Peer Assessment, Achievement Motivation, writing Achievement

THE EFFECT OF PEER ASSESMENT ON STUDENTS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT WITH DIFFERING ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION

By I.G.A. Lokita Purnamika Utami

Abstract
The aim of this study was to prove whether the implementation of peer assessment and the students’ achievement motivation give a significant interactional effect to the students’ writing achievement. The results of the analysis are; first, there was a significant effect of peer assessment on the students’ writing achievement. Second, there was a significant interactional effect between the application of peer assessment and achievement motivation on students’ writing achievement. Afterwards the data was analyzed by using Tukey test to gain more specific result of the comparison between all means.
Keywords: achievement motivation, peer assessment, writing achievement

Abstrak
Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk membuktikan apakah implementasi dari asesmen rekan sebaya dan motivasi berprestasi siswa memiliki pengaruh interaksional yang signifikan terhadap prestasi menulis mahasiswa. Hasil analisis menunjukkan: pertama, asesmen rekan sebaya memberikan pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap prestasi menulis mahasiswa. Kedua, terdapat pengaruh interaksional yang signifikan antara asesmen rekan sebaya dan motivasi berprestasi terhadap prestasi menulis mahasiswa. Kemudian analisis data dilanjutkan dengan menggunakan tes Tukey untuk melihat perbandingan dari seluruh rata-rata kelompok.secara lebih spesifik.
Kata kunci: motivasi berprestasi, asesmen rekan sebaya, prestasi menulis

1. Introduction

Writing as one of the language skills is very important to be mastered. This is because people communicate not only in spoken but also written. Considering that rationale, teaching writing need to be taken seriously in class. Writing activity is a very personal activity. However, assessing writing is not. Students need others to help them assess their writing. And this can be done by their lecturer or by their peer.
Some researches have been conducted regarding the application of peer assessment in the writing class and the comparison between peer assessment and the conventional assessment used in writing class. However, this research investigated one more variable, it was achievement motivation students.
The students may be categorized into high achievement motivated and students with low achievement motivation. The theory says that motivation is one which influences human to attain their goals (Heckhausen & Heckhaussen, 2008). Therefore, theoretically students with high achievement motivation will improve their achievement better than students with low achievement motivation. However, there is a question related to the writing achievement improvement of particular level of achievement motivated students when they are treated by using peer assessment. Do students with high achievement motivation still do better than students with low achievement motivation? If they do, what make it so? This research tried to find out whether an interaction exist between peer assessment and achievement motivation in improving writing achievement.
Specifically, there were 6 objectives which were related with the statements of problems to be resolved in this research. They were: (1) finding out whether peer assessment give a significant effect on the students’ writing achievement; (2) finding out whether a significant interactional effect exists between peer assessment and students’ achievement motivation in improving the students’ writing achievement; (3) finding out whether a significant difference on the writing achievement of the students with high achievement motivation exists when their writings are assessed by using peer assessment and when their writings are assessed by conventional assessment; (4) finding out whether a significant difference on the writing achievement of the students with low achievement motivation exists when their writings are assessed by using peer assessment and when their writing are assessed by conventional assessment; (5) finding out whether a significant difference between the students’ writing achievement of the students with high achievement motivation and the students with low achievement motivation exists when their writings are assessed by using peer assessment; (6) finding out whether a significant difference between the students’ writing achievement of the students with high achievement motivation and the students with low achievement motivation exists when their writings are assessed by conventional assessment



2. Theoretical Review

2.1 L2 Acquisition Theories

Krashen (in Ellis, 1986) considers the notion of how affective factors relate to SLA. It is ‘affective’ because the factors which determine its stregth have to do with the learners’ motivation, self confidence and anxiety state. Learners with high motivation and self confidence and low anxiety have low filters and so obtain and let in plenty of input. Learners with low motivation, little self confidence and high anxiety have high filters and so receive little input and allow even less in. Another factors which influence the rate of SLA development is aptitude, the role of first language, routines and patterns, individual differences and age.
The theories above underpin certain strategies used by teacher to improve students L2 learning. These strategies may consist of involving students in contextual interaction or communication; enhancing students’ motivation by providing students with various activity, media and so on; introducing target language culture as it may enhance students’ favourable comparison betwen their ingroup and outgroup; and reducing students’ anxiety and heightening students’ self confidence in L2 class by involving students in the process of learning and assessment.

