Vol. 5, No.4, April 2024
E-ISSN: 2723-6692
P-ISSN: 2723-6595
http://jiss.publikasiindonesia.id/
Jurnal Indonesia Sosial Sains, Vol. 5, No.4, April 2024 658
The Influence of Using Documentary Films on Students’ Writing
Ability of Explanation Text
Murniasih, Melia Najihatul Ummah
Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi PPI, Indonesia
Email: murniasihppi[email protected]m, melia.najiha15@mhs.uinjkt.ac.id
Correspondence: murniasihppi33@gmail.com
*
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Documentary Films;
Writing; Explanation Text
This research aims to obtain empirical evidence of the
influence of using Documentary Films on students’ writing
ability of explanation text. The method of this research was a
quantitative method using a quasi-experimental design. The
population of this research was the eleventh-grade students
at one of the private schools in Tangerang Selatan in the
academic year 2019/2020 with 61 pupils in total. The sample
of this study was selected by purposive sampling technique
and was divided into two classes; experimental class and
control class. In collecting data from both classes, the
researcher used a written test as an instrument. Moreover, the
data from both the pre-test and post-test were analyzed by
using a t-test with IBM SPSS 20. The result indicated that the
post-test mean score of the experimental class was higher
than the post-test mean score of the control class, 76.97 >
67.16. Then the sig. 2-tailed (ρ) was lower than the alpha,
0.000 < 0.05. It proved that H0 was rejected and Ha was
accepted. Therefore, the effect size calculation result showed
1.60, which means it is at a strong level. Therefore, it proved
that there was a significant influence of using documentary
films on students’ writing ability of explanation text.
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
1. Introduction
Writing is such a complex process that revamps only ideas to actual concrete output. Indeed, it
is a very interesting way to deliver our messages to others and turn them into communicable points.
Writing in learning new languages plays such an important role to guide the students to understand
how to write with the structure, spelling, and how to write as a whole properly. The widespread use
of writing in higher education and the workplace shows the importance of writing. Students are
expected to write well to communicate effectively with employers, professors, peers, and others
(Stoneman, 2019; Walsh, 2010). Writing is regarded as the most difficult skill among other English
(Anh, 2019). It is typically caused by writing processes that require more time to think about and
present ideas. However, different methods might be necessary to solve this problem, with the aim of
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students being able to with options for which type of method is the most effective for learning writing-
so students can identify the good writing elements that denote the writing structure they can put
together (Prémont-Schwarz et al., 2017).
Based on the 2013 curriculum, writing is one of the skills required to be mastered by Senior
High School students in Indonesia. Writing English learning in Indonesian high school focuses more
on preparing the students to be able to write a text through the understanding and reasoning of its
structure and linguistic features. The students are also expected to obtain information, such as plots,
settings, conflicts, opinions, and characters. Furthermore, students must be able to write and develop
a good writing form. Students have to be taught how to plan what they write, do revise, and evaluate
their writing. Writing explanation texts is one of many writing skills that students must master in
school. Students must be able to write any content using proper grammar and vocabulary, proper
organization, and acceptable writing mechanics such as capitalization, spelling, and punctuation
(Sekhar & Chakravorty, 2017).
In addition to that, based on the researcher's experience in the school field, the researcher
observed the students' problems in writing, particularly in the explanation text such as difficulty
finding and expanding ideas, confusion about the generic structure and language features of the
explanation text, and a lack of interest in learning the theory of natural or social phenomena of the
explanation text. It is in line with the research that was conducted by Desitawardhani (2014), she
discovered that the obstacles often found in the learning process of writing explanation skills for high
school students were the monotonous activity that makes the students less motivated during the
learning process; the students lack understanding of the explanation text’s components, such as the
generic structure and the language feature; and the students were still struggling to develop and
elaborate their ideas.
In the teaching and learning process, media can be a very helpful solution for the educator to
convey the materials that are being taught more effectively, particularly when writing an explanation
text. The use of different media can also contribute to the attempt on gaining more motivation for the
students in the learning process. Different media, such as audio-visual aids–that provide both images
and sounds–is important in delivering more sources for students to learn English. The audio-visual
media presents the real-life situation to be experienced indirectly and it can motivate the students
more to build and arrange the purposefully written explanation texts. Films are one type of teaching
media that can be used to solve the problems listed above. In the context of EFL teaching in Indonesian
high schools, some research findings indicated that better achievement had been increased by
teaching with films, for instance; the better writing task of the students after watching a documentary
film (Aaltonen & Kortti, 2015; Lestiyanawati, 2011).
