Masruroh, Dzunie. 2019. Language Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students at Mulawarman University. S1 Thesis. English Department, Teacher and Training and Education Faculty. Mulawarman University Samarinda. Advisors: (1) Dyah Sunggingwati, Ph.D and (2) Dr. Desy Rusmawaty, MA.
The purposes of this study were: (1) To find out the students’ language learning strategies used by the third, fifth and seventh semester students of English Department at Mulawarman University by using SILL scores guideline. (2) To find out if there is a significant difference across gender and language learning strategies usage based on students’ grade of the English department at Mulawarman University.
This study used a simple descriptive research design, particularly the survey study, and quantitative as the approach. The population of the third, fifth and seventh semesters were 373 students with 11 classes. Unfortunately, the seventh semester students must followed the School – based study program and many of them did not have any courses to take in this semester, so the researcher obly obtained 295 students as the total subjects of the study. Moreover, the questionnaire and demographic data were used to collect data from the students. The questionnaire was adopted from Oxford (1990) version 7.0 consist of 50 items. After the data had been collected, the data were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics, two independent sample t – test and two way Anova.
The finding of this study revealed that the students from the third, fifth and seventh semester used language learning strategies with medium to high frequency. They preferred to use metacognitive and compensation strategies the most, whereas they showed the least use of memory and affective strategies. Furthermore, the finding of the descriptive statistics showed that the students’ LLS used by the third, fifth and seventh semester were varied according to their gender differences both in the individual strategies categories and the overall LLS, where at some point females dominated males and on the contrary males dominated females. But surprisingly, the results of the inferential statistics revealed that the third and fifth semester students did not show significant differences among their strategies usage and their gender differences, while the seventh semester students, only showed a significant gender difference in the use of social strategies (p=0.000). With the t signs were all positive indicating female students had higher average scores than males and female students usually used social strategies significantly over other types. In addition, this study also revealed that there were no significant difference between the use of language learning strategies and duration of study in learning English by male and female students. So, this study indicates that language learning strategies have not always been influenced by gender and grade but it tends to their individual needs.
Keywords: Students’ language learning strategies, English language learning