How Do Students Behave Within the Final Exams

IJIET, e-ISSN 2548-8430, p-ISSN 2548-8422, Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 International Journal of Indonesian Education and Teaching http://e-journal.usd.ac.id/index.php/IJIET Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia HOW DO STUDENTS BEHAVE WITHIN THE FINAL EXAMS? Halili Yogyakarta State University correspondence: halili@uny.ac.id DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/ijiet.2020.040208 received 25 August 2019; accepted 3 July 2020 Abstract This study explores the attitudes and behaviors of Yogyakarta State University students within final exams as well as to analyze the factors that influence their attitudes and behaviors in taking those exams. This qualitative research employs a descriptive-analytic approach. The data are collected by observation on 740 students participating in the final exams and interviews with 20 people of them. Data gathering techniques used are observation, in-depth interview, and documentation. The result shows that the attitudes and behaviors of observed students within attending the final exams are categorized into the level of maximum-positive (65.7%), while 24.9% of them perform attitudes and behaviors that can be classified into the category of minimum-positive. On the other hand, the minority of them (8.4%) can be grouped into minimum-negative, and the rest (1%) is in the category of maximum-negative. Many factors are influencing the attitudes and behaviors of the maximum and minimum positive, namely: a) stances of preparation, b) spirituality and strong character, c) mental stand of ‘nothing to lose'. Meanwhile, the factors influencing attitudes and behaviors of minimum and maximum negative categories are a) unpreparedness for exams, b) a sense of pseudo-collectivism and prejudice, and c) circumstance of opportunities. Keywords: Attitude, character, student, final exam Introduction The problem of characters should be identified before the character education development and delivery. That is why the study on how students express their attitudes and behaviors should be significantly conducted (Tiwari and Panwar, 2014). Nowadays the character education is popularly scrutinized as part of systemic solutions to respond to the phenomenon of ruinous characters amidst national life (Jalaludin, 2012; Bahri, 2015; Sultoni, 2016; Nurhisam, 2017). In that sense, the high number of corruption cases in various government levels occurs. Besides, the mafia, as well as transactional lawsuits in many law enforcement procedures rise. Meanwhile, the use of violence amidst the horizontal relation of society spreads. In electoral events, money politics strengthens while cartels politics which eventually build oligarchy within polity banalize. Moral hazards in many economic activities rise. Even an acute pragmatism among the education 251 IJIET Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 atmosphere enhances. Those all reflect the decay of collective character in one fell swoop. These phenomena are sublimated by various anomalies. At das solen, the law enforcement officers should enforce the law based on justice, but at das sein, they ruin the law and consequently they are being prisoned. In the idea, tax officials should collect the tax to increase that the national income increases, on the other hand, they gnaw the national income by manipulating the tax bills. Ideally the officers of education should show a sort of well-educated behavior, meanwhile they factually often corrupt the educational development fund, and the like. These phenomena are the so-called ‘the circus stage' by the ex-National Education Minister, Muhammad Nuh (Detiknews, 2010). In the Indonesian educational context, character education is seriously designed as one of the break-through ways and initiatives to overcome the morality problem that recently becomes a serious threat against the integrity of the nation. Awareness of its urgency and processes to set up the framework has been started from ten years ago. In an academic note coming from discussion about "Menggugat Lunturnya Nilai-Nilai Nasionalisme dan Karakter Bangsa" on almost decade ago, December 2010, Yogyakarta State University idealized character education as a response for various morality problems and nation character building amidst moral gaps in the national life within fields of economics, social, politics, law, and education. In that sense, the implementation of character education is too urgent to fail. The success of character education, however, is not just influenced by the material aspect of character education. It also relies on its congruence and suitability with the context of the community or the entity in which the text will be implemented. For instance, the text of civic education in the schools is highly influenced by the environment built within. So is in the universities. On one hand, the text of character education becomes the very dependent variable in influencing the character of the young generation as the successor of the national human resources and iron stock of changes, especially university students. On the other one, its context will be more independent. Moreover, the character education context reflects the most influential thing in succeeding in character education. Those contexts can be seen from various characters of students, especially in personal, social, and academic behavior. The character meant here is the personality (Koesoema, 2007: 80). Personality is considered "the character or style or a particular character from a person derived from formations received from the environment, for example, the family environment from childhood and also the person's innate characteristic from birth." Students' characteristic in the academic point of view can be observed from; their attitude and behavior in participating the lectures, extracurricular activities, and also other co-curricular activities; how their academic relation among other students