LLT, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2017 Language and Language Teaching Journal http://e-journal.usd.ac.id/index.php/LLT Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 139 TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE FREQUENT TEST: VOCABULARY COURSE Elizabeth Wulan Wahyuningtyas and Fransiska Selvy Wulandari Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia elisabeth.wulan03@gmail.com and selxaveria@gmail.com DOI: doi.org/10.24071/llt.2017.200208 received 16 December 2017; revised 30 June 2017; accepted 5 August 2017 Abstract Through frequent test, students have higher self-motivation to understand every material in order to make them prepared in attending frequent test. This paper aims to see the teachers’ and students’ perceptions on frequent test. In addition, as the further finding, the writers will focus on the benefits of frequent test. The paper is an observation paper that focused on students ‘and teachers’ perception through frequent test, and its benefits. The finding shows that both of the teachers and students show the positive perspective toward frequent test. Thus, frequent test is beneficial to both, the teachers and the students in learning process, even though there are also the negative effects. Keywords: teachers’ perception, students’ perception, benefits, frequent test Introduction The classroom activity needs both of teachers’ and students’ participation to reach the learning objectives. Teachers make some material design and classroom activity design to help the students master every material. Especially, in this digital era, teachers try to make more and more interesting material design, which can increase the students’ interest. Quiz, drill, and test are such tools which can help teachers measure the students’ performance and understanding. Thus, those tools also can help students to have more motivation. In this paper, the writers concern on the use of frequent test as a classroom activity. Frequent test is a test formation given every week or every two weeks, which helps students to master the materials part by part. Geist and Soehren (1997, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 36), conclude that frequent test or test gives some advantages and meaningful effects on learners’ performance. Through the frequent test, the students have more motivation to understand and master the materials because they will undergo the frequent test in the following meeting. The teachers will have such a tool to measure the students ‘learning progress. When the teachers find that the students’ mark is decreasing, they can make such a review of the materials and make the further explanation to help the students. However, frequent test takes the teachers’ time in making the questions and burdens the students. Usually teachers prefer testing the students after they finish the material (summative assessment) rather than giving the periodic or frequent test (formative assessment). From the background above, there are three research mailto:elisabeth.wulan03@gmail.com LLT, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2017 140 questions formulated such as what are the teachers’ perceptions toward the frequent test? what are the students’ perceptions toward the frequent test? and what are the benefits of frequent test (toward the student)? Perception According to Romanov (2007), perception is including senses, feelings, ideas, thoughts, and theories. It is people’s capability to see the variation. On the other word, perception can be one’s opinion, belief, and thought of something. One’s perception can be influenced not only by interests but also other motives and desires (Vernon, 1972, p. 178). It means that one’s perception can be persuaded by internal and external factors. Vernon also said that ‘perception is never instantaneous’ (p. 32). That statement indicates that one cannot make or create her or his perception of something without thinking about that thing. It intends that one needs to think it first before making the perception. Based on Xiao & Carless (2013, p. 16), students’ perception is divided into two, negative and positive feelings. “Negative feelings mainly arise from three aspects: pressurized school life and heavy workload; perceived negative sentiments following from unsatisfactory or disappointing results; and discouraging conversations with teachers.” Therefore, positive feelings mostly come from achievement and pleasant feeling, such as satisfying mark, teacher’s and friends’ support (p. 16). Xiao & Carless (2013, p. 1) also say that “educational and social context in which the students are studying influence the experience and perception.” The disagreement with peers may change their perception toward school. There are many cases, which result on the students’ hatred toward certain lesson because of their trauma toward the teacher. Thus, the students’ hatred happens for years. Huhta et al., (2006 as cited in Xiao& Carless, 2013, p. 3), find that students’ perception was “complex and multi-faceted in that they expressed varied emotions during a single episode and over time.” Students revealed different roles within a series of repertoires: hard-working or lazy, skilled or unskilled, cool or nervous, lucky or unlucky.” Students are unstable in their age; they change frequently because of their emotional condition and their surroundings. Their mood drives them to be interested or uninterested in such case. However, teachers have to be able to give the students some test variation to avoid the boredom. Teacher’s perception is such an important factor to enhance and influence the teaching learning process. According to Yu (1986 as cited