to explore their ideas.Writingis also the way to check the foreign language learner whether they have mastered one of the skills of foreign language or not. Murcia ( 2001:205) stated that writing is the ability to express one’s ideas in writing as second or foreign 11 language and to do so with reasonable and accuracy is a major achievement. Osima and Hogue (2006:205) agree that writing is a process. They propose that a writing process is divided into four stages. The first is prewriting: choosing topic and collecting information. The second is outlining that means organizing ideas into an outline. The third is writing a rough draft, in this stage writers follow the outline and ignore the grammar, punctuation or spelling. The fourth stage is polishing or revising or editing. Writing is also one of the productive skill, it means that it involves producing language rather than receiving it. In writing, students have to develop their ability by trying to write and expressing their ideas in the paper. However, writing is also a complexity subject that many students get difficulty in it. Richard & Renandya (2002:303) state that writing is the most difficult skill for second language learners. The difficulty lies not only in generating and organizing ideas but also in translating these ideas into a readable text. The skills that are involved in writing are highly complex, second language writers have to pay attention to their skill of planning and organizing as well as their skill of spelling and giving punctuation. In addition, Brown (2000:335) states that writing is a written product of thinking, drafting, and revising that require specialized skills on how to generate ideas, how to put them coherently, how to use discourse 14 draft. The fourth is revising first draft. The last is proofreading the final draft. Based on some theories above, it can be summarized that in general there are three steps of writing process, they are: pre-writing, writing, and rewriting. Pre-writing includes any stimulating activities before writing. It consists of planning and drafting. Writing refers to the activities of organizing one’s ideas into sentences and paragraphs in the written form. While rewriting involves revising and editing. c. Writing Skill As the most difficult skill, writing deals with some aspects which should be known by the learners. Writing is not only about theoretical idea, but it more concerns on practical thing. In facts, writing deals with some sub- skills, including micro- and macro- skills. In order to acquire the writing skills, there are some micro- and macroskills which should be mastered by the learners. Brown (2004:221) states someaspects included in them, in more detail, they are: Microskills 1. Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English. 2. Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose. 3. Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order patterns. 4. Use acceptable grammatical systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns and rules. 5. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. 6. Use cohesive devices in written discourse. 15 Macroskills 7. Use the rethorical forms and conventions of written discourse. 8. Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written to form and purpose. 9. Convey links and conections between events, and communicate such realtion as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification. 10. Distinguish between literal and implified meanings when writing. 11. Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the written text. 12. Develop and use a battery of writing strategies, such as accurately assessing the audience’s interpretation, using prewriting devices, writing with fluency in the first drafts, using paraphrases and synonyms, soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising and editing. By mastering the micro and macro- skills of writing above, it helps the writers to get the success in their writing. Those skills are basic thing that the students should have in order to attain better result in their writing product. 2. Teaching Writing a. The Objective of Teaching Writing . The objective of teaching writing refers to the main objective of writing specified by Davis and Pearse (2000: 98), that is, writing is not only producing correct English, but also achieving the effective communication. It means, through writing, the writer communicates what he/she wants to say or share what he/she feels. In achieving the effective communication, the writer needs to pay attention to formal aspects, i.e. neat hand writing, correct spelling and pronunciation, as well as acceptable grammar and careful selection of vocabulary. 16 Furthermore, the objective of the teaching writing is not only to help the learners expressing the ideas, but also getting them to acquire writing abilities and skills in order that the learners can produce written text on their own language. It is mentioned by the statements of Ur (2009:162), that: The objective of the teachingwriting in a foreign language is to get learners to acquire the abilities and skills they need to produce a range of different kinds of written texts similar to those an educated person would be expected to be able to produce in their own language. In encouraging the learners to acquire the writing abilities and skills, teachers are also given the syllabus as a reference. However, in the real teaching, teachers have their own materials to teach. Therefore, they need to adopt the materials to the syllabus. Based on the statements above, it can be said the objectives of teaching writing depend on two things. They are teaching situation and the objectives of teaching writing expressed in the syllabus. The objectives of teaching writing in the syllabus then are referred to SK-KD (Depdiknas 2000:284), it said that teaching writing is the process of helping students toexpress them in arranging sentences in short functional texts and short essays in the form of particular texts in the daily life context. 19 revising stages are the core of process writing.In stage when students start to write from start to finish writing, it includes of drafting and revising stage. It is because when someone writes they will through drafting and revising stages. 7. Strive to offer techniques as interactive as possible Writing techniques that focus on purposes rather than compositions (such as letters, forms, memos, directions, and short report) are also subject to the principles of interactive classrooms. Group collaboration, brainstorming, and critiquing are easily and successfully a part of many writing-focused techniques. 8. Sensitively apply methods of responding to and correcting your students’ writing Error correction in writing must be approached in a different manner. It is because writing unlike speaking, often includes an extensive planning stage, error treatment can begin in the drafting and revising stages during which time it is more appropriate to consider error among several features of the whole process of responding to student writing. 