UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’

WRITING SKILLS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

SHAHROHAN BINTI YAAKOB

Bachelor of Education TESL (Primary Education)

With Honours

December 2015
 Table of Content

Page

Abstract i

Chapter 1

1.0 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of The Study 2

1.2 Statement of The Problem 3

1.3 Conceptual Framework 4

Chapter 2

2.0 Purpose of The Study 6

2.1 Research Objectives 7

2.2 Research Questions 8

2.3 Importance of The Study 9

Chapter 3

3.0 Literature Review 10

3.1 Theoretical Approach 12

3.2 Previous Studies 13

Chapter 4

4.0 Limitations of Research 15

Chapter 5

5.0 Research Methodology 16

5.1 Research Design 16

5.2 Population and Sample Review 18

5.3 Instruments 19

5.3.1 Students Questionnaires 19

5.3.2 English Assessment Results from “Sistem Pengurusan Sekolah” Online 19

5.3.3 Interviews with Students and Teachers 21

5.4 Intervention 21

5.5 Data Collections 22

5.5.1 Set 1 22

5.5.2 Set 2 22

5.5.3 Set 3 22

5.5.4 Set 4 22

5.6 Data analysis 23

5.6.1 Interview Analysis 23

5.6 Summary 23

Chapter 6

6.0 Findings and Discussion 25

6.1 Students Questionnaires 25

6.1.1Students Questionnaire 1(SQ1) 25

6.1.2 Students Questionnaire 2(SQ2) 27

6.1.3 Students Questionnaire 3 (SQ3) 29

6.1.4 Students Questionnaire 4 (SQ4) 31

6.2 Discussion 32

6.2.1 Discussion from Students’ view 32

6.2.2 Discussion from Teachers’ view 34

Chapter 7

7.0 Reflection of Research 39

7.1 Reviews About The Research Conducted 40

7.2 Limitations of research (after conducting the research) 41

7.3 Suggestions for future research 42

Chapter 8

8.0 Conclusion 43

References

Appendix
 Abstract

This research was conducted to identify and investigate the factors affecting students

writing skills in primary school. The target population was year four students from a primary

school in Gombak Selangor namely Sekolah Kebangsaan Sungai Pelong. The research will be

employed based on appropriate data collection from an interviews with teachers and students and

data analysis result from students’ questionnaires. There are endless possibilities for appropriate

solution to improve writing and it is impossible to investigate every single one there is in a

research action however researcher has selected appropriate methods to elaborate the various

factors affecting students’ writing skills and to shows that the intensity of all parties were related

to each other’s. Writing skills are indispensable in lifelong learning, without proper writing skills

from primary level soon students will encounter problems when pursuing higher education.

Researcher acknowledged that it was evidently true that learning writing skill poses a number of

problems to the students, as it is a skill that is difficult to master; teachers too faces great

challenge to teach writing skills as students may sometimes find it confusing and difficult to

understand or failed to produce effective writing in English. The findings of the study revealed

that there are a number of factors that contribute to poor writing skills among students and

consequently, these factors affect the quality of student writing and the issues need to be

addressed if students’ writing skill is to be improved.

Keywords: Writing Skills, English, Primary School

 CHAPTER 1

1.0 Introduction

The study of language learning and how one is successful at the task of obtaining

excellent in English writing is the question many have posed. This research, which researcher

proposing to accomplish, is to look into the problem occurs in English writing skills and try to

discover its factors affect(s) if any on the year five primary school students. According to

research alike, there is suggestion that the learners self-efficacy attributes to their success rate

(Chularut & De Backer, 2004; Bandura, 1996). Bandura suggested that this could be true in any

academic setting (Bandura, 1996) therefore researcher seek to discover the obstacles of the

students experiences and factors affected students in writing skills. To define self-efficacy,

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 2003: Define self as “belonging to one’s own or an

individual’s typical character” and Efficacy is “the power to produce an effect”. Therefore, a

precise definition of self-efficacy is an individual’s ability to produce a desired response.

Grabe and Kaplan (1996) wrote that “probably half of the world’s population does not

know how to write adequately and effectively". Writing and learning to write has always been

one of the most complex language skills. Nunan (1989) agreed that "it is easier to learn to speak

than to write no matter if it is a first or second language”. It is not a very easy task to achieve

since it requires hard work, lengthy steps, enough time, and more practice. Of course, this order

may change depending on the needs of the learners. It is obvious that mastering English as a

second language in KBSR requires mastering the writing skills. None of teachers and students

would ignore the importance of writing skills and agree that it is the most complex and difficult
skill to master. Richards and Renandya (2003) argued that “there is no doubt that writing is the

most difficult skill for second language learners to master”.

1.1 Background of Study

There is a common agreement that writing is the most complex and difficult skill for it

requires a lot of training. Like all learning problems, difficulties in producing a good piece of

writing can be devastating to the learners' education, self-esteem, self-confidence, and motivation

to write. Many researchers (Harmer 2007, Nunan 1989, Tribble 1997, Richards & Renandya,

2003) agreed that writing is the most complex and difficult skill. This difficulty lays not only in

generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these ideas into readable text

Hence this research will determine the factors affecting students writing skills and what

hinders students to writing correctly especially among year five students. Among an endless

number of factors, researcher will try to sketch a general picture of the factors affecting behind

the students' lack of writing skill and the causes of it. And since the teaching/learning process

cannot take place only with the presence of the teacher and the learner, this research will be

entirely devoted to speak about the influence of teachers and students capabilities that will affect

the students writing skill. Results and discussions of some important issues that concern the

teacher's approaches, methods and techniques in teaching writing will be interviewed to the

students to analyze the reaction to the teaching.