Based on some problems faced in teaching and learning writing skills above, the researcher
assumes that using Documentary Films as learning media can contribute to the student’s capability
in English writing. Thus, in this research, the researcher attempts to investigate the influence of using
documentary films as one media in teaching writing especially in writing explanation text. The
researcher wants to do research entitled: “The Influence of Using Documentary Film on Students’
Writing Ability of Explanation Text”. Therefore, the result of writing tests will reflect the influence of
documentary films in teaching writing.
2. Materials and Methods
Place and Time of the Research
The research was conducted at one of the private schools in Tangerang Selatan. The research
was concerned with the influence of using Documentary Films on students’ writing ability of
explanation text in the eleventh grade of senior high school. The English learning process was applied
inside the classroom. The research was held from November until December 2019.
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Method and Design of the Research
The method used in this research was a quantitative method with a quasi-experimental
design. According to Creswell (2012), by analyzing the relationship between variables, quantitative
research can be used to test objective theories. The variables of this research were documentary films
as the independent variable (The X variable) and the student’s skills in writing explanation text as the
dependent variable (The Y variable). Quasi-experiments design involves assignments, but not just
random assignments of participants to the group because the experimenter cannot artificially build a
group experiment (Creswell, 2012). The quasi-experimental design was used to determine the
influence of the independent variable on the dependent variable as it requires an elaboration of how
a variable can influence another variable (White and Sabharwal 2014). Hence, the results of this
research are prepared to provide a proven resource to determine the influence of documentary films
on students’ ability in writing explanation text. The method design of this research assigned the
students as participants with pre-test and post-test designs followed the pattern in Table 3.1, as
follows:
Table 1 Design of Pre-test and Post-test
Classes
Test
Treatment
Test
Experimental
Class
Pre-test
Treatment (using
documentary film)
Post-test
Control Class
Pre-Test
No Treatment (without
using documentary film)
Post-Test
The population of this research was the eleventh grade with 61 students in total. The
experimental class had 29 students, while the control class had 32 students. The sample of this study
was selected by the purposive sampling technique. In this research, to get the numerical data, the
researcher utilized a written test. The written tests were divided into two different parts; pre-test and
post-test. The pre-test was conducted by the researcher to evaluate the students’ skills before the
treatment and the post-test was conducted after the students are given the independent variable of
this research (the documentary films) to re-evaluate the students’ skills. The researcher provided
different treatments to two sample classes. The experimental class was treated by using documentary
film as a learning medium to acknowledge the influence of using that as an independent variable,
while the control class was only treated with the regular teaching method by explaining directly about
explanation text. After the experimental class was given the treatment, the researcher conducted the
post-test for the student of both classes. The students were given the same test form as the previous
one that they had already done in the pre-test with a different topic.
Technique of Data Analysis
The collected pre and post-test scores from the classes are statistically examined using the t-
test in the data analysis section. The technique of data analysis used in this research was statistical
analysis. Referring to Sudijono, the statistical test that fits to measure the result of pre and post-test
is the t-test. Furthermore, to test two connected large samples, especially in finding the significance
of pre and post-test results, a t-test was one that he suggested doing. It is used to test the significance
of the mean gain score of the experiment class and the controlled class.
Inferential statistics were the outcome of the t-test. The researcher had to ascertain whether
or not the data were distributed normally and whether the variances of the research sample were
homogeneous before computing the results using the t-test. The researcher also performed an effect
size assessment after the t-test results were in to measure the degree of the documentary film's
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effectiveness in this study. All data analysis and calculations were carried out using IBM SPSS
Statistics 20. However, supporting data from the t-test were used to manually calculate the effect size
testing.
3. Result and Discussion
After the author collected the data from the pre-test and post-test, the analysis was performed
to determine the research findings. Students' results in both classes were graded on a scale of 0 to
100. They were graded using Weigle’s assessment rubric (2002) which covered material,
organization, vocabulary, linguistic use, and mechanics. The differences in scores between the two
classes are summarized below.