2.2 The Concept of Writing

Olshtain (2001) explains that writing is an act of communication, which suggests an interactive process takes place between the writer and reader via written text. In addition Orwig (1998) defines writing as a process of communicating thought of the writer through a medium of text. It is used for communicating indirectly, not face to face to others (Tarigan, 1994). The writer usually has a bound of time to think about what to say and how to say it.
Hakim (2004) states that writing is mainly an effort to express what we look, undergo, feel and think. Through writing we communicate to many people, we might otherwise never meet. Writers can explore their deepest thoughts and feelings, discover and explore their ideas, and confront their values. Writing can help us discover gaps in our understanding and flaws in our thinking. It is one of the ways of sharing or expressing thoughts, ideas, and feelings in the written form
To be a more effective writer, a writer should meet the understanding that writing is a process. As stated by Langan (2001) that writing is a process of discovery that involves a series of steps of practices. Therefore, the assumption that writing is a ‘natural gift’ should not be considered, since writing is a skill that can be trained.
Langan (2001) points out some steps in writing an effective composition. First, discovering a point and developing solid support for the point through prewriting. Second, organizing the supporting material and writing it out in a first draft. Third, revising and then editing carefully to ensure an effective, error-free paper
However, Gardner and Johnson (1997) believe that writing process is not a highly organized linear process, but rather a continual movement between the different steps of the writing model. Flower And Hayes (1981) believe that writing involves a cognitive process. They state that the model of Prewriting - Writing – Rewriting which was fundamentally believe as the three non-reversible linear stages in composing process, only model the growth of the product and do not explain how writers move from one stage to the next. It is clear that writers plan, write and revise repeatedly, in a way which cannot be divided into clearcut stages. They published “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” in 1981, providing the groundwork for further research into how thought processes influence the writing process.
Beside the theory of writing as a cognitive process, writing is also said as a creative process. Creativity is one of the important benchmarks for a writer. All writing flows out of some sort of creative process. Each writer is different and their creative process is also different. Works for one writer may not work for others (Brereton and Morgan, 1996).

2.3 Peer Assessment in Writing
Hanna & Dettmer (2004) states that assessment is often equated and confused with evaluation, but the two concepts are different. Assessment is used to determine what a student knows or can do, while evaluation is used to determine the worth or value of a course or program
]Assessment in writing can be done by involving students, this is know as peer assessment. Falchikov (2001) states that peer assessment is an assessment in which member of a class give feedback and grade the work or perfomance of their peers using relevant criteria. In peer assessment marks may be awarded by students or negotiated with teachers. Peer assessment has been long introduced as one of assessment in writing. This assessment involves students to review their peer’s paper and put notes or comments on grammar, ideas organization, vocabulary, structure, punctuation and so forth. This way students learn from each others in every dimension of writing, i.e. content accuracy, vocabulary knowledge, grammar and sentence structure and also ideas organization. In line with this, Falchikov (2001) points out that the objective to have students review their peer’s writing is to enable students to teach and learn from each other and also to develop writing skill. Moreover, more errors are corrected since more proof reading is carried out.
In addition, Ahmad (2001) found that peer involvement in writing class is very beneficial to be considered. He found that students are more challenged since they could give feedback on each other writings. Each students tries to write a good piece of writing, since they know that their writing will gain feedback from the others. Besides, students feel confident to write as they also learn that making mistake is something natural, something that their peer possibly do. Also, peer involvement in writing helps students to learn not only from their mistakes but from the mistakes of others and makes economical and efficient use of the students' and the teacher's time (Mcbride, 2006). In line with this, Zulharman (2007) states that assessment by peers give students chance to learn from the strength and weaknesses of other’s writing, since in peer assessment students are involved not only grading it but also in reviewing it.