9. Clearly instruct students on the rhetorical, formal conventions of writing. Each type of writing has its formal property. Teachers must teach every particular type of writing clearly on the characteristic and the purpose of the type of writing. A reading approach to writing is very 20 helpful because it can give the example every particular type of writing, so it can help students to learn writing. Moreover, Graham and Perin (2007:15-21) state that there are several effective elements of effective writing which can help students to improve their writing ability, those are: (1) Writing strategies, which involve teaching students strategies for planning, revising, and editing their composition; (2) Summarizing, which involves explicitly and systematically teaching students how to summarize texts; (3) Collaborative writing, which uses instructional arrangements in which students work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their compositions; (4) Specific product goals, which assign students specific, reachable goals for the writing they are to complete; (5) Word processing, which uses computers and word processors as instructional support for writing assignments; (6) Sentence combining, which involves teaching students to construct more complex, sophisticated sentences; (7) Prewriting, which engage students in activities designed to help them generate or organize ideas for their composition; (8) Inquiry activities, which engages students in analyzing immediate, concrete data to help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task; (9) Process writing approach, which interweaves a number of writing instructional activities in a workshop environment that stresses extended writing opportunities, writing for authentic audiences, personalized instruction, and cycles of 21 writing; (10) Study of modelswhich provide students with opportunities to read, analyze, and emulate models of good writing; (11) Writing for content learning, which uses writing as a tool for learning content material. c. The Role of the Teacher In teaching and learning process in the class, teachers can play many roles, just as parents are called upon to be many things to their children. Teachers cannot be satisfied with only one role. According Rebecca Oxford in Brown (1998:166), pointed out that teacher roles are often best described in the form of metaphors to describe a perspectrum of possibilities of teacher roles, some of which are more conducive to creating an interactive classroom than others.Those are: (1) The teacher as controller: in this role teacher as master controllers who determine what the students do, when they should speak, and what language forms they should use. (2) The teacher as director: some interactive classroom time can legitimately be structured in such a way that the teacher is like a conductor of an orchestra or a director of a drama. As students engage in either rehearsed or spontaneous language performance, it is teacher job to keep the process flowing smoothly and efficiently. (3) The teacher as manager: this metaphor captures teacher roles as one who plans lessons, modules, and courses, and who then allows each individual player to be creative within those parameters. (4) The teacher as facilitator: a less directive role might be described as facilitating the process of learning, of making learning easier for students: helping them to clear away roadblocks, to find short cuts, to negotiate rough terrain. (5) The teacher as resource: here teacher takes the least directive role. The implication of the resource role is that the student takes the initiative to come to the teacher. The teacher is available for advice and counsel when to student seek it. 24 a short functional text and short functional text and short essay in the form of descriptive, narrative and recount (Depdiknas, 2006). As presented in the Table 1. Table 1: The Standard of Competency and the BasicCompetency of Junior High School Grade VIII of the Second Semester. Grade Semester Standard of Competency Basic Competency VIII 2 12. Expressing the meaning of a short functional text and essay in form of narrative texts and recount text the daily life context. 12.1. Expressing the meaning and short essays using written language accurately, fluently, and undertanably in the daily life. 12.2. Expressing the meaning and rethorical steps of written essay accurately, f;uently and understandably in the form of narrative and recount in daily life. It is clear that the teaching of writing in Junior High School concerns some texts, while in the second semester of grade VIII, the students have to deal with narrative and recount texts. They are expected to be able to deal with those texts related to their daily life accurately and fluently. Besides, the teaching of writing in Junior High School should be done appropriately. Teachers need to encourage students to write effectively in order that they can help students to improve their writing ability. 25 3. Inquiry-Based Learning a. Definition of Inquiry-Based Learning An old adage states: “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.”Exline (2000) explains that the last part of this statement is the essence of inquiry-based learning. Inquiry implies involvement the leads to understanding. According to Paula (2006), inquiry-based learning is a strategy to learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world, and that leads to asking questions, doing observation and discussing the result of the observation to get the final conclusion. It provides students the opportunity to construct the understanding necessary to produce deeper learning. Inquiry-based learning strategy also serves as a stimulus for learning, thinking and questioning. Similarly, Alberta (2004:1) argues that inquiry-based learning is a process where students are involved in their learning, formulate questions, investigate widely, and then build new understanding, meaning and knowledge. That knowledge is new to students and may be used to answer a question, to develop a solution or to support a position or point of view. The knowledge is usually presented to others and may result in some short of action. Lane (2007) also agrees that inquiry-based learning strategy actively involves students in the exploration of the contents, issues, and questions surrounding a curricular area in the concept. The activities and 26 assignment in an inquiry-based learning classroom can be designed such that students work individually or together to solve problems involving both in class work and fieldwork. While the strategy is meant to be highly students-focused, the extent of teacher-directed vs. students-directed learning can vary depending on the level of the students in the course and their understanding. According to Leung (1998), inquiry can be viewed as a process for answering questions and solving problems based on facts and observations. At the classroom level, inquiry is a teaching strategy designed to teach students how to deal with questions and problems encountered in various important generic skill through a variety of learning experiences. Students need to be given appropriate guidance and feedback by teachers while and after the learning process. The definition above states that inquiry-based learning gives the teacher opportunity to help students learn the content and course concept by having them chance to explore a question, develop the informationand research a hypothesis. Thus, giving students more opportunity to inflect on their own learning, gain a deeper understanding of the course concepts in an integrated fashion, and become better critical thinkers. In addition, the inquiry approach is more focused on using and learning as a mean to develop information-processing and problem-solving skills. The system is more students centered, with the teacher as facilitator of learning. 