in Srakang & Jansen, 2013, p. 50), teachers’ perceptions influence what teachers do both inside and outside the classrooms.” In addition, Barcelos (2000, as cited in Srakang & Jansen, 2013, p. 50) finds that language educator’s perception will affect the language that the educator practices in teaching learning activity. Thus, the teachers’ perspectives determine their attitude inside and outside the classroom. Inside the classroom, teacher is the energy activator for the students, so the teachers have to be able to maintain his or her own perspective. When the teachers do not show their interest in the class, the whole class’ feeling will be affected. It results in the uninteresting teaching learning process. Moreover, Srakang & Jansen (2013, p. 50) say that Educator have to be careful of what they think and trust when doing the teaching learning activity. LLT, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2017 141 Meaning that the educators’ perceptions are the base to build the judgment and decision making for the educator. Based on Srakang & Jansen (2013, p. 50), “teachers’ perceptions have played a crucial role in teaching and learning processes due to the fact that they not only influence teachers’ actions and teachers’ decision making but also provide significant insight into aspects of education.” Teachers ‘decisions influence the students’ future. When teachers have a bad perspective toward the students or class, they will possibly say something, which will hurt the students and probably kill the students’ motivation to learn. Test In a simple word, test is a tool to measure someone’s capability, skill, and knowledge that occur at particular times in a curriculum (Brown, 2003, p. 3). In a test, teacher give some questions related to the materials which given to measure the learners’ degree of understanding and capability to accept what is being learn. Besides, Brown said that a test measures performance, but the result stated the learner’s ability (p. 4). In the test, teachers are willing to know the learners’ level of understanding and their ability of processing the new materials. According to Brown (2003, p. 5), test can be implemented in many forms and its own guideline, such as multiple choices with prescribed correct answer, essay, and writing prompt with a scoring rubric, oral interview based on a question script and list of the expected response, and so on. Again, Brown mentioned two types of test, formative and summative assessment (p. 6). Based on Brown (2003, pp. 6-7), formative assessment is an assessment that evaluates learners in the ‘processes’ of forming their performance and ability to help learners continue the growth process and summative assessment aim to measure or summarize the overall ability that learners have gotten. It is usually implemented in the end of the chapter or semester. Besides, in a test, there is a factor called learners’ rater reliability. It is in line with how students deal with the situation around them, such as fatigue, bad day, anxiety, temporary illness, and other physical or psychological factors. Frequent Test According to Bertrand (1962), tests are media used to measure and evaluate the growth and development of children. It is in line with frequent test that aims to monitor the development and growth of learners. Frequent test is a test that given every week or once in two weeks in a course. It attends to measure the development of learners in the process of learning. Through frequent test, teachers are able to measure learners’ ability in understanding the new materials and evaluate how well learners accept it. Frequent test also help learners memorize the materials for longer period and help them ready for the next test (Johnson & Kivineimi, 2009, p. 29, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 36). Zarei (2008, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37) states that frequent test supply motivation for learners to attend the class. Besides, Wilder (2001, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 36) in his study also concludes that learner’s attendance increased 10% when the frequent test is held. Mostly, learners will not lose their chance in a test, so they will come and prepare for any tests. LLT, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2017 142 Method This paper is a qualitative study on teachers’ and students’ perception toward the frequent test. Based on Ary, Joacobs, & Sorensen (2008, p. 29), qualitative study concerns on “getting an absolute picture and deeper understanding rather than the analysis of data which presented in numeric form”. Moreover, in qualitative study, the writers also pointed on understanding the social phenomena from the perspective of a human participant in a natural setting (p. 21). The phenomenon that would be discussed in this paper is related to the perceptions of frequent test, teachers’ and students’ perception. The instrument of this paper was questionnaires. The writers distributed the questionnaires to the participants. There are 12 scaled questions (Likert scale) to the students, and 12 scaled questions and 2 open-ended questions to the teachers. In the questionnaire, the scales are also five; (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) uncertain, (4) agree, and (5) strongly agree. Based on Wiersma (1995, p. 318), Likert Scale, usually has five scale which represent a set of related response and the participants will give their response by checking a point (letter or number) representing a point on the scale. Based on McDonough & McDonough (1997, p. 176), open-ended questions give space to the participants to extend information and their point of view