Improving Academic Writing Skills through Online Mode of Task-Based Assignments

Abstract

This is to report a 2-Year Research Project (2015-2016) funded by the Directorate General of Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia, which aims at justifying whether or not the online mode of task-based writing assignments (of various genres of English texts) could improve the writing skills of the students at higher education. An action research was conducted in College of Economics and Business Studies, Stikubank University (UNISBANK) Semarang, Central Java Indonesia in response to the lack of time allocated to students’ writing activities in their English class. Three cycles of treatments were employed—each with five phases, (1) identification of problem area, (2) collection and organization of data, (3) interpretation of data, (4) action based on data and (5) reflection of action. The findings showed that—compared with the initial condition— there was a mean increase of 31% and an increase of 121% in the students’ scores beyond the passing score of 61. Also, the students’ writing motivation increased considerably (>86% toward positive attitudes) as revealed in the survey at the end of the treatment program.