29 Discuss: at this point in the circle of inquiry, learners share their new ideas with others. The learner begins to ask others about their own experiences and investigations. Shared knowledge is a community-building process, and the meaning of their investigation begins to take on greater relevance in the context of the learner’s society. (5) Reflect: reflection is just that: taking the time to back at the question, the research path, and the conclusions made. The learner steps back, takes inventory, makes observations, and possibly makes new decisions. And so it begins again, thus the circle of inquiry. c. The Advantages of Inquiry-Based Learning Youthlearn (2001) explains that teachers who adopt an inquiry- based learning approach help students identify and refine their “real” question into learning projects or opportunities. Inquiry is a particularly good approach for giving students an opportunity to learn with more freedom while reinforcing and imparting basic skill. It has some advantages as well: 1) Inquiry-based learning approach is flexible and works well for projects that range from the extensive to the bounded, from the research oriented to the creature. It is essential, however, that the teachers plan a head so they can guide students to suitable learning opportunities. 2) The teacher will find that many students who have trouble on school because they do not respond well to teachers and memorization will blossom in an inquiry- based learning setting, awaking their confidence, interested self-esteem. 3) The traditional approach tends to be very vertical: the class studies science for a while, for example, then language arts, then math, then geography. In contrast, the inquiry-based learning is at its best when working on interdisciplinary 30 projects that reinforce multiple skills or knowledge areas in different facets of the same project. The traditional approach is sharply weighted toward the cognitive domain of growth, inquiry-based learning project positively reinforce skills in all three domains-physical, emotional and cognitive. 4) Inquiry-based leaning is particularly well-suited to collaborative learning environments and team projects. You can create activities in which the entire class work on a single questions as a group (just be sure that the whole group truly cares about the question) or in teams working on the same or different question. Of course, inquiry-based learning also work well when teachers have decided to let each students develop an individual project when doing so, however, be sure to incorporate some elements of collaboration or sharing. 5) An inquiry-based learning approach can work with any age group. Even though older students will be able to pursue much more sophisticated question and research projects, build a spirit of inquiry into activities whenever teacher can, even with the youngest, in an age-appropriate manner. 6) The inquiry-based learning approach acknowledges that students, especially students from minority and disadvantaged communities, have what researcher Luis Moll calls “funds of knowledge” that are often ignored by traditional curricula. An inquiry-based approach validates the experience and knowledge that all students to the learning process. Based on the statement above, Inquiry-based Learning gives positive impact for the students. By using inquiry-based learning, students can help them become more positive and more independent (Kühne(1995) in Alberta (2004: 11)). This is true for all students, including those with special needs who require more individual attention during the process. It also has some benefits for teacher and students. As stated by Kuhlthau (2007)that Inquiry-based learning has some benefits for students and teachers in teaching and learning. The benefits for students one: (1) they develop social, language, and reading skill. (2) they construct their own meaning. (3)They gain independence in research and learning. (3) They 31 have high level of motivation and engagement. (4) They learned strategies and skills transferable to other inquiry projects. Then the benefits for teachers: (1) They share responsibility in the instructional team. (2) They share expertise of the team members. (3) They teach content and information skills simultaneously. (4) They make brainstorming and plan with more creativity. (5) They can enhance of content areas of the curriculum. d. The Development of Inquiry-Based Learning Model The University of Nothingham and the Open University (2008) are partners in developing a new approach of ‘Scripted Inquiry Learning’. According to Conol, Scanlon, Kerawalla, Mullholland, anastopulou and Blake (2008) that the development of inquiry approach there are four models for inquiry-based learning. It will explain as follow. 1. Peer, collaborative inquiry learning: where the emphasis of the model is to facilitate and scaffold learners in dialog and discussion around the inquiry process. It beginwith a question or problem being set. The students then work individually and collaboratively to tackle the question, coming together to synthesize their finding and finally they collectively reflect on the process. 2. Hypothesis-driven inquiry learning: where the emphasis is on the inquiry process beginning with a hypothesis and designing the methods to prove it right or wrong. The hypothesis model emphasizes 34 and make it happen for them. As stated by Mayer (2005:52) that narrative is one of the powerful ways of communicating with others. The narrative text type tells a story. Its purpose is to present a view of the world that entertains or informs the reader or listener (Mark and Kathy, 1998:6). Another purpose are, other than providing entertainment, to make the audience think about an issue, teach them a lesson, or excite their emotions. Parera (1993:5) had opinion that a narrative was one of the forms of developing writing, for example characters told the history of something based on the development of writing from time to time. Narrative is kind of genre which has social function to amuse, entertain and to deal with actual or vicarious experience in different ways. Narrative deal with problematic event lead to a crisis or turning point of some kind in turn finds a resolution. Based on competency –based curriculum 2004, the aim of narrative is to entertain and amuse the listener and reader with the real experience or fancy. From the definition above it can be concluded that narrative story is a story