in detailed. The participants of this study are 15 English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students, Vocabulary Course lecturer and 3 English Education Master’s Program (EEMP) students (who work as teachers) who implement and undergo the frequent test in their classroom activity. The ELESP students were first semester who experience the frequent test in vocabulary course. Findings and Discussion Based on the findings gained from the participants, the writers will elaborate teachers’ perception toward frequent test. The first is that frequent test is beneficial for the teachers and the students. Geist & Soehren (1997, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 36) say that frequent quiz has an advantage and effect on learner’s performance. According to Gholani & Moghaddam, (2013, p. 37), frequent testing is advantageous because trough giving the frequent quiz, school have the chance to collect the useful information about the students’ performance. The participants assume that frequent test may help both teachers and students in monitoring and evaluating self-performance learning process. In addition, it is one of effective way to help the students mastering the materials part by part. The participants argued that if the teachers do not use frequent test, teachers would give too much burden for the students because they will study the whole material at once and the learning ends up ineffectively. The second is that frequent test may burden the students even though there are so many benefits of frequent test. “Frequent testing might also become tedious for students and decrease students’ interest in the material and learning in general” (Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37). If the teachers cannot create different kind of the frequent test, it may make the students be bored to do the frequent test. Therefore, teachers should be able to create different types of the questions for the frequent test so that the students will be interested in. Besides that, frequent test is LLT, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2017 143 sometimes time consuming and burden the teachers in creating and marking the students’ works. According to Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37: Too much testing does not lead to fruitful and lifelong learning because teachers put their focus only on the test and teach to the test, providing the students only with the amount of information they need to do well on the test. Because teacher teach to the test and students read to the test, learning does not last for a long time. It means that the teachers should be able to deliver the materials with proper method and then the students will be able to put the materials in the long-term memory. Therefore, the learning process will be meaningful to both, the teachers and the students. Table 1 presents the percentage of students’ perception toward the frequent test. The data gathered based on questionnaire. Table 1. Students’ perception toward the use of frequent test No. Disagree Uncertain Agree 1. Agreed the existence of frequent quiz 6. 67 % 33.33% 60% 2. Frequent test is time consuming 53.33% 13.34% 33.33% 3. Frequent test is burdensome 33.33% 46.67% 20% 4. Frequent test is an effective learning method 53.33% 46.67% - 5. Frequent test give the positive benefits - - 100% Based on the students’ point of view, mostly the participants agree with the existence of frequent test (60%). There were only 33.33% of the students who are uncertain about the existence of frequent test, and there are 6.67 % of the participants who disagree of the existence of frequent test. From the students’ point of view, there are some supporting reasons why they agree of the frequent test. Firstly, according to Dustin (1971, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37), one of the benefit of frequent testing is making the extrinsic motivation for the learners, since the learners who want to gain the good mark make some effort and spend lot of time to equip the quiz. Frequent test is time consuming, considers that the students have to prepare themselves to be ready to face the upcoming quiz. However, 53.33% of the participants disagree with the statement saying that the frequent quiz is time consuming. While 13.34% of the participants are uncertain, and 33.33% of them are agreed that frequent test is time consuming. The participants do not realize that as a student, they tend to enjoy preparing the frequent test and forget how long they spend their time to study every week. Secondly, there are 20% of the participants who agree that frequent test is such a burdensome activity. It can be burdensome because they have to LLT, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2017 144 understand and memorize the material in order to make themselves be ready for the frequent test, which come once in a week or once in two weeks. Dustin (1971, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37), believes that “stress is reduced through frequent testing”. Dustin’s word is proven by the participants’ answer. There are 33.33% of the participant who disagree and 46.67% of them are uncertain that frequent test is such a burdensome activity. The material tested in the frequent test is part by part, so the students will not face too much material. Frequent test sometimes used by the teacher to help learners to master the material little by little. Thus, there are 53.33% of the participants who consider frequent test as the effective learning method, and there are 46.67% of the participants who are uncertain about it. The last, all of the participants (100%) agree that frequent test give them the positive