and their relation to the lectures are, and; how their attitudes and behaviors in joining the exam such as mid-semester examination and final examination, and thesis examination are. This research focuses on the study of the students' attitudes and behaviors in joining the final exam. 252 IJIET Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 This study is urgent to conduct in order to understand, at least, two main issues; first, the quality and intensity of students' preparation in facing the exams that influencing the attitudes and behaviors in joining them; and second, the appropriate actions to do and conditioning to perform that is carried out by the faculty management during the exams. Method This study is qualitative research using a descriptive-analytical approach. Based on the classification arranged by Arikunto (2002: 107), The resources of data used in this study are paper and person. Person means per individual as the subject, while the paper is the source of secondary data in the form of documents such as regulations and documents about a technical rundown of the final exam within the research areas. The subjects of this research are the students. The subjects are derived from any students of any major that pointed purposively (as the observation object) and snowball (as the informant of interview). Data collection techniques in this research are described as follows. 1) Observation: by observing directly in final exam rooms from various majors. The observation was carried out in real-time when the exam is ongoing. The observation was conducted in 26 classes from different subject from semester II, IV, VIII and even X from 10 different majors (Civics Education, Management, Economics Education, Geography Education, Historical Education, Accounting, Office Administration Education, and Nation Administration. 2) In-depth interview: conducted to significant informants that represent two categories of attitudes and behaviors (positive and negative). The interview is conducted thoroughly to 20 students from 10 different majors. 3) Documentation: the document scrutinized in this research is the exam regulation and students' examination card. The instruments used in this study are an interview guide and observation guide, and also check-list and recording notes. The checklist and recording notes are used to track and record the data. According to Moleong (2002: 178), to check the validity of data in qualitative research, the researcher employed the triangulation of method and sources. The triangulation of the method is carried out by comparing the credibility level of information obtained from one technique or others, for example, interview blended with observation, and the like. The triangulation of the source is carried out by comparing the data obtained from a particular document or other documents. The analysis technique used is the inductive approach. Following Sugiyono (2015: 112), data analysis processes in the research include data reduction, data display, conclusion, and verification. Findings and Discussion Findings Subjects of the research are students of Yogyakarta State University, represented by 740 students of several departments participating in the final exams. They are coming from 10 different majors among two faculties of social and human sciences, namely the Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of 253 IJIET Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 Economics which is currently divided into two faculties, the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Economics. The subjects of this research consist of different classes and grades of semester II (two), semester IV (four), and semester VI (six), and a class of them combines students from different semesters namely VIII (eight), X (ten), and XII (twelve). The students becoming subjects of the research are taking various subjects, namely Pedagogical, Information and Technology, Religion, Philosophy of Pancasila, Lesson Planning, Civics Education, Pancasila, Commercial Law, Economic Cooperation Practice, Global Perspective, Management of Office Administration Laboratory, Historiography, History of Islam, Soil Geography, The Base of Politics, Descriptive Statistic, Oceanography, Qualitative Research Method, Indonesian Economic, Taxation, Social Statistics, and System Information of Management. After accomplishing the process of data analysis, the result of the research can be described as follows. 1. Students' attitude and behavior in participating in the final exam Students' attitude and behavior can be classified in four relative categories, namely: a) maximum-positive, the circumstance is when the students participate in the exam with a look of well-preparedness and answer the written questions calmly, b) minimum-positive, the category includes the students who seem not enough ready and do the exam with a look of unwell-preparation, c) minimum negative, it is when the students try to cheat in answering questions in the exam, and d) maximum negative, the category is for a circumstance when the students who participate in the exam are obviously cheating in the exam. Using those categories, the research result of 740 students participating in the final-exam in the even semester of 2017/2018 shows that: 486 students or 65.7 % were included in the maximum positive category. Meanwhile, 184 students or 24.9 % were categorized into the minimum positive category. 62 students of 8.4 % were included in the minimum negative category, and there are only 8 students or 1% were categorized into negative maximum criteria of attitude and behavior. 