tells about something interesting that has purpose to amuse, entertain or the readers. b. Generic Structure of Narrative Text Neo (2005:2) states that a narrative has a structure, a shape or a pattern. It can be represented graphically in this way. 35 climax Rising action Falling action Exposition Resolution Figure 2. The Freitag Triangle The idea of the Freitag triangle is to serve as a kind of blue print or map which can be used to guide us systematically in our writing. The Freitag triangle consists of: a. The exposition, it establishes the characters and situation. b. Rising action, it refers to series of complication leads to the climax. c. The climax is the critical moment when problem/ conflicts demand something to be done about them. d. Falling action is the moment away from the highest peak of excitement. e. The resolution consists of the result or outcome. (Neo,2005:2) On the other hand, Anderson (1997:8) states that the steps for constructing a narrative are: a. Orientation/ exposition The readers are introduced to the main characters and possibly some minor characters. Some indication is generally given of where the action is located and when it is taking place. 36 b. Complication/ rising action The complication is pushed along by a serious of events, during which we usually expect some sort complication or problem to arise. It just would not be so interesting if something unexpected did not happen. c. Sequence of even/ climax This is where the narrator tells how the character reacts to the complication. It includes their feeling and what they do. The event can be told in chronological order (the order in which they happen) or with flashback. The audience is given the narrator’s point of view. d. Resolution/falling action In this part, the implication may be resolved for better or worse, but it is rarely left completely unresolved (although this is of course possible in certain types of narrative which leaves us wondering ‘How did it end?”) e. Reorientation It is an optional closure of event. c. Language Features Anderson (1997:15) states that the language features usually found in narrative texts are. a. Specific character. b. Time words that connect to tell when they occur. c. Verbs to show the action that occur in the story. d. Descriptive words to portray the character and setting. 39 students' writing ability. The same is also done by Sholeh (2008) with the results of the research study that shows that students' writing improved from before using this teaching and learning strategy. C. Conceptual Framework The process of teaching and learning writing is not an easy thing to do. There are some aspects which make writing difficult. They are vocabulary, grammar, spelling and punctuation, and organization of the sentences. If students find difficulty in studying those aspects, surely they will find difficulties in writing. This difficulty is also found in SMP N 1Prambanan. Many students in the school lack of ability to express their ideas and arrange the sentences. To overcome the problem, one strategic technique is needed. In this research study, the researcher offers inquiry-based learning process in the teaching and learning writing to the class to solve the problem in writing. This technique is proposed for some considerations. Firstly, inquiry-based learning has appropriate process for teaching and learning writing as proposed by Paula (2006) that the cyclical process of inquiry can help students to solve the problem or question from their teacher. The discussion allows students to solve the problem or question from their thought with comments from others and share personal experiences in order to make sense of their ideas. Secondly, inquiry-based learning is a suitable learning approach. It is considered as a suitable 40 learning approach because it can be applied for any age group. It means that inquiry-based learning can be used to teach writing from young learners to older ones. The last, inquiry-based learning has some benefits for students and teachers. The benefits for some students are: first, they become more confident. They become confident because they can answer the questions from the teacher by exploring their own meaning and their own ideas based on the investigating, discussing, and sharing with the team. Second, they develop their socialization. It happens since inquiry is the teaching and learning process which needs team work skill. The last, they can express their ideas freely based on the investigation result. It also provides some benefits for teacher, one of the benefits is they will be creative teachers because they make a teaching and learning process not monotonous. The teacher role is as facilitator to help the students who find difficulties in the process of teaching and learning and they who need suggestion from their teacher. By using inquiry activity, the students will solve the question by investigating the object or the resources. Then, they discuss their ideas to reach the final answer together. Through this kind of activity, students will have high motivation to learn. It makes students more confident in doing their work in the writing class. The use of inquiry-based learning strategy in the writing teaching and learning process is expected to improve the students’ writing skill so that the students get a good score in the writing test. 41 In contrast with the statements above, the students of the class in which the inquiry-based learning is not applied they need more explanation of the material. They answer the question given from the teacher by individually without any discussion. In this learning process, students do their work by following the directionfrom the book. In this case, not all students have high motivation because the activities are monotonous. The monotonous teaching and learning process sometimes makes students bored so that the improvement of their writing skill is rather low. Based on the discussion above, the strategy that is good recommended for teaching and learning process of writing is inquiry– based learning. Moreover, inquiry–based learning offers some benefits for teachers, students, and teaching and learning process. The researcher expects that this strategy makes the learning process of writing effective and it helps the students to improve their writing skill. D. Hypothesis There is a significant difference in students’ writing skill between students taught using inquiry-based learning strategy in the writing process and those taught without it in the writing process. 44 D. Instrument of the Research 1. Research Instrument The instrument used to collect the data was a writing test. The test material is based on the Standard of Competence and Basic Competencies of the School Based Curriculum of Junior High School of Year VIII of the second semester of English subject. The instrument is an essay type text consisting one question. The English writing competences Junior High School grade VIII is visualized in Table 3. Table 3: English Writing Competences of Junior High Schools Grade VIII of the Second Semester Standard of Competence Basic Competence Indicators 12. Students express meaning in short functional texts and short essays in the form of narrative texts in the daily life context. 