1.2 Statement of the problem

There are many factors affecting students’ capabilities in writing skills. Since writing is

such prominent part of the English language, the teacher is obliged to possess knowledge of how

to improve students’ proficiencies in an efficient way. The question is how to use this knowledge

when the teacher is supposed to compose different methods for lessons, evaluate the exercises

and give proper feedback to the students. Raimes (1994) agreed that there is no one answers to

the question of how to teach writing in English classes. This may be due to the fact that writing is

a process of exploring one’s thought and learning from the act of writing itself. Figure 1 displays

the elements activated when producing a piece of writing.

Figure 1 Producing a Piece of Writing (Raimes, 1994)

This research is based on various literary sources, interviews with teachers, students,

questionnaires with students and the background information is the basis for the interview

questions and the questionnaire. There are endless possibilities for appropriate solution to
improve writing and it is impossible to investigate every single one there is in a research action

report. Researcher however has selected the appropriate methods, which will be described in this

research. In order to evaluate factors affecting students writing skill, the researcher needs to be

prepared and know what to focus on the study as it is in progress. Therefore the research is made

up to determine the factors affecting students writing skill with emphasis on the following issues:

1. To investigate students‘satisfaction with the knowledge they have acquired in writing

skills.

2. To identify the problem faced by the English teachers in improving students writing

skills.

3. To identify the needs and solution in overcome the negative factors affecting writing

skills.

1.3 Conceptual Framework

The session used qualitative approach to enable the researchers to reinforce the argument

for finding and to understand the reasons of the weakness in writing. Essentially, this method

consists of flexible strategies for focusing and expediting qualitative data collection and analysis.

Material from the interview results are intended to reinforce finding on factors affecting students

writing skills. Following are the questions raised during the interview session:

1) What are the reasons behind the weakness of your writing?

2) Are you aware of your weakness? Explain.

3) Are you satisfied with the learning process conducted by your English teacher?
 Questionnaires or social surveys are used as a method to collect standardized data from

the whole class of 4 Amanah. When data has been quantified, it can be used to compare and

contrast other data collected and may be used to convince the findings in factors affecting

student performance. Researcher applies questionnaires method because the results of the

questionnaires can usually be quickly and easily quantified. Large amounts of information can be

collected from a large number of people in a short period of time and in a relatively cost effective

way.
 CHAPTER 2

2.0 Purpose of the Study

The main objective of this study was to investigate the factors affecting students writing

skill. In many cases, the hardest thing for a student concerning writing is to get started with the

entire writing process. According to Cowley (2004), there are different reasons why students

have trouble with this. One reason could be that the students are afraid of failing and that they

are under pressure to perform. Teachers should persuade and encourage their students to not

giving up and increase knowledge through reading. Cowley (2004) mentions warm-up exercises,

rewards and challenges for the students to increase their motivation. The process of collecting

information and coming up with ideas is not easy for everyone. In her book, Cowley (2004) did

mention that the teacher should give students inspiration and create an atmosphere for writing. In

order to create an atmosphere Cowley (2004) claims that certain students work best when they

are listening to music and they should be allowed to have a Walkman while writing. Dramatic

sounds like wind or maybe owls howling could be a good inspiration if the students are supposed

to write for example ghost stories (Cowley, 2004).

Making mind maps and brainstorming are recommended to spark students’ ideas where

the students gain information by discussing in groups. White and Arndt write that both the

teacher and the students have important roles in this session. According to White and Arndt,

crucial that the teacher goes through all these ideas with the students before the writing starts so

that everyone understands what the ideas mean. After these sessions the students’ minds filled

with ideas and the process of writing will be much easier (R. White, V. Arndt, 1991).Writing is

an ongoing process, improving upon the writing includes a number of different aspects to be
taken care of so as to have a cohesive structure in writing, while keeping the content engaging

and interesting. This research will determine the factors affecting students writing skills and what

hinders students to writing correctly especially among year five students.

2.1 Research Objectives

In general, this study has the objective to determine factors affecting students writing skills.

One of the factors is self-efficacy which is commonly defined as the belief in one's capabilities to

achieve a goal or an outcome. Students with a strong sense of efficacy are more likely to

challenge themselves with difficult tasks and be intrinsically motivated. These students will put

forth a high degree of effort in order to meet their commitments, and attribute failure to things

which are in their control, rather than blaming external factors. Self-efficacious students also

recover quickly from setbacks, and ultimately are likely to achieve their personal goals. Students

with low self-efficacy, on the other hand, believe they cannot be successful and thus are less

likely to make a concerted, extended effort and may consider challenging tasks as threats that are

to be avoided. Thus, students with poor self-efficacy have low aspirations which may result in

disappointing academic performances becoming part of a self-fulfilling feedback cycle (Margolis

& McCabe, 2006).

Besides that, teachers too face great challenge to teach these skills and conventions as

students may at times find them confusing and difficult to understand and write effective writing

in English. Writing therefore is not just putting pen to paper or writing down ideas but it is how

these ideas are presented or expressed effectively. This highly demanding process of writing

requires a number of skills and steps in development of ideas and information, accuracy in

choosing the right words are very important so that there is no ambiguity of meaning and also the
right use of complex grammatical devices to focus and emphasis ideas. There are more factors

that contribute to affecting students’ capability to produce good writing skills. In term of to

strengthen the statement, below are the research objectives that researcher require to obtain;

1. To identify problems occurs in developing students’ writing skill

2. To identify factors that hinder students’ writing skills.

2.2 Research Questions

Students with a strong back ground of spoken and written are more likely to challenge

themselves with difficult tasks and be intrinsically motivated with any writing task. These

students will put forth a high degree of effort in order to meet their commitments, and attribute

failure to things which are in their control, rather than blaming external factors. Self-motivated

students also recover quickly from setbacks, and ultimately are likely to achieve their personal

goals. Students who are not skilled in writing, on the other hand, believe they cannot be

successful and thus are less likely to make a concerted, extended effort and may consider

challenging tasks as threats that are to be avoided. Thus, students with poor self-efficacy have

low aspirations which may result in disappointing academic performances becoming part of a

self-fulfilling feedback cycle. (Margolis & McCabe, 2006). There are many factors affecting

students weakness in writing skills and to prove the statement I intend to run an interviews and

data collection based on these research questions;