2. Factors influencing the students' attitude and behavior in participating in the final exam The result of the research shows that some factors are influencing the students' attitude and behavior within participating in the exams. Some of the factors are as follows. a. Spirituality and strong character. The students with strong character and spirituality could be scrutinized by some doctrines they believe in. They have a strong belief that 1) every dishonesty is not endowed by The Almighty God, 2) not good way that is reached in a certain activity will lead to a not good result too, 3) a students' competency is not described by a good score of Final exam, 4) resignation is the best way (to be resigned to the exam result). Be resigned to something is the best way even in the 254 IJIET Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 worst situation, such as when doing the exam. Those characters avoid the students from cheating others' answers. b. Stance of preparation. Good preparation means an optimal study before facing the exam can make the students feel confident in doing the exam. If they are ready they will not have any reason to cheat or anxious to get answers from others. c. The feeling of nothing to lose. Feeling resigned to what the exam score will be, can also lead to the attitude of ignorance in facing the exam. The feeling of nothing to lose is in the form of ignorance and submission of the result of the final term test they will obtain. Besides, some factors that influenced the minimum negative of attitude and behavior are: a. Unprepared for the exam. The preparation that is not optimal because of the lack of studying leads the students to have an intention to do cheating. b. A sense of pseudo-collectivism and prejudice. The students trying to cheat assume that cheating is not just done by herself /himself. They believe that other students also do cheating so that they think that they will leave behind if they do not do cheating also. Besides, some of them have a prejudice that the lecturer will not have sufficient time to correct their works, either individual tasks or group tasks, moreover, the incidental tasks. So that they do one way or another to get a very good score in the Final exam, not to mention, using the deceitful ways. c. Possibility of opportunities to do cheating. Based on the students' argument, those kinds of opportunities are, as examples, the exam supervisor is not precise in supervising the exam (they are chatting with another supervisor outside the classroom, reading a newspaper, or typing using laptop), the space among chairs is too narrow, if someone sits next to the smart and ‘kind' student, or sit next to other similar students who like to cheating. Discussion From the result of the research discussed previously, some important points that can be implied. ‘Cheating? No Way’: Strengthening of Spirituality and Character The cheating phenomenon is a negative note for the character builder and the nation's future. This socio-psychologically phenomenon expresses a serious problem for the young generation, namely instant culture. This reminds of the note from Mochtar Lubis (1992) and Koentjaraningrat (2004) about Indonesian people and their innate characteristics, for example, people want to be quick in reaching their goal without the effort to follow the right path. Some academic 1. 255 IJIET Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 cheating actions carried out by students include cheating on exams, copying friends 'answers, copying from the internet without mentioning the source, plagiarism, presenting attendance signatures, preparing cheat sheets for examinations, copying friends' assignments, asking friends during exams or quiz, glance at or see friends' answers, tell answers to friends during exams or quizzes, and there are many other things that can be included in academic cheating criteria (Sagoro, 2003). However, for those who have character and strong spirituality, they tend to avoid cheating in the exam. The biggest motif in avoiding cheating is transcendental determination. God is the biggest determining factor. The sanction of dishonesty is a sin and there will be no blessing from God if someone does the deceitful things. These motivate the students, to be honest in following the exam. From the more secular perspective, students with strong character believe that the attitude in doing the exam reflects who they are. Thus, the students that usually do cheating represent non-creative character and unwilling to hard work. They are conscious that this behavior will influence the future of their real life. In this perspective, to fight against the dishonesty in an exam is one of the most significant ways in character building. To do that, the main sublime method to overcome the dishonesty in an exam is to strengthen the character and spirituality of the students. These two things can minimalize the cheating behavior and cheating itself. If there are more students who anti-cheating behavior, the fewer students will do cheating. Utilizing that, cheating behavior will be decreased. According to Ratna Megawangi (2004), character education requires the involvement of all aspects of the human dimension, so that it is incompatible with the education system that emphasizes memorization and orientation to pass the exam ‘Position Determines Achievement’: Improvement of room management and distribution of exam participants One popular slogan among students about the exam is "position determines achievement". Denotatively, the phrase means if someone gets the most proper sitting position in the exam, so his/her achievement (read Gross Point Average) will be good or high in a score. That kind of statement needs to be prudently observed because the implicit meaning is negative. The proper position means a strategic location which is quite far from the exam supervisor's monitoring or located next to or among the smart students that academically can be reliable in doing the exam. Thus, it is usual if the favorite position that enables them to do the negative behavior and attitude in doing the exam is mostly at the back rows that far from the supervisor's monitoring. Besides, the side row that is not in a line with the supervisor is also the favorite. Besides, the middle of the room also becomes the proper position that makes them feel "comfortable" and "save" in the middle of the "crowd". Based on those phenomena, it can be concluded the best way that can be organized to fight against the dishonest behavior in the exam is by reforming the exam management especially in arranging the sitting procedure. The maximum 2. 