THE EFFECT OF APPLYING CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE ON THE STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

This research aims at investigating the effect of applying clustering technique on the students’ achievement in writing descriptive text. It was conducted by using experimental research design. The Population of this research was the tenth (X) grade students of SMAN 3 Pematangsiantar. There were two classes as the sample. The first class (X-6) as the experimental group consists of 20 students, while the second class (X-7) as the control group consists of 20 students. The experimental group was taught by using clustering technique while control group was taught by using lecturing method. The instrument for collecting the data was writing test. The data were analyzed by using t-test formula. The analysis showed that the score of students in the experimental group by using clustering technique was higher than the score of students in the control group by using lecturing method, at the level of significance (α) 0.05 with the degree of freedom (df) 38, the t-observed was 3,003 while the t-table was 2,024. Therefore, the applying of clustering technique significantly affects the students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.