1. What are the causes that affected students’ capability in English writing skill?

2. Do students consider writing skills are hard to be mastered?

2.3 Importance of The Study

The results of this study will provide important information to teachers and school

administration that the English teachers of SK Sungai Pelongs’ need to focus hard on three areas

which is teaching and learning strategies: improving teaching strategies create more fun in

learning writing and use assessment in writing skills to improve students’ skill. Second area is

leadership in writing: creating the structures and supports in schools that enable students to

participate in English writing activities other than class learning (as an example, organize an

essay competition etc.) and third area is Continuing professional development: engaging all

English teachers in writing skills courses and purposeful collaboration (to create a community of

learners and indirectly will channel teachers writing knowledge to students). These three areas

are importance to this study, which tracks the journey of this action research to set aims of

evaluating outcomes.
 CHAPTER 3

3.0 Literature Review

Most researchers will be conducting on ways to assess self-efficacy and its relation to

achievement outcomes. The proliferation of efficacy research in recent years adds to our

understanding but also results in a multitude of measures that often seem conceptually unrelated,

It is proved that researchers need to show how their measure taps self-efficacy and not such other

related constructs as attributions, locus of control, interest, or satisfaction. I noted earlier that

self-efficacy often is equated with outcome expectancy in the literature. The two constructs

typically are related but must be kept distinct since a student may expect positive outcomes for a

stellar performance but may doubt his or her capabilities to perform at that level. Investigators

also should report reliability data and include instruments in articles (Pintrich & De Groot,

1990).

Researchers typically have conducted short term correlation or experimental studies.

There is a need for longitudinal studies and alternative forms of data collection, although such

studies might include fewer subjects, they would gain rich data. Much research has related self-

efficacy to such measures as students' self-reports of intentions to engage in various activities.

This type of research has advantages and typically obtains valid data (Assor & Connell, 1992),

but it does not take into account the intricacies of teaching and learning. There is a need for

research with teachers and coaches as they teach skills. We need more research examining how

motivation and performance relate to self-efficacy. Bandura (1986) postulates that self-efficacy

influences choice of activities, effort, and persistence. These effects are seen most clearly when

behavior reflects performance of previously learned skills. In learning settings, the influence of
self-efficacy on these indexes is complex. Choice may not be a good index because students

usually do not choose to participate in learning activities. Choice is meaningful only when

individuals have options. There also are problems with persistence. Bandura (1986) predicted

that persistence will increase as self-efficacy develops. This prediction was supported in early

clinical research; for example, phobic persons judge self-efficacy low and do not persist at

threatening activities but their persistence increases as they participate in feared situations and

gain confidence.

In learning situations, however, students persist in part because teachers and coaches

keep them working. Self-efficacy is a poor predictor of persistence when students do not have

the choice to work on a task. As skills develop, higher self-efficacy may relate negatively, rather

than positively, to persistence, because students with higher self-efficacy are likely to be skillful

and may not have to persist very long to perform well. Better indexes of motivation may be

effort and use of effective strategies. Cognitive effort may need to be assessed with a self-report

instrument, but much evidence shows that self-report of personal experiences and beliefs

generally are reliable and valid predictors of performance (Assor & Connell, 1992). Students

with high self-efficacy are likely to be motivated to engage in activities they believe will assist

them, such as paying attention, concentrating on models, organizing and rehearsing in-formation

to be remembered, practicing behaviors and monitoring performance, and relating new to prior

learning.
3.1 Theoretical Approach

Both the concept of writing self-efficacy and motivation are rooted in social-cognitive

theory. As a construct of social-cognitive theory, self-efficacy is viewed as an individual’s

perception of his or her ability to achieve in a given area (Bandura, 1986). Another aspect of

social-cognitive theory is motivation and self-regulated learning (Pintrich, 2003). Students’

motivation is linked to their ability to self-regulate their learning activities. Eccles & Wigfield

(2002) explain self-regulated learning is being metacognitive, motivationally, and behaviorally

active in one’s own learning processes and in achieving one’s own goals. This framework

assumes motivation and learning strategies are not static traits of a learner, but that “motivation

is dynamic and contextually bound and that learning strategies can be learned and brought under

the control of the student” (Duncan & McKeachie, 2005)Students’ motivations change from

course to course, depending on their interest in the course, efficacy for performing tasks in the

course, and other social and environmental factors. Their learning strategies may vary as well,

depending on the nature of the course (Artino, 2007).

In social cognitive theory, individuals: Are proactive and self-regulating rather than

reactive and controlled by biological or environmental forces, are understood to hold self-beliefs

that allow them to employ a measure of control over their thoughts, feelings, and actions; and

display behaviors, motivations, and capabilities which are critical elements (Pajares, 2003). A

social cognitive perspective of student learning suggests that each student engages in learning in

his/her own way. Students engage in tasks and learning based on the motivation they feel

towards a specific subject. For example, a student taking an English language class as part of

their major, likely has different motivations than someone who is taking the class as an elective
and who only has a casual interest in the content. The context of a class, as it relates to each

student, helps determine how the student approaches learning situations.

3.2 Previous Studies

According to the experiences of some foreign languages learners, most difficulties are

found in the written skills, thus the main purpose of the study conducted by Lenny Johana

Alvarado Rico (2014), the study focused on analyzing the factors that affected English as a

foreign language (EFL) learners’ performance when working on writing or speaking activities.