2.4 Achievement Motivation

Motivation is defined by Rabideau (2005) as the driving force behind all the actions of an individual. The influence of an individual's needs and desires both have a strong impact on the direction of their behavior. Motivation is based on your emotions and achievement-related goals.
Generally motivation can be from the students’ inside factor, which is called internal motivation; and can be from outside factors, which is called external motivation. In other term, Heckhausen & Heckhausen (2008) states that motivation is a product of person and situation. An Individual’s motivation to aspire to a certain goal is influenced by person factors (internal factors) and by situation factors (external factors), including the anticipated outcomes. Those belong to the students’ external motivation (or as Heckhausen’s term the situation factors) are the students’ environment, facilities, parents support, their teacher or peer. And those belong to internal motivation or person factors are students need for achievement, students expectetion and another internal desire.
Achievement is undoubtedly the most thoroughly studied motive. Over the years behavioral scientists have observed that some people have an intense need to achieve; others, perhaps the majority, do not seem to be as concerned about achievement. It was first identified in Henry A. Murray’s list of psychogenic need as “n(eed) achievement”. It is describe in the following terms:
To accomplish something difficult. To master, manipulate or organize physical objects, human beings or ideas. To do this as rapidly and as independently as possible. To overcome obstacles and attain a high satndard. To excel one’s self. To rival and surpass others. To increase self regard by the succesful exercise of talent (Murray, 1938. P.164 in Hechausen, 2008)

Murray can also be considered a pioneer of achievement motivation research in another respect, namely, as the author of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Later McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell developed this instrument into one of the best known and most frequently used procedures for measuring people’s underlying motives. McClelland and associates (1953) as cited by Brunstein & Heckhausen (2008) defined Achievement Motivation as a behavior which involves competition with a standard of excellent. Similarly, Heckhausen & Heckhausen (2008) states that achievement motive can be defined as a recurrent concern to compete with standards of excellence and to exceed the previous levels of competence. People with achievement motivation will always try to increase their competence.

3 Research Methods
This research was done in the English Education Departement at Ganesha University of Education in Singaraja, Bali. The research was conducted in one semester, specifically in the odd semester of the academic year 2009/2010, which was started from September 2009 until January 2010.
The research design was a Posttest Only Control-Group Design using a 2x2 Factorial arrangement One group received the experimental treatment (peer assessment) while the other received a different treatment (conventional assessment). This study used 2 x 2 factorial arrangement. There were 3 variables to be studied, 2 independent variables and 1 dependent variable. The first independent variable was writing assessment (A) as treatment variables. In this study the treatment variables were classified into peer assessment and conventional assessment. While, the second independent variable was achievement motivation in studying English (B) as moderator variable. The moderator variable was also classified into high achievement motivation and low achievement motivation. And the last, the dependent variable was writing achievement (Y).
The study was done in English Education Department in Undiksha, in academic year 2009-2010. The population was all students who took writitng II course. The total number of the population was 4 classes, which altogether consisted of 140 students. And the sample were 60 students which were assigned by using Multi Stage Random Sampling.
The instrument to collect data were writing test, and achievement motivation scale in studying english. Both of the instruments had been tried out to ensure their validity and reliability.
Data for this study were collected by using test and non test. Data which were collected by using test is writing achievement data. To collect this data the students were assigned to write a paragraph upon a particular topic. Their writings were then analyzed and scored by two raters which were based on the analytical assessment rubric. There were three writing test i.e. narrative test, descriptive test and cause and effect test. The students’ writings were assessed by two raters. Then, to ensure the reliability of the raters’ score, the inter-rater reliability analysis was conducted for each test.
The second data was the data which were collected by using non-test instrument. This data were collected by using the scale of Achievement Motivation in Studying English. The samples were given the scale to be responded. They marked a cross on each item in the scale which fits their characteristics. Score for each item was then added up to obtain Achievement Motivation in Studying English Score of each student
The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistic and inferential statistic. The inferential statistic was done by using two ways ANOVA and continued by post hoc analysis namely Tukey test. However, since two ways ANOVA and Tukey test are parametric statistical test, before the reseracher further analyzing data, the data were tested in order to find out whether it had normal distribution and homogeneity of variance or not. From the test namely The Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic to investigate the normality, it was found that the data was normally distributed. Also, Levene’s test of Equality of Error variance which was conducted in order to know the homogeneity of variance data, found that the data was homogeneous