12.1. Students express meaning and short essays using written language accurately in the forms of narrative text interact with other in the daily life context. - Students are able to identify a narrative text. - Students are able to get the meaning from unfamuliar words based on the text. - Students are able to identify the generic structure of narrative text - Students are able to use language features of narrative text. -Students are able to understand the context of the text. Meanwhile, blue print of the writing ability test that is used as a concept in making test presented in Table 4. 45 Table 4: The Blueprint of the Writing Ability Test No. Indicators Aspects of Writing The Item Number 1. Writing a narrative text a. Content b. Organization c. Vocabulary d. Language use e. Mechanics 1 2. Validity of the Instrument Hughes (2003) states that the term ‘validity’ in testing and assessment has taken understood to mean discovering whether a test measures accurately what it is ended to measure. In this study, the researcher used a writing test to measure the students’ writing ability. The validity that is applied in the writing test is content validity. a). Content validity Content validity is achieved by ensuring that the content of the test fairly samples the class of field of situations or subject matter in question. To achieve the content validity, it is usually done using expert judgments. These may be subject teacher, or language teachers who have many years’ experience in teaching business English. (Fulcher and Davidson:2007). In this study, the writing tests are develop in reference to the Competence and Basic competencies of School Based Curriculum of the eighth grade of first semester of the English Subject in Junior High School. Then, the judge is asked to look at the tests and evaluate them for their representativeness within the content area. 46 In the writing tests, there are five aspects to assess the writing. The aspects are content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. The scoring of students’ writing test is done by the researcher and the English teacher. It is done in reference to the aspects of evaluating students’ writing adapted from Jacobs et al’s (1981) in Wegle (2002:116)with some modifications. In more detail it is presented in Table 5. 49 treatments were applied. Then the researcher gave the treatments (inquiry-based learning strategy) on students’ writing class of the experimental group (VIII D). As a comparison, the researcher applied communicative language teaching on students’ writing class of the control group (VIII E). After that, the researcher implemented the post-test to measure the result of students’ writing ability after the treatments were given. Then, the researcher compared the pre-test and post- test mean scores of every group to find the improvement of students’ writing ability. Both the experimental and control groups received the same pre-test and post-test to measure the students’ writing skills, but they received different treatments. The experimental group used inquiry-based learning strategy on its writing class, whereas the control was used communicative language teaching on its writing class. Table 7 presents the implementation of the research. Table 7: The Schedule of the Research No. Date Activities Time Materials 1. 13th February 2013 Pre-test of the Experimental Class 70 mins Writing test Pre-test of the Control Class 70 mins Writing test 2. 18th February 2013 1st meeting of the Control Class 80 mins Narrative text 3. 19th February 2013 1st meeting of the Experimental Class 80 mins Narrative text 4. 20th February 2013 2nd meeting of the Control Class 80 mins Narrative text (Continued) 50 (Continued) No Date Activities Time Materials 20th February 2013 2nd meeting of the Experimental Class 80 mins Narrative text 5. 25th February 2013 3rd meeting of the Control Class 80 mins Narrative text 6. 26th February 2013 3rd meeting of the Experimental Class 80 mins Narrative text 7. 27th February 2013 4th meeting of the Control Class 80 mins Narrative text 4th meeting of the Experimental Class 80 mins Narrative text 8. 4th March 2013 Post-test of the Control Class 80 mins Writing test 9. 5th March 2013 Post-test of the Experimental Class 80 mins Writing test F. Data Analysis Technique In this study the researcher used two techniques of analyzing the data, namely descriptive and inferential statistics. 1) Descriptive analysis The descriptive analysis is utilized to describe and interpret the data. The statistics used in computation are the mean, which is the average score attained by the subjects of the research, and Standard Deviation (SD), which is the average variability of all scores around the mean. Descriptive analysis is to provide answer to the research question formulated about whether there is a significant different in writing ability between the students taught using inquiry activity and those taught without it. 51 Score Categorization The categorization of scores gained by students is made to find out the level of students’ writing ability. The scores categorization of students’ writing ability is based on the ideal score. The highest score are 100 and the lowest score is 25. The ideal mean score (Mi) and ideal standard deviation (SDi) can be calculating using the formula is as following: Ideal Mean (Mi) : ½ (highest score + lowest score) : ½ (100 + 25) : 62.5 Ideal Standard Deviation (SDi) : ⅓ (highest score – ideal mean) : ⅓ (100 – 62.5) : 12.5 To make the categorization of the score of students’ writing ability, the ideal mean score (Mi) and the ideal standard deviation score (SDi) should be found first. The score of students’ writing ability can be a categorized into six level, namely, excellent, very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor. The score is calculated based on the Mi score and SDi which can be seen in Table 8. Table 8: Score Categorization No Interval Category 1. 87.5 up to 99,9 Excellent 2. 75.0 up to 87.4 Very Good 3. 62.5 up to 74.9 Good 4. 50.0 up to 62.4 Fair 5. 37.5 up to 49.9 Poor 6. 25.0 up to 37.4 Very Poor 54 CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS This chapter presents the descriptive analysis, the result of the inferential analysis, interpretation and the discussion of the finding. The descriptive analysis describes the score of students’ writing test and the inferential analysis presents pre-testing and post-testing analysis. Meanwhile, interpretation deals with the descriptive and inferential analysis and the discussion of the findings explains the result of the hypothesis testing. A. Descriptive Analysis The data description explains the result of the tests. As mentioned earlier, there were two kinds of tests in this research. They were pre-test and post-test. In this research, the researcher used essay writing tests to examine the students’ writing ability. The followings are the results of those tests. 