Graphs 1 The differences in scores between the two classes
As shown in graph 1, the experimental class's pre-test means score was 68.14, which was
slightly higher than the pre-test mean score for the control group, which was 61.14. This shows that
the experimental class's students have nearly comparable writing abilities to those in the control
group. The post-test results were also shown on the graph. Even though the post-test results for both
classes improved, the mean score shows that experimental class students outperformed those in the
control class, who scored lower. It was further exemplified by the experimental class's gained score,
which showed that the difference in growing points was more than the control group. Since the
experimental class's average point increase was 8.83, the control class's average point increase was
only 5.75. The results of the tests are then followed by a normality and homogeneity test.
Table 2 Tests of Normality
In accordance with the table, the pre-test significance levels for both classes were 0.200. The
data were normally distributed because both pre-test significance results were greater than 0.05
Students’ Result
Class
Kolmogorov-Smirnov
a
Shapiro-Wilk
Statistic
Df
Sig.
Statistic
Df
Sig.
Pre-Test Experiment
.115
29
.200
*
.974
29
.662
Post-Test Experiment
.105
29
.200
*
.977
29
.764
Pre-Test Control
.109
32
.200
*
.982
32
.850
Post-Test Control
.140
32
.115
.960
32
.282
*. This is a lower bound of the true significance.
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(0.200 > 0.05; 0.200 > 0.05). Furthermore, the significance in the control class was 0.115, while it was
0.200 in the experimental class. The outcomes also revealed that the post-test data were normally
distributed because the significance levels were greater than p = 0.05 (0.115 > 0.05; 0.200 > 0.05).
Table 3 Test of Homogeneity of Variances
Pre-test
Levene Statistic
df1
df2
Sig.
.346
1
59
.559
It can be seen at Table 4.4, the homogeneity test result in pre-test of both classes were .559,
which were higher than α= 0.05 (0.559 > 0.05). Moreover, based on the pre-test result, both of the
classes have homogeneous variances.
Table 4 Test of Homogeneity of Variances
Post Test
Levene Statistic
df1
df2
Sig.
.285
1
59
.596
The data results in Table 4.5 showed 0.596 as the significance value of post-test data. Since the data
was higher than the significance level α= 0.05 (0.596 > 0.05), it can be concluded that the data of post-
test was homogeneous.
Table 5
Paired Samples Statistics
Mean
N
Std. Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Pair 1
Pre-Test Experiment
68.14
29
9.062
1.683
Post-Test Experiment
76.97
29
6.361
1.181
Pair 2
Pre-Test Control
61.41
32
8.048
1.423
Post-Test Control
67.16
32
5.947
1.051
As shown in Table, the result of the t-test analysis between post-test in the experimental class after
the experimental class (which received treatment by watching a documentary film) and the
controlled class (which received treatment by lecturing and group discussion) were significant. Based
on the data, the standard deviation in the experimental class was reduced, going from 9.062 to 6.361
at the pre-test and from 8.048 to 5.947 at the post-test. Meanwhile, both classes' mean test scores on
the pre-test and post-test increased. Since the mean score of the experimental class was higher than
the mean score of the control class, teaching explanation text by using documentary film had been
proved effective applied in improving students’ writing ability of explanation text.
Table 6
Independent Samples Test
Students’
Result
Levene's
Test
t-test for Equality of Means
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F
Sig.
T
Df
Sig.
(2-
tailed
)
Mean
Differ
ence
Std.
Error
Differe
nce
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower
Upper
Equal
variances
assumed
.285
.596
6.224
59
.000
9.809
1.576
6.656
12.963
Equal
variances not
assumed
6.204
57.397
.000
9.809
1.581
6.643
12.975
Based on the data, the result of the independent sample t-test shows that p-value or sig (2-
tailed) = 0.000. It means that the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (Ha)
is accepted because the p-value (0.000) was lower than sig a: 0.05 (0.000 < 0.05). Moreover, the effect
size calculation was 1.60, which means it is at a strong level. Therefore, it could be concluded that
there was a statistical significance of using documentary films on students’ writing ability of
explanation text.
