Studying From Home During COVID-19: A Many-Facets Rasch Model (MFRM) Analysis

Abstract

This study proposes to measure students’ grammar distancing while studying from home and explore their strengths and weaknesses with a grammar test. It is a descriptive quantitative study, the participants being 55 students in their fifth (5th) semester of the 2020/2021 academic year at a university in Tanjungpinang, Riau Islands, Indonesia. Data is retrieved from the grammar test and analyzed using the Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (MFRM) Model Software Version 3.83.3. This research highlights that studying from home, or distance learning, impacts grammar distancing as seen in the students’ varying achievements in grammar, the breakdown being 10.91% lower achievement, 5.45% low achievement, 27.27% high achievement, 43.64% higher achievement and 12.73% highest achievement. The results also indicate their strength in sentence translations and jumbled words; 83.64% of the students displayed good understanding. Their weakness lies in rearranging compound-complex sentences with phrasal verbs. The students’ different achievements in grammar demonstrate the need for improvement for future use and better student performance.