This study conducted in hoping to help EFL teachers understands why most of their students face

difficulties throughout their learning process and to identify the factors causing those problems.

Furthermore, Quintero’s (2008) study pointed out that problems with grammar,

punctuation, lexical choice and the like have a negative impact on the content and the general

understanding of a text. In addition, this study indicated that writing was a complicated skill to

develop since it implied the use of mental processes rather than only using the structures of the

language. For instance, the author established that those difficulties could be solved by

motivating the students, by giving them the opportunity to write about the topics of their

particular interest, and also by giving them the appropriate feedback of their work. in her study

that previous studies have addressed several aspects of factors affecting writing or speaking.

In Jaramillo and Medina’s (2011) study, the written skill is perceived as an art in which

willingness and motivation are important. Furthermore, it is necessary to explain that there are

many learners who need to express their ideas in a second language but they find themselves
without the linguistic resources to carry it out, (Gass and Selinker, 1994). This means that they

are not acquiring knowledge correctly because they can’t write well in English.

With regards to writing skills, Jaramillo and Medina (2011) focused their action research

on the development of writing short descriptive texts in English. The results confirmed that most

of the difficulties students had were related to the construction of sentences, grammatical errors

and difficulties in reading comprehension. The researchers understood that learners performed

better in writing tasks when they had a clear idea about the topic they were focusing on. In

addition, investigators suggested that the best way to improve writing skills was through

practice. In addition, Larios et al. (2008) conducted a study in which the foreign language

(English) writer’s strategic allocation of time to writing processes was analyzed. They found that

the process of writing formulation took up the largest percentage of composition time for

participants, and also that writing processes were differentially distributed depending on the

writer’s proficiency level.

 CHAPTER 4

4.0 Limitation of Research

At first researcher planned to conduct a study on year 5 students but due to final exam

season and as advised by the schools administration, the study continues with year 4 students. To

overcome this last minute changes, researcher look on the bright side and adapted the action

research appropriately with the amendments. There are no alterations to the problem statements,

research question and research objectives however the data used for analysis are now referred to

year 4 Amanah’s. The study used self-administered questionnaires, interviews and document

analysis of 4 Amanah’s English assessment result. Quantitative and qualitative methods are used

to analyze data with both inferential and descriptive analysis being employed. The findings of

the study will be presented in accordance with the variables and themes of the research

statement.

The study is likely to be affected by financial constraints as researcher is self-sponsored

and live in Bangi while the studied school was located at Sungai Buloh. The time for carrying

out the study is limited as researcher was involved in other professional and personal

commitments. To overcome this, researcher had maximized on any available time for the

research project and asked some helps from colleagues who work at the studied school.

To overcome this limitation, researcher had done several parts of data collection while

doing practicum at Sekolah Kebangsaan Sungai Pelong. As an advantage to this, researcher

managed to interviews 2 English teachers earlier in the month of June 2015, distributed

questionnaire before school holidays started and interviews 10 students during the month of

October 2015.
 CHAPTER 5

5.0 Research Methodology

5.1 Research Design

The study took the form of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Researcher

collected the appropriate data from the relevant source to develop graph and charts, and analysis

in different ways of collecting data for this project. Different methodologies were used during

distinct phases of the survey, such as questionnaire and face to face interviews. The target

population was one primary school in Gombak district. A total of 5 female and 5 male students

were picked for interviews, an interviewed with 2 English teachers and 33 respondents from year

4 Amanah were given questionnaire that consists of 9 questions.

Target of participants were primary school students and teachers. Students are the most

important target to gain result for this research. The most important finding to be expected is the

factors affecting students’ writing skills and the causes of the possibilities which will derive from

this study. Below is the research design flow chart.

 Conduct interviews to 2 English teachers

Conduct interviews to 5 male and 5 female students

Distributes students background information forms

Distributes questionnaires to 33 students

Start Data collections analysis

5.2 Population and Sample Review

This study was conducted in SekolahKebangsaanSungai Pelong, Sungai Buloh, Gombak,

Selangor. There are 8 classes of year 4 and researcher chose year 4 Amanah because the result of

the examination shows average results among 33 students year 4 Amanah. Only 1 student score

band 4 for writing and others are within performance level 1,2 and 3. The Kurikulum Standard

Sekolah Rendah provide Standard Curriculum and Assessment Documents which describe

performance standards details in six levels of performance with descriptions for each level based

on clusters of learning standards. These levels serve as a guide in assessing students’

development and growth in the acquisition of the learning standards that are taught.

Figure 2: The performance Standards

5.3 Instruments

5.3.1 Students Questionnaires

Questionnaires were given to 33 students to collect students’ view and will be employed

in inferential and descriptive analysis. It was given to the experimental group only. This form

contains 9 questions regarding writing skill in the teaching and learning process.

5.3.2 English Assessment Results from ‘Sistem Pengurusan Sekolah’ Online

English assessment results will be used as the benchmark for the level of students'

performance in writing. The assessment result will be used to determined students level of

writing. Data analysis will be obtained from SPS online (Sistem Pengurusan Sekolah). There is

only 1 student achieved band 4, the rest of the class scored band 1, 2 and 3 and according to the

English teachers, it is very disappointing that no one ever gets band 5 or 6. Please refer to figure

2 for the data of the results. Figure 2 shows that only 1 from 33 students score band 4, Figure 2

was employed from figure 3.