benefits in teaching learning process. From the questionnaires that were distributed to the teachers and the ELESP students, the writers found the benefits of giving and receiving or doing frequent test. In this part, the writers will elaborate findings of the study. This part is decided into two; teachers’ point of view and students’ point of view. Teachers’ Point of View On teachers’ point of view, there are several benefits from the participants gained by giving the frequent test to the students. Firstly, by giving frequent test, teachers may help the students to build self-motivation in learning. One of the ways to that is by giving additional score to the diligent and hardworking students. At first, students do it and get good results because of the rewards given by the teachers but then, the students will be able to motivate themselves to always do the best to grab the great score. According to Zarei (2008, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37), frequent test is a good source of motivation that let the students to do good preparation for the test in order to get good upshot. Unconsciously, it will make the students perform better in their learning so that they can gain good score for their own. Dustin (1971, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37) says that one of the benefits of frequent testing is making the extrinsic motivation for the learners, since the learners who want to gain the good mark make some efforts and spend lot of time to equip the quiz. Besides that, frequent test can make students more diligent or enthusiast to come to the classroom. Some studies (Clump, Bauer, & Alex, 2013; Jones, 1984; Wilder et al., 2001, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37) found that frequent test could increase students’ attendance to the class. It is because students need to attend the entire class so that they will get the whole materials given and then, they will be able to do frequent test well. In addition, they will not lose one chance to gain good grade by attending the frequent test. Secondly, the teachers can easily monitor the students’ performances in learning. Frequent testing can give the beneficial advisory of the school performance toward the students (Bangers-Drowns et al., 1986; Standlee & Popham, 1960, cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37). Teachers may know how much the students understand and when the teachers find that they did not perform well, the teachers will review the materials again. In addition, the LLT, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2017 145 teachers can help students to monitor themselves which part of the materials they do not understand yet. It is one of the characteristic of independent learning. Students’ Point of View The first benefit is that frequent test can motivate the students to study harder than usual. 10 of 15 students (66.67%) assume that frequent quiz may help them to motivate themselves to learn the materials harder than usual they do. Zarei (2008, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37) said that students will do good preparation for frequent test and it is a good motivation and also, it can motivate the students to come to class. However, some of the students (20%) agree that frequent test increased their attendance in the class, 53.33% students are uncertain about that and the rest (26.67%) disagree with that. Then, the second benefit is that frequent test is able to help the students to learn and understand the materials part by part. Most of the students (86.67%) agree that frequent test help them in understanding the materials given in the class gradually. Based on Standlee & Popham (1960, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 37), frequent test covers small number of materials to be learned by the students so that they are able to understand deeply and meticulously. Furthermore, students may take shorter time to study the materials because they do not learn the whole materials at once but part by part. So that, the students apprehend the materials for longer period and help them more to the bigger exam (Johnsom & Kiviniemi, p. 29, as cited in Gholani & Moghaddam, 2013, p. 36). Some students (33.33%) assume that frequent test still takes longer time to study the materials and 9 from 15 students (60%) are uncertain about that and then the rest (6.67%) agree with that. The third benefit is that frequent test may help students to evaluate their performance in order to develop their performance in learning process so that they will get better mark. Most of the students (73.33%) agree that frequent test helps them to develop their self-evaluation in learning process and the rest (26.67%) are uncertain about that. Besides, there are 7 from 15 students (46.67%) agree that frequent test is able to help them increase their mark and the rest (53.33%) are not sure about that. McDaniel, Wildman, & Anderson (2012, p. 19) say that learners who do not attend the test or take fewer test have significantly smaller score on exam than the learners who attend the entire test. Conclusion Both of teachers and students have the positive perspective toward the frequent test. Frequent test is good to be implemented by the teachers in the classroom. It is beneficial to both, the teachers and the students, in creating the effective and meaningful learning. Even though, sometimes, the teachers and the students will take more time in making the questions, in preparing self to do the frequent test, and in marking the works. However, frequent test may help the teachers and the students in developing learning process. 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