The Effect Of Gender and Academic Achievement on Apology Response Strategies Used by Indonesian EFL Fresh Graduates
Sri Waluyo (a*), Sukris Sutiyatno (b)
a) Study Program of Informatics Engineering, STMIK Bina Patria, Jalan Raden Saleh No. 2, Magelang 56116, Indonesia
*sriwaluyo[at]stmikbinapatria.ac.id
b) Study Program of Information Systems, STMIK Bina Patria, Jalan Raden Saleh No. 2, Magelang 56116, Indonesia
Abstract
This study attempts to investigate whether gender and academic achievement were significant to predict apology response strategies (positive or negative) used by EFL graduates. Thirty fresh graduates, 18 females and 12 males, from an English Department of a state university in Indonesia were selected as the participants. Their academic achievement was simply derived from their GPAs which then were grouped into three levels of low, middle, high categories. The instrument used was Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which was used as scenario. The participants were asked to answer the DCT orally through interview. The DCT results were then classified into two categories of positive FTAs (Acceptance and Acknowledgement) and negative FTAs (Evasion and Rejection). The three variables were then analysed by using multiple linear regression technique with SPSS. The results were quite elaborate. Most of the females participants tend to use positive FTAs when responding to apologies; however, the number of number of males who apply the positive FTAs was also significant. Similarly for the academic achievement, students with high GPA do not necessarily employ positive FTAs and vice versa. To conclude, neither gender nor academic achievement can be considered as the significant predicators of apology response strategies used by the participants.
Keywords: Gender, Grade Average Point, Apology Response Strategies, EFL, Fresh Graduates
Topic: Education