 Figure 2 : Data provide by SPS online

Figure 3: Part of the results obtained from the English assessment data analysis,
captured from SPS online.
5.3.3 Interviews with Students and Teachers

This session used qualitative approach to enable the researchers to understand the reasons

of the weakness of writing. It is assumed that through an interview, the students’ perceptions of

writing difficulties would not be misled by the ready-revealed survey instruments, which cannot

provide in-depth details about students’ perspectives of the factors affecting students writing

skills. It utilized semi-structured interviews in a face-to face interaction to explore the students’

beliefs and thoughts about certain topics; this is in line with Lynch’s (1996) view that, the use of

semi-structured interviews enhances the understanding of the data and makes the data collection

more systematic as compared to the informal conversational approach. Students were invited to

talk about the factors affecting their writing skills in a face-to-face interview of 15 minutes for

each sample. The students were supposed to feel free and talk about anything they perceived that

might cause their weakness of writing. The participants in this study were randomly picked of 5

male students and 5 female students of year 4Amanah. Students name are not mention in order to

be aware of the ethical and legal considerations.

5.4 Intervention

Researcher has done several parts of data collection while doing practicum at Sekolah

Kebangsaan Sungai Pelong. As an advantage to this, researcher managed to interviews 2 English

teachers earlier in the month of June 2015, distributed questionnaire before school holidays

started and interviews 10 students during the month of October 2015.

5.5 Data Collections

To obtain the findings, sets of data collections will be distribute to conduct the research.

The study will make use of both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis as well as

descriptive and inferential analysis. Following methods will be used to elaborate the findings:

5.5.1 Set of Data 1

Quantitative data collection of structured instruments of English assessment result that shows

diversity in results that is easy to be summarized and to compare students’ capabilities in writing.

5.5.2 Set of Data 2

Conduct face to face interviews to the teachers and students in order to obtain distinct advantage

in enabling good rapport with potential participants and gain their cooperation. This session also

allow the researcher to clarify ambiguous answers and when appropriate, seek follow up

information.

5.5.3 Set of Data 3

Distributes paper pencil questionnaires to the students of 4 Amanah. The questionnaires contains

of 9 questions that will be analyze as descriptive and inferential analysis.

5.5.4 Set of Data 4

Survey based questionnaires of students background will provide useful information to

understand the findings behind observation results and assess causes in students’ perceptions of

factor affecting their writing skills. Questionnaires conducted will help to clarify quantitative

evaluation findings.
5.6 Data Analysis

The process of data analysis was made after students have completed answering the

questionnaire and completed interviews session. The data obtained will be collected and

analyzed using descriptive statistics frequencies, percentages and inferential analysis of English

assessment results from SPS online (Sistem Pengurusan Sekolah). This method can accelerate

the process of assessing the data and accuracy.

5.6.1 Interview Analysis

For teachers’ interview session, teachers were invited to talk about the reasons behind their

students’ weakness of writing. The face-to-face interview will be held approximately of 20

minutes for each sample. The teachers were supposed to feel free and talk about anything they

perceived that might cause their students’ weakness in writing. Few standardize answers will be

ask to both teachers and the comparison of their views will be discuss to identify problems

occurs in developing students’ writing skill factors that hinder students’ writing skills.

5.7 Summary

This research is conducted to prove that there are various factors affecting students'

performance in writing skills. It is obviously shows that the intensity of all parties related to each

other’s. Teachers and school’s administrators need to collaborate in motivating students to

improve their writing skills. When students gain confidence in writing skills, they continue to set

even more challenging goals and this will contribute to upgrade the students’ examination
percentage in English writing This can lead to better performance in schools’ examination results

in terms of higher grades in writing and other challenging task. Teachers’ perseverance also can

affect how well a student performs in school. School administrator should encourage teachers

and parents to take more active role in the learning process. These connection shows that

students and teachers should work together to increase the confidence and indirectly motivate

students to improve writing skills.

 CHAPTER 6

6.0 Finding and Discussion

6.1 Students Questionnaires

To discuss further of this study researcher decide to elaborate and analysis 4 questions

from the students questionnaires. Below are the selected questions:

1) Indicate which of the following four skills is the most difficult one?

2) How often do you practice writing?

3) Do you find difficulties when writing English?

4) Your weaknesses in writing are due to the…

6.1.1 Students Questionnaire 1:

Indicate which of the following four skills is the most difficult one?

Writing is a complex intellectual task involving many component skills, some students

may lack completely, some of which they may have only partially mastered. Writing skills,

including writing mechanics such as grammar, sentence structure, spelling, planning a writing

strategy, communicating ideas clearly and concisely, constructing a reasoned, demonstrable

argument effectively, marshaling evidence and using sources appropriately and organizing ideas

effectively.
 Students Questionaire 1
Listening Speaking Reading Writing

4.95

3.3

1.65

0.99

English Language skills

Diagram 6.1

This item meant to know which of the four skills is the most difficult for the students to

master. 4.95 percent students indicate that writing is the most difficult skill of all. The second

difficult is speaking skill which shows that 3.3 students agree that speaking is the second stage of

difficulties in learning English Language skills. The third is reading and fourth is listening.

When students lack skills in these areas, their writing may be unsatisfactory in multiple

way. Complicating matters is the fact that many students’ reading skills are also poor. For

example, if they cannot recognize the main point of an argument in their reading, they obviously

cannot respond to this point in their writing. These issues show that factors of student weakness

in writing has to do with mastering other English Language skills. Students need to master all

skills to upgrade their proficiency in writing

6.1.2 Students Questionnaire 2:

How often do you practice writing?

As quoted “Practice makes perfect”, by keep doing and practicing certain skills

repeatedly students will upgrade their skills and positive persuasive will raises efficacy. High

efficacy will not produce competent performances when requisite skills and knowledge are

lacking. Self-efficacy is hypothesized to influence task choice, effort, persistence, and

achievement (Bandura, 1986, 1997; Schunk, 1995).