256 IJIET Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 quantity of students in each room is the prominent thing that must be paid intensive attention. The most ideal quantity for the rooms in the area of researches is 20 students per room. On the contrary, based on the factual observation conducted in this research, each exam room was used for about 40 students. This made the space between the chairs is too narrow so that enable the students to do negative behavior in doing the exam. Also, the numbering of the exam desk that is not randomly ordered enables the students to get a certain position. For example, a student with student number 14, they might just move to number 14, 13, 15, 13, or 16. Even when there is no addition of the students from different year generation or different semesters, so the initial student will sit in number 14. This un-randomly numbering might lead to a certain system with other students that are not moving too. This is so potential to give them a chance to do cheating. A student knows exactly who is ‘kind' in sharing the answer among his/her friends Usually, after the third day of the exam, the number on the desk would already be torn apart or disappear because it was not stuck perfectly on the glossy desk. This condition enables the students to "hunt" the most proper sitting desk in line with the jargon "position determines achievement". Moreover, on the last days of the exam, almost all of the numbers have already disappeared from the desk, thus, the competition to get the best position is higher because the students did not prepare for the exam well. The challenge facing teachers and teacher educators is whether to allow the moral formation to occur opportunistically, letting students learn what they will, for good or bad, come what may; or whether to foster an intentional, transparent and deliberative approach that takes seriously the moral dimensions of teaching and schooling (Narvaez, 2008). A Wise Supervisor: The Revitalization of Supervision Technique and Function One of the prominent factors that determine the chance to have cheating attitude and behavior during the exam is the effectiveness of supervising carried out by the exam supervisor. That effectiveness determines by the supervisor's profile, the strictness in supervising and the obedient in following the exam rule. Opportunities exist when the weakness of a system such as lack of control and the application of strict sanctions. Students will commit cheating when they are depressed and in such circumstances the supervisor of the test fails to carry out their duties of supervising carefully and the examiners who do not take decisive action to students who commit fraud can facilitate them to commit cheating (Murdiansyah, 2017). There are various profiles of supervisors. Some of them are fierce, however, some others are quite easy-going and tend to be wise in a negative way. It means that they are letting any kind of situation during the exam, including the negative behavior and attitude in the exam. The strictness or not of the supervising process also becomes the main factor for students participating in the exam to have a chance in doing negative attitudes and behaviors. According to the observation during the exam and interview with the participant, mostly the supervisor which also lecturing the subject examined 257 IJIET Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2020 tend to pay more attention and be very strict in the exam process. The students also feel reluctant to do the cheating behavior, for example when the exam is supervised by the lecturer who teaches the subject being examined, the supervisor will have the whole right about the score given to students. It is different if the exam is supervised by the Final exam committee or the exam administrator, the reluctantly in cheating will be very decreased because they are not the ones who have the authority to determine the last score about the subject being examined. The fidelity to the exam rules organized by the exam committee is a significant thing to decrease the negative attitude and behavior during the exam. As an example, in an exam regulation stated that the supervisor should direct the students to collect their bags and other belongings in front of the classroom, except the stationaries and exam paper, however, this regulation is not carried out purposefully. Based on the observation, the students could able to reach their notebooks or textbooks. Conclusion According to the previous discussion, it could be concluded as follows. First, the result shows that the attitude and behavior of observed students of two faculties of Yogyakarta State University within attending the final test are mostly categorized into the level of maximum-positive (66.7%), while 24.9% of them had attitudes and behaviors that can be categorized into category of minimumpositive. On the other hand, a minority of them (8.4%) can be categorized into minimum-negative, and the rest (1%) is in the category of maximum-negative. Second, many factors are influencing the attitude and behavior of the maximum and minimum positive, namely: a) preparation, b) spirituality and strong character, c) feeling of nothing to lose, in the form of ignorance and submission of the result of final term test they will obtain. Besides, factors that influence attitudes and behaviors of minimum and maximum negative categories are a) unprepared for exams, b) a sense of pseudo-collectivism and prejudice, c) possibility of opportunities. These results imply that: first, the general attitude and behavior of students as the subject of this study indicates that the phenomenon is quite positive. 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