Improving students’ writing ability through clustering strategy

Abstract

The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of clustering strategy on students’ writing ability in descriptive writing. This research employs quasy experimental design by taking two classes as the sample of the study. The first year students of English language education department of Muhammadiyah University of Kendari who enrolled in academic year 2015/2016 werechosen as the population of the study. The sample was taken through lottery system in which students in class A was as an experimentalgroup and class C as the control group. Both the classes were given similar pre-test and post-test, yet, the classes got different treatment.  The experimental class was taught under clustering strategy during 6 meetings, while the control class was taught using conventional strategy. Thestudent’s ability was measured by using writing descriptive test. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistical analysis and inferential statistics.The result showed that t count ≥ t table (-27,39921 ≥ -27,00477) at α = 0,05 and df 29, so H₀ was rejected and Ha was accepted. From the hypothesis testing, compared to the control class, students’ writing ability in experimental class got significant improvement after being taught under clustering strategy