Students Questionaire 2

Not at all
11%

Sometimes
25%
Everyday
64%

Diagram 6.2
 As a result from the questionnaire given, 64% declared that they did practice writing

daily while 25 % practice sometimes and 11% did not practice at all. Compared with students

who doubt with their writing capabilities and did not practice their writing skill, those who feel

efficacious in learning writing or performing a task given will participate more readily to

improve their writing, work harder, persist longer when encounter difficulties and achieve at a

higher level.
6.1.3 Students Questionnaire 3:

Do you find difficulties when writing English?

Learning to write is uniquely challenging. Writing requires the mastery and concurrent

use of a complex array of language skills, from vocabulary and spelling to the ability to organize

and convey ideas.

Students Questionaire 3

3.2

Yes

No

96.9

Diagram 6.3

96.9 % 4 Amanah students agree that they found difficulties when writing English

meanwhile 3.2 % found that writing English is not difficult. From this data collection researcher

believes that teachers should keep an eye out for repetitious errors and habits, such as incorrect

grammar and spelling, poorly structured essays, and unsupported ideas. Writing is hard work and
can be a chore, but excessive complaining and procrastination from English teacher may indicate

a bigger problem with writing.

If not addressed, eventually writing problems can lead to problems in other subjects and

affect overall academic success. Although writing is an essential skill, many students at primary

schools are not interested in it. According to Robert Todd Caroll (1990), many students were

never required to learn proper spelling or grammar. These poor students come to think that

“English” and “writing” are nothing but spelling and grammar. To them, writing means

inevitable failure. Good writing is sometimes they believe they will never be able to achieve..

They are even not aware of the importance of writing skill in their learning. They often get low

marks when doing the tests on writing skill and it affect their learning’s result. In fact, students

often have many basic mistakes in written works about spelling, grammar, punctuation and

organization.
6.1.4 Students’ Questionnaire 4:

Your weaknesses in writing are due to the…

It is accepted in most fields of learning that motivation is essential to success and

achievement. Accordingly, Harmer (2006) stressed this point and claimed that people involved in

language teaching often say that students who really want to learn will succeed whatever

circumstances in which they study. They succeed despite using methods which experts consider

unsatisfactory. In the phase of such a phenomenon, it seems reasonable to suggest that the

motivation that students bring to class is the biggest simple factor affecting their success”

(Harmer, 2006).

Students Questionaire 4

Diagram 6.4
 As stated in the data analysis that lack of motivation in writing was the highest voted

among other factors. This means clearly that motivation is strongly related to achievement, and

learners’ motivation makes the mission easier and more pleasant for both teachers and learners.

In this case, motivation makes writing pleasant and enjoyable. Harmer (2006) mention that, there

are many hidden forces which demotivate students to achieve certain writing level. Fear of

failure which means the fear of not achieving goals in the context of competence or efficacy. It is

also closely related to the fear of rejection. The source of this fear of failure among the majority

of our students is that they are afraid of making mistakes. They feel weak and never recover the

state of protections, so they become haunted by failure.

6.2 Discussion

6.2.1 Discussion from Students’ View

Following are the questions raised during the interview session with students:

1) What are the reasons behind the weakness of your writing?

2) Do you aware of your weakness? Explain.

3) Do you satisfied with the learning process conducted by your English teacher?

Most of the students didn’t get higher banned in the writing task because of several

reasons. Students declared that their weakness of writing because of grammatical errors, lack of

knowledge and understanding, less practice of writing in English, and lack of self-motivations. It

is mentioned by all the interviewees in this study that they are unable to write a short paragraph,

article, or passage without a lot of grammatical mistakes. Some students said that they cannot
express their ideas in the context, while others said they do not know how to write even single

sentences. These problems make the students feel anxiety to write because they are looking for

the marks to gain higher banned.

Some student said that sometimes they can write a sentence without grammatical

mistakes, but the problem is how to gather these sentences in a paragraph form. Other student

declared that making mistakes in grammar is a big issue. Most of the time they claimed they are

not using the suitable tense in the correct situations, maybe because they do not understand the

tenses in the context. Some of them confessed that he/she cannot write even a single sentence.

Another student talked about why he cannot write even a single sentence. He referred his

problem of writing to the mistakes that he always make. He said, “Sometimes cannot

differentiate tenses. I did a lot of mistake and repeat the same mistakes. In that case, I feel upset

and frustrated to continue writing and just leave it”.

While others claimed that too many mistakes make their writing loses marks. Their

teachers are not satisfy with what they have written because a lot of grammatical mistakes. One

student said, ”I try to write in class, but I always get in mistakes even with the same mistakes

that I do before. My teacher always scolds me because my writing is very unsatisfactory”.

Some students misunderstanding the requirement of writing because they do not know

the process of writing. They do not know how to write a main topic and a theme. One student

said, “I don’t understand what the topic wants from me”. Another student have declared that he

feel struggling when he write in English even for simple topics. He said that, ”My teacher gives

us a simple topic such as writing a short paragraph about myself. But I can’t write it because I

don’t have vocabularies”. Another student said that expressing ideas in the topic is very difficult
because it is a part of process of writing that he missed it. He said that “First, I am not interested

in the topics that teacher asked us to write. Then, I feel upset and cannot concentrate to express

my ideas clearly. This problem makes me lost focus on what I am doing and I felt that I am so

weak in writing”.

Almost most of the students have mentioned that they never write other than in the

classroom even for homework. Of all interviewed students, 100% of them are in lack of practice

writing on their free time. They were completely relying on writing in the classroom but they did

not blame or mention any dissatisfied with the learning process conducted by their English

teacher. One student said, “I hate writing. I don’t like to write at all. That’s why I never practice

writing other than in the classroom”. Another student declared that English is the most difficult

subject. He said that “I hate English, so I don’t want to learn it. I believe I can’t improve my

writing. So, I don’t practice writing in English”. One more student said that, “As for me, I don’t

like writing, I think my teacher has done her best to teach me writing but practicing more on

writing will not improve my marks because I will not do it in the right way, writing is very

difficult for me”.

