A CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ MASTERY OF PAST TENSE AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING RECOUNT

ABSTRACT
Hidayah, Tias Evi. 2007. A Correlation Between Students’ Mastery of Past Tense
and Their Achievement in Writing Recount: The Case of the Eleventh
Year Students of SMA I Weleri in the Academic Year of 2006/2007. Final
Project. Undergraduate Program of English Department Semarang State
University. Advisors: I. Drs. Januarius Mujianto, M. Hum., II. Rohani,
S.Pd., M.A.
Key words: Correlation Study, Mastery of Past Tense, Achievement in Writing
Recount.
The ability to write recount, which constitutes communicative competence,
requires another supporting sub competences. The past tense should be acquired
in order to be able to write recount well.

The objective of the study is to reveal whether there is a correlation
between students’ mastery of past tense and their achievement in writing recount.
Furthermore, it attempts to find out the extent to which the students’ mastery of
past tense affects their achievement in writing recount.
To achieve the objectives of the study, the writer conducted a field
research in which a test of past tense and that of writing recount were
administered. The subjects of the study were the eleven graders of SMA I Weleri.
There were 233 students from which 50 students were taken as the sample. With
the intention of drawing representative sample, cluster random sampling was
applied. The data were in the form of students’ scores on both tests.
Since this study is a correlational one, the data was statistically computed
using Pearson Product Moment correlation formula. The obtained r value was
0.724, while the critical value of r for two-tailed test with α = 5% and df = 48 was
0.284. Because r value was higher than the critical value, the correlation
coefficient was significant. Thus, the null hypothesis saying “There is no
correlation between students’ mastery of past tense and their achievement in
writing recount” was rejected.
The obtained regression equation was Ŷ = 18.585 + 0.774 X and the
determination coefficient was 0.525. This indicates that 52.5% of the variation of
students’ achievement in writing recount was accounted for by the relationship
with their mastery of past tense, while the remaining 47.5% was probably due to
other relevant factors, which was excluded in this study.
It is suggested that further research in the same topic should take those
relevant factors into consideration. Moreover, In terms of the relationship between
past tense and recount, the writer recommends diary-writing practice as a means
of enhancing students’ mastery of past tense and recount.
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