Learning writing using Ms Word in the multimedia laboratory at Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University : a survey on students' attitudes

This study is aimed at finding out the attitude of the English Department students' toward the learning of writing using Ms.Word in the multimedia laboratory at Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University (henceforth it is abbreviated to WMSCU), and the reasons of their attitude. This study is based on the theory of attitude, which comprises of three components-affective, behavioral, and cognitive components. A descriptive qualitative survey was applied as the research design of this study. Questionnaire, in-depth interview, and the researcher were the instruments of this study. Sixty-one students at the English Department of WMSCU, who took writing classes using Ms. Word in the multimedia laboratory, were chosen as the subjects using convenience sampling. In analyzing the data, options "strongly Agree" and "Agree" were considered as positive response, while options "Disagree" and "Strongly Disagree" were considered as negative response. The analysis of questionnaire discovered that the subjects held positive attitude to ward learning writing using Ms. Word in the multimedia laboratory at WMSCU. Ms. Word benefited their writing with its features was one of the reasons of having positive attitude. Spelling and grammar checker and thesaurus dictionary was helpful in minimizing the grammar and spelling errors. Meanwhile, page formatting, paragraph formatting, and editing text facilitated the arrangement of paragraph and paragraph neatness. Word count benefited the students when they had to write composition that contained certain number of words. Track changes and insert and view comments improved the student's writing with the comments from the lecturer. Another reason was the writing class using Ms. Word was enjoyable since the students had their own PCs (they could write according to their time and pace) and the lecturer used different delivery techniques. Since the students held positive attitude toward that writing class using Ms. Word, they claimed that they had positive behavior, such as: coming to the class on time, submitting the writing assignments on time, trying not to be absent, and looking for information about writing class during their absence