1. Experimental Class The data of experimental class are divided into three sections: the data of the pre-test score, the post-test score and the comparison between both of them. The data of the pre-test score and post-test score of the experimental class are explained as follows. 55 a. The Data of the Pre-test Scores of the Experimental Class Based on the result of statistical calculation by using SPSS 13.00 for windows computer program, the mean score was 57.89 with the standard deviationof 8.73. The maximum score was 75 and the minimum score was 35. The statistical data can be seen in Table 9 while the complete data analysis is in Appendix C. Table 9: Descriptive Analysis of the Experimental Class in the Pre-test N Mean Std.Deviation Minimum Maximum Pre-test 32 57.89 8.73 35.00 75.00 Meanwhile, the frequency distribution of the pre-test score on the experimental group is presented in Table 10. Table 10: Frequency Distribution of the Pre-test score on Students’ Writing Ability of the Experimental Class. No Interval f Percent Cumulative Percent Categorization 1. 87.5 – 99.9 0 0 0 Excellent 2. 75.0 – 87.4 1 3.1 3.1 Very Good 3. 62.5 – 74.9 10 31.3 34.3 Good 4. 50.0 – 62.4 17 53.1 87.5 Fair 5. 36.5 – 49.9 3 9.4 96.6 Poor 6. 25.0 – 37.4 1 3.1 100.0 Very Poor Table 10 shows that there was no student classified into excellent. There was 1 student (3.1%) in very poor category, 3 students (9.4%) in poor category, 17 students (53.1%) in fair category, and 10 students (31.3%) in good category.There were 21 students (65.6%) achieving scores below the ideal mean (62.5) in very poor to fair category. It can be concluded that most students (65%) belong to poor category on the pre-test or before they were given treatment of 56 using inquiry based-learning strategy.While, the studentswho belong to good category was 34%. b. The Data of the Post-test Scores of the Experimental Class Based on the result of statistical calculation by using SPSS 13.00 for windows computer program, the mean score was 82.10 with the standard deviation 7.46. The maximum score for the post-test of the experimental group was 92.50 and the minimum score was 67.50. The statistical data can be seen in Table 11. Table 11: Descriptive Analysis of the Post-test of the Experimental Class N Mean Std.Deviation Minimum Maximum Post-test 32 82.10 7.46 67.50 92.50 Meanwhile, the frequency distribution of the post-test score on the experimental group is presented in Table 12. Table 12: Frequency Distribution of the Post-test score on Students’ Writing Ability of the Experimental Class No Interval f Percent Cumulative Percent Categorization 1. 87.5 – 99.9 12 37.5 37.5 Excellent 2. 75.0 – 87.4 15 46.9 84.4 Very Good 3. 62.5 – 74.9 5 15.6 100.0 Good 4. 50.0 – 62.4 0 0 100.0 Fair 5. 36.5 – 49.9 0 0 100.0 Poor 6. 25.0 – 37.4 0 0 100.0 Very Poor Table 12 shows that there was no student classified into poor and very poor category. There were 5 students (15.6%) in good category, 15 students (46.9%) in very good category and 12 students (37.5%) in excellent category on the post test or after they were given treatment using inquiry based-learning 59 a. The Data of the Pre-test Scores of the Control Class Based on the result of statistical calculation by using SPSS 13.00 for windows computer program, the mean score was 58.10 with the standard deviation 7.45. The maximum score was 72.50 and the minimum score was 40.00. The statistical data can be seen in Table 14. Table 14: Descriptive Analysis of the Control Class in the Pre-test N Mean Std.Deviation Minimum Maximum Pretest 32 57.10 7.45 40.00 72.50 Meanwhile, the frequency distribution of the pre-test score on the control group is presented in Table 15. Table 15: Frequency Distribution of the Pre-test score on Students’ Writing Ability of the Control Class. No Interval f Percent Cumulative Percent Categorization 1. 87.5 – 99.9 0 0 0 Excellent 2. 75.0 – 87.4 0 0 0 Very Good 3. 62.5 – 74.9 12 37.5 37.5 Good 4. 50.0 – 62.4 16 50.0 87.5 Fair 5. 36.5 – 49.9 4 12.5 100.0 Poor 6. 25.0 – 37.4 0 0 100.0 Very Poor Table 15 shows that there were no students classified into very good and excellent. There were 4 students (12.5%) in poor category, 16 students (50%) in fair category and 12 students (37.5.%) in good category. There were 20 students (62.5%) achieved score below ideal mean (62.5) in poor to fair category. It can be concluded that most students belong to poor category on the pre-test or before they were given treatment by using inquiry based-learning strategy. 60 b. The Data of the Post-test Scores of the Control Class Based on the result of statistical calculating by using SPSS 13.00 for windows computer program, the mean score was 66.09 with the standard deviation 7.15. The maximum score for the post-test of the experimental group was 85.00 and the minimum score was 50.00. The statistical data can be seen in Table 16 and the data analysis is in Appendix C. Table 16: Descriptive Analysis of the Post-test of the Control Class N Mean Std.Deviation Minimum Maximum Post-test 32 66.09 7.15 50.00 85.00 Meanwhile, the frequency distribution of the post-test score on the experimental group is presented in Table 17. Table 17: Frequency Distribution of the Post-test score on Students’ Writing Ability of the Control Class No Interval f Percent Cumulative Percent Categorization 1. 87.5 – 99.9 0 0 0 Excellent 2. 75.0 – 87.4 4 12.5 12.5 Very Good 3. 62.5 – 74.9 19 59.4 71.9 Good 4. 50.0 – 62.4 9 28.1 100.0 Fair 5. 36.5 – 49.9 0 0 100.0 Poor 6. 25.0 – 37.4 0 0 100.0 Very Poor Table 17 shows that there were no students classified into excellent, poor and very poor categories. There were 9 students (28.1%) in fair category, 19 students (59.4%) in good category, and 4 students in very good category (12.5%) on the post-test or after they were given treatment using inquiry based-learning strategy. 61 c. Comparison Data between the Pre-Test and Post-Test of the Control Class To know the difference of pre-test and post-test of the control class in writing ability, comparison between both scores is showed in Table 18. Table 18: Statistical Data of the Pre-Test and Post-Test Scores of the Control Class Data Pre-Test Post-Test Number of cases 32 32 Mean 57.10 66.09 SD 7.45 7.15 Based on Table 18, the mean score of the pre-test of control class was 58.10 which was classified into fair category. Meanwhile, the mean of the post- test was 66.09 which was classified into good category. The data shows that the mean score of the post-test was higher than that of pre-test score. Thus, the mean score of post-test was higher than the mean of pre-test score. Beside the improvement of the mean value, there was an improvement of the scoring category from fair to good category. It means that the writing ability of the control class improved after being taught without using inquiry based-learning strategy. Moreover, the standard deviation (SD) for the pre-test was 7.45, while the post-test was 7.15. Thus, the SD of the post-test is lower than the SD of the pre- test. If the SD of the post-test was lower than the SD of the pre-test, it can be interpreted that the students’ writing abilities of the control class on the pre-test and post-test scores were homogenous. In addition, on the pre-test there were 37.5% of students in good category which achieved scores above the ideal mean and 62.5% of students in poor 64 2) The p value or the post-test for the experimental group (0.558) was greater than α (0.05). It means that the data of the post-test of the experimental group had a normal distribution. 