6.2.2 Discussion from Teachers’ View

Following are the questions raised during the interview session with teachers:

1) Do you have any particular methods to create a specific atmosphere for writing sessions in

helping to improve the students writing skill?

2) Do you recognize each of your students’ weakness in writing? Do you help them?
3) Many students have problems in writing. How do you work on that issue?

Researcher has interviewed two English teachers from the school. Teacher A is female,

has worked as a teacher for several years and teaches English as her major subject. Teacher B is

also female, has worked as a teacher for more than 10 years and teaches English as her major

subject too. They were both colleagues and they teaches English at level 2 (year 4, 5 and 6).

Interview was held to prove that there are various factors affecting students' performance in

writing skills and to shows that the intensity of all parties were related to each other’s. Teachers

interview question (TIQ) will be discuss and elaborate below:

Teacher Interview Question 1:

Do you have any particular methods to create a specific atmosphere for writing sessions in

helping to improve the students writing skill?

Teacher A says that she does not have any particular methods for writing sessions but

that she does have methods to attract students by previewing examples of writings that similar to

the topic she will assign to her students, she said “I believed this method are the best way to

trained my students to improve their writing, they will learn to construct sentences by imitating”.

Teacher B mentions that her students were quiet during the writing sessions and sometimes she

tries to create a specific atmosphere. She said, “As an example, if they are supposed to write a

story of experiences I will reads a short story before the session begins. Through this method

indirectly students will get the idea on how to build sentences and thus producing an essay”. Just

like Teacher A, they were both giving their best to instill good writing skills.
Teacher Interview Question 2:

Do you recognize each of your students’ weakness in writing? Do you help them?

Teacher A explains that she tries to remember the students’ previous results referring to

the SPS results, but that it could be difficult since there are so many of them. She claims that

everybody, more or less, has problems with verbs and tenses and to improve the weaknesses she

will do the training emphasizes during other English Skills session, such as teaching more on

tense in speaking session so that could be a good way to see if they have developed. To

overcome the students’ weakness in writing, Teacher B evaluates her writing lesson differently

from Teacher A. She discusses with her students whether they feel that the current exercise is

rewarding for them or not. She also tries to see if they have been able to stick to the topic or if it

is too narrow. Teacher B will go through the difficult part that claimed by her students and she

will ask the students to write the same topics until her students show some definite development.

These two teachers however, have shown good effort in providing the best education to their

students.

Teacher Interview Question 3:

Many students have problems getting started to write. How do you work on that issue?

Teacher A said she usually gives them an opening sentence and the students are supposed

to continue from that. They can choose from different beginnings. She also mentions two other

methods which are writing a different ending or a continuation of a story. Teacher B also uses

opening sentences when she teaches students from the year 4 students. However, she uses
brainstorming and they all develop a beginning by discussing different ideas. Teacher A brings

up methods that are not described in the background, such as opening sentences or different

endings which are creative methods. Teacher B once again uses brainstorming, which involves

the students. None of them talks about the students’ possible fear of making mistakes and how

they face that issue, at least not concerning writing exercises. They were both showing positive

attitude and have faith that the student will perform well in writing skill if they keep on giving

exercises to the students. Bandura (1986) predicted that persistence will increase as self-efficacy

develops. In learning situations, students’ self-efficacy will persist in certain part because

teachers keep them working by providing exercises to improve their writing skill.

Teacher Interview Question 4:

Reasons behind students’ poor writing?

The teachers think reasons are to be related to the following statements:

1. Lack of serious training at the level of lower primary schooling.

2. Lack of interest and willingness to write in English.

3. Students don’t read enough books.

They added that students’ difficulties in writing have their roots in their background

education (in preschool or low level), the home, and of course incompetent previous English

teacher. However, teacher A claims that these factors are mainly due to the teacher and the

learner. Teacher B mentions that students are strongly related to their mother tongue which
hinders the learning of the target language especially writing. This means that L1 can be another

factor that affects students’ performances in writing.

 CHAPTER 7

7.0 Reflections of Research

This research can summarize that the basic requirements needed to help improve the

writing skill and must be taken into consideration by all teachers and adults. Firstly, the English

teachers should be well trained and equip themselves with English Language four skills. In

classes and group activities the number of students in each group should be reduced. Hence, with

small groups, both teachers and learners will feel at ease when teaching/ learning the writing

skill. Teacher should use of product-oriented approach and reading technique for year 4 levels

when teaching writing. Teachers and parent should encouraging students to read and instill the

culture of reading in the library. Reading is the appropriate input to improve writing

inside/outside the classroom. Other than that, enough time should be devoted to written

expression for mastering the writing skill. Extension of written expression to the year 4

Amanahs’ students is an urgent need. It was believed that the only student that score band 4 in

the writing skill assessments has admit that his parent sent him for tuition at private learning

centre.

It is no doubt that the use of technology such as computer, internet and web logs (blogs)

has given a great contribution in enhancing the improvement of students writing skill. Teachers,

parents and school administrations should build the writing habit to help unwilling,

uncomfortable, and unsecured students to write and get rid of all these negative feelings. Finally,

in order to increase good performance in writing skill, it is advisable to apply collaborative

teaching of writing and implement the task to all teachers at all levels and modules not restricted

only to the English teacher.