4 Findings and Discussion

Based on the data analysis, some findings are resulted:
First, from the first hypothesis testing, it was found that FA was 4.678. This value (FA) was then compared to Fcv (1;56;0,04) which was 4.421. Since FA was higher than Fcv, then H0 was rejected. This means there was a significant difference in the students’ writing achievement between those whose writings are assessed by using peer assessment and those by using conventional assessment. And from the descrptive statistic analysis it was found that the students’ writing achievement of those whose writings were assessed by using peer assessment ( = 75.22) was higher than those whose writing were assessed by using conventional assessment ( = 70.91). From this result, it can be said that peer assessment gives a significant effect in improving students’ writing achievement.
Second, it was found that H0 of the second hypothesis was rejected. This was because the FAB (26.886) was higher than the Fcv (1;56;0,01) which was 7.110. This means that there was an interaction between the application of peer assessment and students’ achievement motivation in improving the students’ writing achievement.
Third, the average score of the group of students with high achievement motivation which were treated by using peer assessment was = 82.77. While the average score of the students with high achievement motivation which were treated by using conventional assessment was = 68.12. Moreover, the Tukey analysis found that the Qob was 7.351 and this value was higher than the Qcv(4;60;0.05) which equals to 3.74 and the Qcv(4;60;0.01) which equals to 4.59. This means the Qob was higher than the Qcv in both 0.05 and 0.01 level of significance, so H0 was rejected. This means that the difference between the students’ writing achievement of those with high achievement motivation when their writings were assessed by using peer assessment and conventional assessment was significant.
Fourth, the average score of the group of students with low achievement motivation which were treated by using peer assessment was = 67.68 While the average score of the students with low achievement motivation which were treated by using conventional assessment was = 73.70. Moreover, the third hypothesis found that the Qob was 3.021 and this value was lower the Qcv(4;60;0.05) which equals to 3.74. Therefore, H0 was accepted. This means that the difference between the low achievement motivated students’ writing achievement, when their writings were assessed by using peer assessment and conventional assessment was not significant.
Fifth, the students with high achievement motivation ( =82.77) had a better achievement than the students with low achievement motivation ( =67.68) when they were treated by using peer assessment. These scores were significantly different since the Qob was higher than the Qcv. It was found that the Qob was 7.572. From the q table it was found that the Qcv(4;60;0.05) was 3.74 and the Qcv(4;60;0.01) was 4.59. This means that there was a significant difference in the students’ writing achievement between the students with high achievement motivation and the students with low achievement motivation when their writings were assessed by using peer assessment.
Sixth, the students with low achievement motivation ( = 73.70) had a slightly better achievement than the students with high achievement motivation ( = 67.68). However the average scores of the two groups were not significantly different because the Qob was lower than the Qcv. it was found that the Qob was 2.799 while the Qcv(4;60;0.05) was 3.74. This means that there was no significant difference in the students’ writing achievement between the students with high achievement motivation and the students with low achievement motivation when their writings were assessed by using conventional assessment.
There are some reasons why peer assessment does well in writing class. Topping (2005, p. 640) asserts that “peer assessment can enhance self-assessment, and both can yield metacognitive gains.” He also suggests various other advantages to peer assessment. Peer Assessment can increase student responsibility and autonomy, also evaluative skill development; give insight into assessment procedures and expectations for high quality work; motivate students to work harder with the knowledge that they will be assessed by their peers; potential for providing increased levels of feedback without increased demands on tutors; encourages deep rather than surface learning; give a sense of ownership of the assessment process and improving motivation. Furthermore, peer assessment can be as part of learning so that mistakes are seen as opportunities rather than failures. Also, through peer assessment students can practise the transferable skills needed for life-long learning since it can be used as external evaluation to provide a model for internal self-assessment of a student's own learning (metacognition).
There are some parallelism between most of students with high achievement motivation characteristics and peer assessment design. Those characteristics are having orientation to success, being innovative, being responsive toward feedback, and being autonomous and responsible learners.
Peer assessment which is designed with the students actively involved in the assessment will work best with students who have high need of achievement. Having the students assessing their peer’s paper is not simple. First, the lecturer should make sure that the students understand what to assess, and the criteria used to assess. The students need to study the criteria and the indicators of good writing before they are ready to assess their peer paper. Second, the lecturer needs to provide the students with paragraph sample that allow the students to see its strength and weaknesses. The students are then asked to reviewed the paragraph sample and express about their opinion. To do these two steps, the students need spend some times to train themselves in assessing others paper. And this task absolutely requires students with high orientation of success, since they are very responsive toward any opportunities or any task to attain excellent achievement. Meanwhile, for students with low achievement motivation, who anticipate failure more than success, will find these steps somewhat dismotivating. Students with low achievement motivation will not take any risk to do failure. They are not confident to assess peer’s paper; they are afraid of making mistake in assessing their peer’s paper. In fact, they are afraid of the probability to be marked unfairly by their peer. Therefore, having their paper assessed by their peer is not what students with low achievement motivation will ever think.
High achievement motivation students are very innovative, this is the most determinant characteristics why they can work with peer assessment very well. With their innovation, they can be very independent and creative. In peer assessment, students are learning from each other. They evaluate each other work, i.e. giving comments and scoring their friends paper. These kind of activities will require students to be innovative. Student find a new way of learning to write as they need to learn about the guidelines to assess their peer’s paper. Students with low achievement motivation who are not as innovative as the high achievement motivation will find it difficult, and as they anticipate the failure more, they will unwillingly to do it since they are afraid of making failure. And even if they are asked to assess their peer, since they do insencerely, it will be effective to improve students’ writing achievement.
The characteristics of being responsive toward feedback is also strong poin why high achievement motivation students react very positively toward peer assessment, which may contribute to their writing achievement improvement. Students with high achievement motivation will do action immediately after they receive feedback. As the feedback is from their peer, the students become very competitive in a positive way. They want to show their best writing by taking the feedback from their peers seriously. This way the studenst are motivated to learn from their mistake and from others’ mistake.