3) The p value or the pre-test for the control group (0.180) was greater than α (0.05). It means that the data of the pre-test of the control group had a normal distribution. 4) The p value or the post-test for the control group (0.330) was greater than α (0.05). It means that the data of the post-test of the control group had a normal distribution. Briefly, p value of pre-test and post-test in experimental and control class were greater than the significant level of 0.05. It means that the data distribution of students’ writing ability had a normal distribution. b. Homogeneity Test The homogeneity test was used to find out whether the sample variance is homogeneous or not. In this case, the Levene-Test of ONE WAY ANOVA was employed on the data of pre-test and post-test. The relationship can be considered homogeneous if the significant value is higher than level of significance of 0.05. The homogeneity test was done in writing ability before and after the treatment (pre-test and post-test). It used SPSS 13.00 computer program for windows, the results are shown in Table 20. The complete computation is enclosed in Appendix C. 65 Table 20: Result of the Homogeneity Test in Pre-Test Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. Interpretation Writing Ability 2,073 1 62 0.155 Homogeneous Table 20 shows that the value of p (Sig.) of the pre-test (0.155) is greater than 0.05. It means that the sample variance was homogenous. Table 21: Result of Homogeneity Test in Post-Test Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. Interpretation Writing Ability 0.340 1 62 0.562 Homogeneous Table 21 shows that the value of p (Sig.) of the post-test (0,562) is greater than 0.05. It means that the sample variance was homogenous. 2. Hypothesis Testing The hypothesis testing was aimed at revealing whether there is a significant difference in writing ability between students who are taught by inquiry-based learning strategy and those who are not taught by using inquiry- based learning strategy. Firstly, the hypothesis must be changed to the null hypothesis (Ho) before the hypothesis was rejected or accepted. The hypothesis testing can be seen from the following explanation: a. Null Hypothesis (Ho): There is no significant difference in writing ability between students who are taught using inquiry-based learning strategy and those who are not taught by using inquiry-based learning. b. Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): There is significant difference in writing ability between students who are taught using inquiry-based learning 66 strategy and those who are not taught by using inquiry-based learning strategy. In this research, the researcher analyzed the data by using SPSS 13.00 computer program for windows. In testing the hypothesis, ANCOVA (Analysis of Covariance) was used since this research involved the scores of both the pre-test and post-test and the mean scores of the pre-test of both classes were different. In hypothesis testing, if the value of the level of significance is lower than 0.05, the hypothesis is accepted. The result of the ANCOVA test is presented in Table 22. The complete print out of the analysis can be seen in Appendix C. Table 22: The Result of ANCOVA Sources Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Squares F Sig. Corrected Model Intercept GROUP PRETEST Error Total Corrected Total 5223. 16 1 1 15 47 64 63 326.497 185726.406 2550.582 74.663 46.662 6.997 3980.214 54.660 1.600 .000 .000 .000 .110 From the result shown in Table 22, it can be identified that the level of significance of pre-test is 0.110 which is greater than 0.05. It means that there is no significant difference on students’ writing ability seen from the result of the pre-test. Meanwhile, the level of significance of group that refers to post- test both of experimental and control class is 0.000. Since the level of significance value is less than 0.05, i.e. 0.000 < 0.05, the null hypothesis (Ho) 69 0.05,i.e.0.180> 0.05 and 0.743> 0.05. So, the pre-test data of the groups had normal distribution. Meanwhile, the probability values of the post-test data of the control and experimental classes were also higher than 0.05, i.e.0.330> 0.05 and 0.558> 0.05. So, the post-test data of the both classes were also normal. It was concluded that all of the data had normal distribution. Meanwhile the result of the homogeneity testing also indicated that the p value was greater than the significance level of 0.05 for the both pre- and post- tests,i.e.,0.155> 0.05 and 0,562> 0.05. So, it was stated that the sample variance in the pre- and post- tests were homogeneous. Then, from the ANCOVA result, it can be seen that the value of the level of significance is lower than 0.05, i.e. 0.00 < 0.05, which means that there is a significance difference in the post-test score between the two groups after controlling the pre-test scores as the covariate. Besides, the significant difference also can be seen from the adjusted means of both classes as presented in Table 24. Table 24: Summary Means Variable N Post-test Adjusted Mean Experimental Class 32 82.10 81.17 Control Class 32 66.09 64.77 Table 24 shows that the mean score of the post-test achieved by the experimental class taught using inquiry based-learning strategy is higher than the mean score of the control class (i.e. 82.10>66.9). Then, because the means of the covariate or the pre-test were not exactly the same for the two classes, the means of the dependent variable or the post-test had to be adjusted. The adjusted mean of the experimental class is also higher than that of the control class (i.e. 81.17 70 >64.77). Briefly, the means score of the experimental class is always higher than that of the control class whether it is adjusted for differences in the covariate or not. In other words, it can be stated that the use inquiry-based learning strategy has a positive influence on the students’ writing ability. Thus, the hypothesis proposed in this research is accepted. D. Discussions In this study, the pre-test and post test have been administered to both experimental and control classes to find out the students’ writing skills before and after the treatment. The data of pre-test and post-test were gathered from writing test of narrative texts. Then, the treatment of using inquiry-based learning strategy was only given to the experimental class. Therefore, the effect of using inquiry- based learning strategy on students’ writing ability can be identified through the result of ANCOVA. The finding of the research proved that there was a significant difference between the writing ability of the students who were taught using inquiry-based learning strategy and those who were not. Both of the techniques are effective but inquiry-based learning strategy is more effective than the daily conventional method (CLT) which is used by the