JURNAL ARBITRER - VOL. 6 NO. 1  (2019)  
 

 Online version available in : http://arbitrer.fib.unand.ac.id 

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 Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. Some rights reserved DOI: https://doi.org/10.25077/ar.6.1.53-58.2019  

 

 

 

Article 

The Use of Blended Learning Based Media in 

Improving Student Essay Writing Ability 

Handoko1, Rabbi Antaridha2 

1English Department, Universitas Andalas, Padang, Indonesia 
2 English Department, Universitas Dharma Andalas, Padang, Indonesia 

 

SUBMISSION TRACK  A B S T R A C T  

Received: April 20, 2019  
Final Revision: May 24, 2019 
Available Online: May 23, 2019 

 

The research focuses on the use of instructional media in the 

blended learning platform to improve students' ability in 

writing essays. The implementation of blended learning is 

carried out in three cycles: brainstorming, drafting, and final 

writing. At the end of each cycle, there is an evaluation to find 

out the progress of the learning. Feedback is given from the 

evaluation results to overcome problems that arise in the 

previous cycle. The subjects of the research are students of 

Universitas Andalas who divided as control class and 

experimental class. The purpose of this study is (a) short-term; 

To help overcome student problems and improve their ability 

to write essays in English (b) long-term is to provide a basis 

for learning models of English writing essays at universities. 

The pretest indicates that 59% of participants from the control 

class have a low score (below 60) while in experimental class, 

about 60% of participants get a score below 60. The result of 

the research shows significant improvement in essay writing 

performance with an average score of post-test 76.35. By 

using the t-test can be seen the significance value of 0.06> 

0.05, which indicates that the use of instructional media in the 

blended learning platform can improve students performance 

in writing an essay. 

KEYWORD 

Instructional design, essay writing, blended 

learning 

KORESPONDENSI 

E-mail: handoko@hum.unand.ac.id 

 

I. INTRODUCTION  

Writing competence is very important to be 

developed in learning English. Writing essays 

in English is an essential ability for students 

in higher education (Baghbadorani & 

Roohani, 2014), both for academic purposes, 

such as continuing higher education studies, 

as well as for professional purposes (The 

National Commission on Writing, 2004).  

 

To develop the competence of writing essays 

for students, it is necessary to design a 

curriculum that is in line with the 

development of language learning. The 

problem occurs because students assume that 

writing skills are more complicated than 

listening and speaking skills (Handoko, Yanti, 

& Antaridha, 2016). This is because the 

competence of writing is not only related to 

grammatical abilities and sufficient 

vocabulary but also related to emotional and 

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HANDOKO / JURNAL ARBITRER - VOL. 6. NO. 1 (2019)  

 

   54 

cognitive aspects (Alluhaybi, 2015). There 

are several factors which affect students 

perception toward writing. Among other,  

writings requires a formal language, free from 

errors and grammar. More over a good 

writing should be complete, clear, and order 

in locagical structures (Wyrick, 2011). 

 

Emotional aspects can be seen from students' 

perceptions of the difficulty of writing 

(Alluhaybi, 2015; Qashoa, 2014). It makes 

sense because the complexity of 

characteristics and elements with a series of 

interconnected ideas. The limited time writing 

courses also hinder students to write properly. 

In the traditional curriculum, at each meeting, 

students were asked to gather ideas, look for 

references, and then write them into an essay.  

Consequently, it is time consuming and 

ineffective. In order to get maximum result, 

students must be exposed to a learning 

environment which enables them to to 

improve their writing experience (Adas & 

Bakir, 2013). Time limitations also prevent 

students in the writing evaluation process, 

considering the number of lecturers and 

students is not balanced. If the lecturer gives 

feedback on the written draft of each student, 

it will take three to four face-to-face meetings. 

Moreover, space limitations can also hinder 

students in thinking critically to gather ideas 

about what will be written. In the classroom, 

students will difficult to observe and find 

relevant references to support ideas that will 

be poured into their essays.  

 

Many students tend to ignore the stages of 

writing an essay because they assume that it 

is a waste of time (Alameddine & Mirza, 

2016). In fact, to write a good essay, of 

course, students must follow the stages of 

writing essays. There are at least four main 

stages in writing a good essay; research and 

gathering ideas (prewriting), planning, 

writing a draft, and improvement (revision) 

(Manser, 2006). In other word, writing is not 

an instant process or a one-time process. 

Students must revision and re-write the essay 

based on theby feedback from lecturers. 

 

To solve the writing problem, an alternative 

learning strategy or method is needed which 

allows students to do writing effectively and 

efficiently. Among the straties is the use of 

blended learning methods. Blended learning 

is a combination of face-to-face learning 

methods with online learning (Stein & 

Graham, 2014). With the online method, 

students can work anytime from any places. 