Furthermore, students with high achievement motivation suit very well with the autonoumous learning provides by peer assessment. They always try to do their own innovation by themselves. They tend to do things that improve their success very independently, ie. asking leacturer on what they do not understand, seeking and reading book that may help their success, developing their own writing from draft until final product, listening to their friends’ feedback, assessing their friends’ paper with the help of the guidelines given by the lecturer. Meanwhile, students with low achievement motivation will hardly do those responsibilities independently.
The average score of students with high achievement motivation was higher than the students with low achievement motivation. Again, this result shows that students with high achievement motivation can work very well with peer assessment. To understand this, it is necessary to reveal what characteristics of high achievement motivation students have which may be activated by peer assessment.
Heckhausen & Heckhausen (2008) states that motivation is a product of person and situation. Therefore for students who has high achievement motivation, their aspire to a certain goal is influenced by person factors, i.e. their high need for achievement and by situation factors (external factors), including the anticipated outcomes. One of the example of external factor is classroom atmosphere. Peer assessment which enganges students in assessment, creates a more friendly situation, in which students promote their learning by helping and sharing to each other. The friendly situation influences the students’ enthusiasm in learning. It can be seen in the group which was treated by peer assessment. The students in that group talked freely to other friends. They often approached their friends and asked for confirmation on the feedback given to their paper. Students feel less pressure in expressing their opinion and thought towards their peer. Very often students were seen chatting very seriously about their paper. They did their own analysis on the review made by their friend. They also showed a great curiousity to know why their writing was criticized in a particular aspect. Therefore, the internal factor, the need of achievement, which works on the students with high achievement motivation is generated effectively by the situation factor, ie. the frindly classroom atmosphere created by peer assessment.
Moreover, Murray (1938. P.164) in Heckhausen & Heckhausen (2008) defined the need of achievement as the need to accomplish something difficult, to master, manipulate or organize physical objects, human beings or ideas and to do this as rapidly and as independently as possible. Therefore, autonomous learning generated by peer assessment is in accordance with the characteristic of students with high achievement motivation which tend to learn independently (without teacher as the only ionformation giver).
High achievement motivation students are usually characterized by their willingness to do things related to achievement and improvement. These students are very sensitive towards ways to achieve excellent achievement. With the self autonomous learning, students with high achievement motivation autonomously do things to improve their achievement. In the group with high achievement motivation students which was treated by peer assessment, students showed willingness to do things to improve their writing achievement. The students came to the lecturer and asked for things they didn’t understand. Also, they were found reading book about writing which helped them understand how to write a certain type of paragraph well. They compared some paragraph examples provided in the book by themselves to know their stregth and weaknesses. They also used the knowledge they know to assess other peer’s paper and explained it to them. Meanwhile, in the conventional group, the learning was restricted on the material provided by the teacher. The high achievement motivation students who were treated by conventional assessment can’t be as responsive as those who were treated by peer assessment.
Another characteristic is stated by Brunstein and Hoyer (2002) in Heckhausen & Heckhausen (2008). They believe that achievement motive was highly responsive to feedback on individual change in performance. They respond favorably to information about their work. They are not interested in comments about their personal characteristics, such as how cooperative or helpful they are. As soon as their performance decreased below the level expected on the basis of their previous performance, participants high in achievement motivation redoubled their efforts, and showed an immediate improvement in performance. This characteristic, which is very responsive toward feedback, is also parallel with the design of peer assessment which involves students in giving feedback. Although conventional assessment is also designed with teacher providing feedback, but for high achievement motivation students, which prefer autonomous learning, conventional assessment can’t be as effective as peer assessment to improve their achievement.
Another result showed that students with low achievement motivation who were treated by conventional assessment had a slightly better writing achievement than the students with low achievement motivation who were treated by using peer assessment and the students with high achievement motivation who were treated by using conventional assessment. Therefore, it is still important to discuss how students with low achievement motivation can work quite well with conventional assessment.
Unlike students with high achievement motivation, students with low achievement motivation tend to be depended on teacher assistant, since they are usually not as autonomous as students with high achievement motivation (Murray, 1938 in Heckhausen & Heckhausen, 2008). Therefore, conventional assessment which involves teacher more dominantly than the students, provides a perfect classroom atmosphere for students with low achievement motivation. Meanwhile, peer assessment which requires the students to be autonomous and more responsible toward their learning, creates an uncomfortable classroom atmosphere for students with low achievement motivation.
When conventional assessment was applied, students with low achievement motivation were not involve in assessment. The students depended on the teacher feedback only. Since the students with low achievement motivation were not responsive toward autonomous learning, having feedback from lecturer (without being involved in the assessment) worked very well on them. Students wrote certain paragraph and submitted their paper to be marked. They did not need to bother to review their peer’s paper.
Moreover, as the theory says, students with low achievement motivation are not as innovative as students with high achievement motivation. They prefer to choose very easy task in order to minimize risk of failure. Therefore, given less responsibility to them works perfectly on their learning achievement (Atkinson and Feather, 1966) . In contrast, when peer assessment was applied, students with low achievement motivation were required to be responsible to assess their peer paper. These students did the peer assessment but not as effectively as students with high achievement motivation. When they assessed their peer’s writing they did not try to give further example or solution on the problem appeared in the writing. They tended to avoid criticizing their peer’s writing. Most of them tended to write positive comments i.e. the idea is already well-arranged; the grammar is good, etc; despite many mistakes were found in the paper.
The above phenomenon is in line with some theory of achievement motivation. Kurt Lewin and David McClelland theorized that motivation can be oriented toward avoiding failure or toward achieving success. In relation to that, Atkinson (in Atkinson and Feather, 1966) theorized that people with a low need for achievement anticipate failure more than they do success, in contrast to people who seem to have a high need for achievement. This means that, students with low achievement motivation tend to do things to avoid failure. This explains why the low achievement students like to be depended on teacher assessment, because they do not want to make mistake in assessing their peer or to be assessed by their friends.

