Students' Experiences on Take-Home Final Exam

Take-home final exam introduced as tool to assess students’ ability in a content of real situation. It plays important role in introducing changes that would promote and foster the cognitive process and thinking skills for the course learning outcomes. This research dealt to find out the understanding of students’ experiences on take-home final exam given in last semester. The research employed a qualitative research design, as this study is concerned in developing explanation of social phenomena. To find out the information, the researcher conducted the data by in-depth interview done with five students of seventh semester of Department of English Language Education in Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh. The data was analyzed by using a data analysis tool, called QDA Miner Lite. The sampling technique used a purposive sampling. The findings indicated that students have various expression of experiences on take-home final exam which divided into two themes; positive and negative experiences. These themes revealed their experiences that can be described by their learning processes and their self-regulated learning in every take-home final exams’ subject. As the alternative assessment, take-home final exam needs some strategies to build an effective learning experience and to evolve students’ understanding in exploring a wider range of knowledge. Thus, students should be aware of their instruction requirement which will be affected to the way they learn.