In addition to facilitating students in doing 

assignments, this method can also facilitate 

lecturers in examining essays with direct 

feedback through the online system. 

However, online methods are not completely 

separated from the role and direct interaction 

between lecturers and students. Face-to-face 

meetings must also be maintained where 

students get knowledge, feedback, directly 

comment from the lecturer. Moreover, face-

to-face meeting is really needed to provide 

psychological support to the students. The 

synergy between traditional learning and 

online learning then is known as blended 

learning or hybrid learning. 

 

This research focuses at the application of 

blended learning methods to improve the 

ability to write an essay at Andalas 

University. This study is limited to writing 

competence, especially essay writing. The 

current research that the researchers will do is 

different from the aspect of the research 

focus. Besides, the research subjects were 

also different, where the researchers focused 

on students at the Andalas University. 

 

II. METHODS 

The object of this research is the effectiveness 

of the application of blended learning 

methods in the acceptance and understanding 

of learning material. The type of data includes 

qualitative data and quantitative data, while 

the data source consists of primary data and 

secondary data. Primary data obtained from 

the results of tests conducted to see the ability 

to write essays that include pre-test (pre-test) 

and post-test (post-test). Secondary data 

comes from the track record of evaluating the 

work of students and lecturer notes in both 

face-to-face and online learning activities. 



HANDOKO / JURNAL ARBITRER - VOL. 6. NO. 1 (2019)  

 

 55 

The data source consisted of respondents, test 

results, and learning document records. 

 

Data were analyzed using quantitative 

analysis and descriptive analysis. 

Quantitative analysis was carried out to find 

statistical values of the effectiveness of the 

application of blended learning. The 

statistical analysis performed is by using a T-

test. The analysis using the T-test aims to see 

whether there is a difference between the 

conditions before and after the treatment of 

the subject. There are two types of T-tests, 

namely independent-sample T-test and 

paired-sample T-test (Larson-Hall, 2010: 

241-242). In this study, a paired-sample T-test 

will be used where the study will compare the 

mean of the two non-independent data. This is 

because this research was conducted by 

comparing the results of the initial test (pre-

test) and the final test (post-test) conducted 

with different time frames. In this study, the 

subject will take the initial test to see the 

ability to write his essay, then after the 

application of blended learning is complete, it 

is estimated that in the next three months, the 

subject will take the final test to involve the 

significance of increasing the ability to write 

his essay. Then, a statistical analysis will be 

carried out using the SPSS to describe the 

significance improvement of studetns’ ability 

in writeing after the implementation of the 

blended learning.  

III. RESULT 

This study was conducted on class control 

consisting of 44 students and an experimental 

class consisting of 36 students. To obtain data 

on the ability to write essays, two tests were 

conducted, namely the pre-test and post-test. 

Then the test results were analyzed using t-

test analysis to see the significance of the 

improvement in essay writing skills between 

the control class and the experimental class. 

The presentation of the results of the study 

begins with the results of the normality test of 

the data to see the distribution of data, then 

proceed with the presentation of the results of 

the pre-test of the control class and the 

experimental class. After that, the results of 

the post-test for each class were also 

explained. The results of the pre-test and post 

test were then compared to see the 

significance of the application of blended 

learning based learning media. 

 

The t-test test aims to determine the 

significance of the class given treatment 

(class experiment) and the class that is not 

given treatment (control class). After doing 

the pretest and posttest for both essay writing 

classes, the following results were obtained: 

Table 1 shows that the average essay score of 

the control class for the pretest is 55.23, and 

for the post-test is 62.39. The t-test test for 

both scores showed a significance level of 

0.00 with a significance tolerance of 5%. The 

figure is 0.00 <0.005, which means that there 

is no significant increase in the essay score in 

the control class. 

 

Table 2 shows the average score of the pretest 

essay for the experimental class is 55.27 and 

for the post-test 76.35. By using the t-test can 

Table 2. Score for Experimental Class

 
 

 
 

Table 1. Score for Control Class 

 
 
 



HANDOKO / JURNAL ARBITRER - VOL. 6. NO. 1 (2019)  

 

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be seen as the significance value of 0.06. 

Value of 0.06> 0.05, which means that there 

are significant differences between the pretest 

and posttest scores for the experimental class. 

Thus it can be concluded that the use of 

learning media based on blended learning in 

essay writing classes can improve students' 

ability to write essays. 

 

From table 3 it appears that the skill with the 

highest significance level is skill 1, which is 

equal to 0.2, while the skill that increases the 

score that is not too significant is skill 3, 

which is 0.06. 