teacher.These findingsare supported by the theories about the contribution of using inquiry-based learning strategy to students’ writing ability that the teaching and learning method is appropriate technique to teach wrtiting in junior high school (Graham and Perin, 2006:27). It means that inquiry-basedlearning strategy is the appropriate teaching writing 71 method which is used in the writing classso that it can help students to develope their writing ability. Before the treatment was given, both classes were given pre-test which consisted of one writing narrative text. It was conducted to know whether there was a significant difference in students’ writing narrative writing ability between the control and the experimental class or not. Pre-test in the experimental class and the control class was conducted on February 13th, 2013. After the pre-test given, the computation of the mean score of experimental class on their writing test was 57.89 while the mean score of the control class was 57.10. It can be interpreted that both of classes have the same ability in writing narrative text. In the experimental class, students were treated by using inquiry-based learning strategy as a teaching method. The students were active and felt free in expressing their ideas in some activities that the teacher gave.When the researcher conducted the research, she delivered narrative text as the teaching material. In the teaching method, she used the development of inquiry based learning model to teach narrative writing. It called multiple representative model, where the inquiry based learning strategy use media tools to help students to explore their understanding. Technology and media tools support in the inquiry learning especially on the visualization like picture or graphic which guide the learner to seeing the data (Edelson et al., 1999) Therefore, picture series were needed to help students to observe the story in the narrative text material. In the teaching and learning process the researcher 74 was 66.09. It can be interpreted that the mean score of the experimental class taught by using inquiry-based learning strategy was higher than that control class taught without it. The improvement of the writing skill could be seen from the mean scores of the post-test of experimental and control class. In fact, the students’ writing ability both classes was improving. However, the improvement of the students’ writing ability in the experimental class was higher than that the control class. It showed from the gain scores of pre-test to post-test that experimental class get 24.21 points for the improvement , while control class get 7.99 points for the improvement of the score writing test. Meanwhile, the students’ writing ability in control class which taught with conventional teaching as a daily teaching had not improved well. The teacher used communicative language learning in the teaching and learning writing process. In the process, the students just sit, listened to the teacher’s explanation and did some exercises from the textbook. Thus, the students’ motivation and attention during the learning process were poor. Besides, they got difficulties to write completely since they do not have appropriate learning technique which encouraged them to write effectively. In addition, the benefits of using inquiry-based learning strategy on writing ability could be seen from the students’ pre-test and post-test scores of the both experimental and control classes before and after the treatment given. From the result of the pre-test of both classes, it indicated that the students’ writing ability of both classes before the treatment tended to be equal because they were classified into the fair category. 75 Meanwhile, the mean of the post-test of the experimental class was higher than that of the control class, i.e. 82.10 > 66.09. There was the improvement of the mean of both classes. Meanwhile, the improvement mean score of the post-test in experimental class was higher than that of the control class, i.e. 24.21 > 7.99. When it was consulted to the score categorization, the score categorization of the post-test in the experimental class was higher than that of the post-test in the control class. The post-test scores of the experimental class were classified into very good category while that of the control class were classified into the good category. It meant that after the treatment was given, the students’ writing ability of the experimental class tended to be classified into higher category than that of the control class. Moreover, the result of ANCOVA test showed that the significance value was lower than 0.05, i.e. 0.000 < 0.05. It meant that there is a significant difference on students’ writing ability who were taught by using inquiry-based learning strategy and those who were not. Finally, the hypothesis proposed in this research which says “The students who are using inquiry-based learning strategy on their class will have better writing ability than the students who are not” is accepted. 76 CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS This chapter is devided into three main sections: conclution, implication and suggestion from the research finding. Those sections are presented as follows A. Conclusions The conclusion of this research study is supported by finding. It answer the problem formulation in Chapter I. Firstly, the pre-test result of the experimental class reveals that mean value was 57.89 which were in fair category. Meanwhile, the post-test result shows that the mean value was 82.10 which belongs to very good category. It could be concluded that the students’ writing ability of the experimental class improved significantly from the mean score 57.89 to 82.10. It improved 24.21 points. Further, based on the score categorization there was an improvement of two levels of category from fair to very good category of students’ writing ability after given treatment. Besides, it also could be identified from the standard deviation (SD). Standard deviation for pre-test was 8.73, while the post-test was 7.46 It meant that standard deviation decreased 1.27. In other words, the students’ writing ability of the experimantal class from the pre-test to post-test scores became homogenous. Secondly, the pre-test result of control class illustrates that the mean was 58.10 which is in fair category. Meanwhile, the mean value for the post-test was 66.09 which is in good category. It could be concluded that the students’ writing ability of the control class improved from the mean score 58.10 to 66.09. It 79 Therefore, using inquiry-based learning strategy need to be maintained in teaching writing. C. Suggestions Based on the conclusion above, the research proposes some suggestions. They are as follows 1. For English Teachers In the English teaching and learning process, especially in writing teachers are recommended to select inquiry-based learning as the appropriate teaching technique. Since, it is capable to encourage the improvement of students’ writing ability and to build their motivation in studying writing 2. 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