The Effect of Brainstorming and Clustering Techiques on Students' Writing Ability (A Study of 3rd Semester Students at STIBA_IEC College Eas Jakarta)

drs. tricahyono n.h. m.si.; hartoyo, m.a., ph.d; h. ujang suparman, m.a., ph.d;

The study investigated the comparative effects of brainstorming and
clustering techniques on university students’ achievement in the third semester of
STIBA - IEC in East Jakarta. The researcher generated three questions concerned
with the effectiveness of each strategy in improving students’ writing ability and
the effectiveness of the clustering over brainstorming technique. In the interest of
responding to such questions, the study adopted an experimental design
comprising two groups made up of one experimental group and one comparison
group with 40 students as the total number of sample. These 40 students then
tested by using a writing instruction.
The first result of the composition was used as the barometer to test the
inter-rater reliability, in which ended up with coefficient of 0.57. Moreover, the
writing score done in pre-test was used as the data of analyzing both homogeneity
and normality. From the analysis, it was found that not only data from both
classes was normally distributed but also homogenous. Subsequently, after the
post-test was applied, the final data analysis was done. Data analysis was done by
using dependent and independent t-tests. Results revealed that there was a
significant effect of the brainstorming treatment on students’ writing ability
(0.007 < 0.05). Findings also indicated that there was a significant effect of
clustering treatment (0.003 < 0.05). Finally, results showed that the students who
taught by using clustering technique did not gain a better achievement than those
who taught by using the brainstorming one (0.194 > 0.05).