7.1 Reviews About The Research Conducted

As researcher conducted the study, researcher acknowledged that it was evidently true

that learning writing skill poses a number of problems to the students, as it is a skill that is

difficult to master; besides that, teachers too face great challenge to teach writing skills as

students may sometimes find it confusing and difficult to understand or failed to produce

effective writing in English. Writing therefore is not just putting pen to paper or writing down

ideas but it is how these ideas are presented or expressed effectively. A study conducted by Yah

Awang Nik , Azizah Hamzah and Hasif Rafidee 1 2 Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, University of

Malaya and University of Bradford, U.K. with a study title, “A Comparative Study on the

Factors Affecting the Writing Performance among Bachelor Students” has mentioned that

Writing is one of the most difficult skills for students to acquire. Writing is unlike spoken

language, as it requires the readers or the audience to understand and interpret what has been

written. The statement proved that factors affecting students’ weakness in writing skills are

identical wherever English language writing skill lesson took place.

Researcher admitted that most students from 4 Amanah were very eager to learn English

but due to their poor writing skills has made their interest in English subject decreasing. It was

sad to note that some students blame their English teachers for their lack of writing skills. This

attitude should be demolished and teachers should focus to instill positive perception towards

learning writing skills. Jack M. Chokwe Department of English, University of South Africa in

his research of “Factors Impacting Academic Writing Skills of English Second Language

Students” has stated that “some researchers attribute students’ poor writing skills to the teachers’

reluctance to teach writing. For instance, Harris (1977:175) reports that some teachers do not

teach composition at school level. This perception should be changed and taken serious act
before the situation become more unfortunate. Furthermore, researcher also indicates that there

are fewer writing activities done during English class and student writing skills are not properly

trained. Writing skills are indispensable in lifelong learning, without proper writing skills from

primary level soon students will encounter problems when pursuing higher education. Wingate

(2006:458) found that many students are no longer required to write essays at secondary schools

and that could be why students have problems with academic writing.

As a conclusion, there are a number of factors that contribute to poor writing skills

among students. Consequently, these factors affect the quality of student writing and the issues

need to be addressed if students’ writing skill is to be improved.

7.2 Limitations of research (after conducting the research)

As known that researcher planned to conduct the study on year 5 students but due to final

exam season and as advised by the schools administration, the study continues with year 4

students. However, to overcome this last minute changes, researcher had adapted the action

research appropriately with the amendments. After conducting the research, researcher admitted

that it was quiet unsatisfied to conduct a study with the target population of students as young as

10 years old. Researcher found that they are not mature enough to express their thoughts and

some of them failed to understand the questions that being asked. To overcome the situation

researcher took an effort to speak in bilingual of Malay Language and English Language, this

situation has drag the time allocated by the administrator for the interview session with students

and the time allocated for the questionnaire session.

7.3 Suggestions for future research

After conducted this research, researcher found that the topic of research was

undoubtedly interesting to propose for further study. Many teachers and students are not aware

of the importance of studying writing skill in fact parents too should be aware and help to

improve in developing their childs’ writing skills. In conjunction with this matter, researcher

would like to suggest in future a study of factors affecting students writing skills that involve

parents as the subject of data collections. Other than that researcher were quite curious with the

impact of extra classes in the factors affecting students writing skills and do students need extra

classes to overcome their poor writing skills? Researcher too would like to propose in future to

increase the number of samples from the other classes and broaden up the study to outside

sources such as conducting factors affecting students writing skills between urban and rural

primary school.
 CHAPTER 8

8.0 Conclusion

Writing is one of the indispensable things in studying English. It is one of the language

skills students have to learn in their learning process. However, in this study the result of analysis

shows that many students are not aware of the importance of studying writing skill. They even

spent a little time practicing this skill. This leads to the low quality of learning writing skill in the

school. By observation and data analysis, the researcher describes the reality of students’

learning writing skill, and the main problems were pointed out. Firstly, students are in shortage

of vocabulary because their ways of learning is not really effective. Secondly, students meet a lot

of difficulties when facing with grammar structures because they spend a little time on practicing

as well as approaching necessary materials for grammar skill. Thirdly, students are not interested

in writing’s topics. Fourthly, students do not have many chances for being corrected. Fifthly,

students’ sources of reading materials are not various due to their lack of awareness. Lastly, the

time allocated to learn writing in year four is not enough for students to practice. The results of

research also reveal that many students made a lot of mistakes in writing English and this make

they lost interest in writing. Students of year 4 Amanah have not mastered the grammar

structures and lacks of materials for research. This problem too contributes to the main reasons

of factors affecting students’ writing skill. With the discovered causes, the researcher suggested

some solutions to these problems like read books or play games related to developing Language

skills, in order to increase vocabulary. In addition, learning in group has been established for

correcting errors and practice grammar. Moreover, creativity in teaching methods in writing

lessons will help students when studying writing.

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 Appendix

Students’ Questionnaire

1) Indicate which of the following four skills is the most difficult one?

A. Listening

B. Speaking

C. Reading

D. Writing

2) Do you feel uneasy when expressing your ideas and thoughts in writing?

A. Yes

B. No

3) How often do you practice writing?

A. Everyday

B. Sometimes

C. Not At All

4) Do you find difficulties when writing in English?

A. Yes

B. No

5) If “yes”, are those difficulties due to your inadequate mastery of:

A. Vocabulary

B. Grammar
C. Style

D. Content

E. Coherence/ Cohesion

F. Punctuation/ Spelling

G. Other, please specify……………………………………………….....................................

6) Where do you find difficulties when writing in English? At the level of:

A. Sentence

B. Paragraph

C. Essay

7) Your weaknesses in writing are due to the

A. Teachers

B. Learners

C. Lack of practice

D. Lack of motivation in writing

E. Lack of good approach to teaching writing

F. Lack of reading

8) Do you write outside the class?

A. Yes

B. No
If “yes”, what do you like to write?

……………………………………………………………………………………………...............

If “No”, please explain why.

……………………………………………………………………………………………...............

9) How do you qualify your writing level?

A. Good

B. Average

C. Poor

D. Satisfactory

E. I do not know