Discussion
The researcher discovered that students had some difficulties in writing explanation texts,
particularly in finding and expanding ideas. The students were also unable to share and reflect on
their work of writing explanation text because they were sometimes only asked to write without
being able to share or reflect on their work. Students did not comprehend whether their text is
appropriate or not to the questions of the topic. The research conducted by Lanta and her team had a
similar problem to this author’s research problem. The problem is students were unable to elaborate
on their ideas due to a lack of time to research sources from themselves and others. (Lanta et al.,
2019).
Other difficulties faced by students were that the explanation sequences of the explanation text
did not develop. It means that students were unable to expand on their ideas because there was
insufficient time to investigate sources from themselves and others. Hence, it makes students could
not develop their thoughts on the explanation sequences of explanation text effectively (Lestari,
2019).
Furthermore, the lack of teacher methods in teaching English is also the next factor that makes
students feel bored when learning the process. Align with Desitawardhani’s research, she discovered
that the obstacles often found in the learning process of writing explanation skills for high school
students were the monotonous activity that makes the students less motivated during the learning
process; the students lack understanding of the explanation text’s components, such as the generic
structure and the language feature; and the students were still struggling to develop and elaborate
their ideas (Desitawardhani 2014).
In order to guide students to accomplish the learning goals in the 2013 curriculum, some
experiments with learning media are really necessary, so the researcher assumes that the use of
documentary films could be a great alternative in the learning process of writing explanation texts,
especially for Indonesian high schools that typically have large classes with only one educator for
each class. The researcher initiated the idea of the teaching method using documentary films is easy
to be adjusted on different levels and through this, the researcher expects to not only make the
learning process easier to be understood but also interesting enough for students to be motivated.
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The findings of the research showed there is a significant influence of using documentary films on
students’ writing ability of explanation text. It is also supported by the research of Tg Abdul Rahman
et al. (2017) which highlights the strengths of documentary film as authentic input in language
teaching as well as putting forth some technical advice and suggestions to improve the selection of
teaching materials.
The previous relevant study also supports this research ((Tristy 2010; Abriwani, 2021; Riza,
2016) confirmed that there is a significant influence of using documentary films on students’ writing
ability of explanation text. Thus, using a documentary film as a teaching medium in the classroom
greatly increased students' motivation. Furthermore, it improved the teaching-learning process and
reduced students' boredom with English study. The result of this research proved that the use of
supporting materials can improve the students’ writing skills. The students were able to develop their
ideas into explanation texts, while also being more motivated during the learning process. To sum up,
even if the previous research and the researcher's research differed in several ways, they were still
considered supporters of this research. Overall, the result somehow proved that there is a significant
influence of using documentary film on students’ writing ability of explanation text.
The limitation of this study is that the research participants are drawn from a small group of
educational institutions. As a result, the objectivity of using documentary films to improve students'
writing skills will be limited. As a result, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to a broader
audience, such as all Indonesian students. Furthermore, this study only collected samples from two
groups of eleventh-graders at one of the private high schools in Tangerang Selatan. As a result, more
research on this subject is required with a larger sample scope from an educational institution and at
various levels.
4. Conclusion
The objective of this research is to find out empirical evidence of the influence of using
documentary films on students’ writing ability of explanation in the eleventh grade in high school.
The data analysis revealed that using documentary films as a teaching medium can help students
write an explanation text. Students' explanation text writing scores improved as outcomes. Thus,
showing a short documentary film in the classroom significantly increased students' motivation to
write an explanation text. In addition, the outcome of the effect size, which reached 1.60, further
backed it. The effect size of this study is on strong criteria, as evidenced by the calculation of the effect
size. The data previously mentioned led to the conclusion that there is a significant influence of
employing documentary films on students' writing ability of explanation text in eleventh-grade
students. The researcher has several suggestions from the description above related to the research.
The researcher hopes documentary films as support media in learning will be able to achieve further
milestones in the students’ writing learning process. For the teachers, the result of this research can
provide new insight to the teachers because using documentary films in writing explanation learning
in Indonesia is not common yet. The teacher can start to vary the teaching media in order to help the
student be more motivated and enjoy the learning process itself. Realizing that the results of this
research have many weaknesses, it needs to be more scrutinized by further researchers in the
upcoming time. In this study, the researcher solely discusses students in the eleventh grade who share
a particular trait; other grades of students who share different characteristics are not analyzed here.
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It is hoped that this study would encourage other researchers to carry out other research related to
this field.
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