5 Conclusion, Implication and Suggestion
5.2 Conclusion
Based on the result of the data analysis, some conclusions can be stated as follows: (1) There is a significant effect of peer assessment on the students’ writing achievement; (2) there is a significant interactional effect between the application of peer assessment and students’ achievement motivation on the students’ writing achievement; (3) there is a significant difference between the students’ writing achievement of the students with high achievement motivation when their writings are assessed by using peer assessment and conventional assessment; (4) there is no significant difference between the students’ writing achievement of the students with low achievement motivation when their writings are assessed by using peer assessment and conventional assessment; (5) there is a significant difference between the students’ writing achievement of the students with high achievement motivation and the students with low achievement motivation when their writings are assessed by using peer assessment; (6) there is no significant difference between the students’ writing achievement of the students with high achievement motivation and the students with low achievement motivation when their writings are assessed by conventional assessment
5.2 Implication
The result of this research shows that students who are treated by using peer assessment have a significantly better achievement that the students who are treated by using conventional assessment. This means that some revisions on the writing syllabus need to be done, especially in terms of the type of learning assessment. Peer assessment needs to be considered as learning assessment in writing courses instead of conventional assessment.
Another result of this research is that the average score of the students with low achievement motivation is far below the average score of students with high achievement motivation when they are treated by using peer assessment. The implication for this finding is some efforts need to be done to generate students achievement motivation, since students with high achievement motivation can improve their achievement more greatly than students with low achievement motivation.
5.3 Suggestions
Writing lecturers are suggested to apply peer assessment in their classes to improve the students’ writing achievement Also, writing lecturers are suggested to consider particular condition in implementing peer assessment by having class conference and final revision phase at the end of their assessment.
For other researchers who are interested in improving writing achievement, it is suggested to investigate other approach than peer assessment approach and other achievement contributing factor than achievement motivation.





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