 

From the results of statistical analysis using 

the t-test, it can be seen that the use of 

instructional media through blended learning 

can increase the ability of students to write 

essays. This can be seen from the level of 

significance of a significant increase in the 

score, which is equal to 0.06. These results 

also indicate that the ability to experience a 

very significant increase is the ability to write 

the introduction. 

IV. DISCUSSION 

The use of the blended learning model is very 

effective in increasing the ability to write 

essays because this model allows students to 

be able to access lecture material online, get 

direct feedback, and can make revisions 

easily. With the blended learning model, 

students have more time to develop their 

essays, look for reference sources, and also do 

editing. In addition, face-to-face meetings are 

also more effective because students have 

more time to discuss and get direct feedback. 

The use of learning media in the form of 

videos also helps students in mastering skills 

in writing essays. With instructional videos 

added to the blended learning platform, 

students get a deep understanding and can 

follow the steps of good writing. 

 

The results of the analysis also show that by 

using blended learning, students can improve 

their ability to write introductory sections. 

The introduction is a very important part of 

writing essays because, in this section, the 

writer can draw the attention of the reader to 

read the entire essay. Mistakes in writing the 

introduction can make the essay uninteresting 

and boring. By using brainstorming 

techniques, students can make good and 

interesting essays to read. 

 

In addition to the introduction, other aspects 

that are also very important are aspects of 

cohesion and coherence. This aspect can be 

seen in skill 2 and skill 3. The use of the 

blended learning model allows students to 

create a cohesive and coherent essay because 

students have more time to do revisions and 

editing. In contrast to the traditional approach, 

the blended learning model allows students to 

easily arrange ideas logically and add 

conjunctions so that paragraphs become 

unified. 

 

Blended learning emphasizes not only face-

to-face systems but also uses computational 

instruments to facilitate learning. In other 

words, the use of blended learning models is 

a new way for both teaching and learning in a 

higher education environment. Blended 

Table 3. Significance improvement for writing skills 

 
 
 



HANDOKO / JURNAL ARBITRER - VOL. 6. NO. 1 (2019)  

 

 57 

learning allows students to gain hands-on 

experience through computer mediation or 

smartphone learner simulations (Holt et al). 

 

 

 

The Blended learning model consists of 

various learning activities, including face-to-

face learning, e-learning (online) learning, 

and independent learning. As a mixed model

 

of learning with blended learning methods 

include synchronic (asynchronous) and online 

learning. In the synchronic learning model, 

lecturers or mentors provide opportunities for 

students to participate through various 

features, such as video conference, chat, and 

presentations that are bound at a certain time. 

Meanwhile, in the asynchronous learning 

model lecturers or mentors provide a variety 

of task-based structured activities through 

media that are not bound by a certain time, 

such as discussion forums,

 

e-mail, 

assignments, quizzes, and wikis (Stein & 

Graham, 2014). Briefly, the purpose of 

applying the blended learning method is to 

combine face-to-face classroom learning 

experiences with online learning experiences.

 

 

The blended learning model offers a 

collaborative learning method that allows 

students to communicate with each other 

between students. Besides being able to share 

learning resources such as video, audio, text, 

web links, and other material, lecturers can 

also control and monitor student progress 

during the lesson, especially in essay writing. 

V. CONCLUSION 

Writing an essay in English is a difficult task 

for many students because not writing essays 

does not only require English proficiency but 

must also consider technical and 

psychological aspects. Students need 

additional time to write their essays and 

learning media that can help them to improve 

their understanding of the technical aspects of 

essay writing. In addition, they also need 

psychological encouragement, such as 

motivation, encouragement, and praise, to 

keep them active and interested in the writing 

process. The blended learning platform offers 

the application of technical and psychological 

aspects of learning essay writing. Students 

can access learning materials and conduct 

online writing processes without limited time 

and space. They can also benefit from face-to-

face meetings, including feedback and 

motivation from the lecturers. Both online and 

face-to-face meetings can help students 

improve their skills in essay writing. From the 

results of the research that has been done, it 

can be seen that the use of blended learning 

based learning models can increase the 

competence of student essay writing with 

essay score enhancement which is significant 

when compared to traditional or face-to-face 

learning models. 

 

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AL-Quds Open University ,. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 

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 Alluhaybi, M. 2015. Psychology and EFL Writing.

 

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Social and Behavioral Sciences, 

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	Article
	Handoko1, Rabbi Antaridha2
	I. INTRODUCTION
	II. METHODS
	III. RESULT
	IV. DISCUSSION
	V. CONCLUSION