THE IMPACT OF WHATSAPP GROUP ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS‟ WRITING IN THE INDONESIAN TERTIARY CONTEXT

Abstract

The popularity of WhatsApp Group in the academic major has raised the interest
of researchers and practitioners in exploring its potential benefit in teaching EFL
aspects. This present paper attempts to investigate whether the use of WhatsApp
Group as a learning media might enhance undergraduate students‘ writing ability. It also explores the problems affecting the use of WhatsApp Group in writing class.There were fifty-eight undergraduate students who participated in this study. They enrolled in the writing course and were in the third semester in the academic years of 2018/2019.The subjects were randomly assigned into two groups, experimental group and control group. The research data were collected using pretest-posttest design and interview. The results of t-test scoresindicated that WhatsApp Group significantly outperformed the students‘ writing performance. Furthermore, there were technical, education, and instruction problems dealing with the use of WhatsApp Group to improve the students‘ readiness to participate in writing activities. Thus, WhatsApp Group is considered as a potential alternative of an instructional media for educational purposes to bring beneficial to students‘ knowledge of language and to help the students to work independently andcooperate with the others.
Keywords: educational purposes, students‘ wrtiting, WhatsApp Group