THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ WRITING ATTITUDE AND COMPOSITION PERFORMANCE Supiah1

The main objectives of this study were to find out (1) whether student’ writing attitude correlates with their composition performance (2) whether the factors of writing attitude correlate with their composition performance, (3) whether students’ writing attitude give contribution to the value of their writing composition and (4) whether the factors of students’ writing attitude give contribution to their composition performance. The population and sample of the study covered one hundred and fifty-six students of six semester of English Study Program. The data were obtained giving a questionnaire and composition writing test. The data collected from were analyzed by using regression analysis and hypothesizes were tested by using F-test. The results show that there were significant correlation between the student writing attitude (total) and their composition performance. (R =.242 and R2=.058). Out of the five factors of student writing attitude, there were three factors which had a significant statistical relationship with the student composition performance. They were writing perception (R= .220 and R2= .049), positive writing activities (R= .176 and R2=.031), and reading preferences (R= .193 and R2= .037). The first factor, writing perception give much contribution to the sub scales of composition performance. Furthermore, the unhypothesized findings showed that gender and writing attitude were correlated significantly in composition performance since the mean value was balanced between male and female students. However, based on the mean value, male group has better writing attitude while female group has better composition performance. Finally, the results of this research are hopefully beneficial for the English teaching and learning processes, such as writing skills. Student’s writing attitude should be considered since students may have different attitude toward writing that can affect their performance in writing.

due to the fact that writing is a complex, laborious, and demanding among other skills (Valette 1997). Next, Byrne (1993) mentioned that writ5ing is not only about symbols production but also the arrangement of them in accordance with the rules of world farming, we write not only a sentence or some disconnected untterances. However, the sentence must be arranged based on some conventions, such as grammer, word order etc.in order to convey meaningful messages to other people who read the sentences (olshstain, 2003) In addition, compared to reading, writing is neglected more. Hedge (1992:6) and White & Arndt (1993:1) also indicate that writing has tended to a much more neglected part of the language program both in first and foreign or second language teaching for some years.
Moreover, many EFL teachers tend to focus more to speaking competence. However,communication competences must be in written and spoken form (Byrnes,1983). Jing(1998) provides a fact in china students are reluctant to write. Some reason of it are: the teacher have determinateed the process of students' writing, the focus is on form instead of meaning, writing is learnt in isolation from the other. Skills of English, and the last is the less social interaction.
Furthermore, Indonesian students are less exposed to English in their daily life. It is due to the position of English as first foreigner language. It is different from the use of English as a second language such as in Malaysia and Singapore.it is harder to practice English in limited situations. It might also affect their writing performance, because they seldom write in English langage.
They probably have some ideas in their themes or topics but they hardly organize their ideas into a comprehensive writing. In addition Liu (2000), this situation probably also happens to Indonesian students since English is not their native and second language. They may also have low self concept how to be a good learner. Then, it can affect their attitude towards English teaching and learning. The results of a study done by Fitriani (2007) shows that university student in Palembang in her study have low self-concept which also influences their academic achievement (reading achievement). Thus, these students need to develop their positive self-concept and attitude to gain better in any aspects of learning English including writing performance. In line with that, the study conducted by Suri (2007) shows that the fifth and seventh semester students of English study program have positive attitude toward reading and writing.
It is very crucial to have positive writing attitude since they are asked to write summaries and papers in English. Besides, they have to write a proposal in English as one of thesis their graduation accomplishments as prospective English teachers. They are required to have good writing performance as well. Moreover, they are prospective English teachers who should have good writing performance as well.
Based on some researches in Lee (2002), in ESL or EFL context, students .mostly focus on word and sentence more than the whole discourse or textual coherence. In addition, Leki(1996) and Silva (1992) as cited in lee (2002). stated that they feel secured when they focus on grammar since it is they only tool they use in writing essays. Moreover, fear influences many students' attitude and approach toward academic writing. They often have unrealistic expectationsand they are afraid they don't meet other expectations (Matos,1996).
English teachers seem to need students' writing at glance, check the grammatical error, and give scores, many researchs suggest to evaluate their writing as a whole components such as content, organization, language, and vocabulary. Moreover, indirect and multiple choice as forms of evaluation are not the best choices to assess students writing (Albertini,1996) Based on the explanation above university students' attitude may have positive or negative influence on their writing achievement especially English composition performance in which their English composition would be graded by raters by using ESL Composition PROFILE. Thus, the writer is interested in finding out the students' writing attitude and their English composition performance of theuniversity students of English Teaching Study program in Palembang in academic year 2006/2007.

The Problems of the Study
The problems of this study are (1) Does the students' writing attitude correlate with their English composition performance? (2) Do the factors of writing attitude correlate with their composition performance? (3) Does the students' writing attitude give contribution to the value of their composition performance? (4) Do somefactors of writing attitude and other intervening variable (gender) give contribution to the value of their composition performance?

The Objectives of the Study
The aims of this study are (1) to find out whether students' writing attitude correlates with their writing composition performance, (2) to find out whether the factors of writing attitude correlate with their writing composition performance,(3) to find out whether students' writing attitude give contribution to the value of their writing composition performance and (4) to find out whether some factors of students' writing attitude and intervening variable (gender) give contribution to their composition performance.

The Significance of the Study
The result of this study was intended to have at least two kinds of significance. First, the writer can enlarge her knowledge about students' writing attitude in accordance with their writing performance. Second, the result of the study may hopefully give evidence of tertiary level students' composition and their composition performance. Then, it can show the influence of writing attitude on their composition performance of tertiary level students. It can later give information on how the students' attitude especially in writing and their composition performance in those institutions. The result of the study hopefully could give ideas for the teachers whether to keep or to improve the students writing attitude and writing experience inside or outside the class

LITERATURE REVIEW The Importance of Attitudes
Each person may have different ways to react on something. It can be a positive or a negative reaction. Asher and Simpson (1994) states that the tendency to respond something or attitude towards something can be negative or positive depends on how individual evaluates such as feeling, beliefs, and behaviour towards certain persons, ideas, objects or groups. From the field of social psychology, McLeod (1991) cited in Musgrove (1998:2) defines the term attitude as psychological condition acquired by someone over times through experiences which affect someone's behaviour. Furthermore, still in Musgrove(1998), Myers stated that attitude covers evaluation reaction toward someone or something, self-beliefs, feelings, and expected behaviour, someone may has capability in doing something but it doesn't mean he has the desire to do it correctly, we can assume that competence reveals ability to do something, while desire is needed to perform well.
Attitudes take many times and various exposures in life for such a long time (Bootzin, 1983) cited in (Clark, 2004). In addition, Hornby (2015) defines attitude as the way someone thinks and feels about something. It is the way someone will behave toward thinks occur during his life. Moreover According to Albarracin, Sunderrajan, Lohmann, and Chan (2018) figure out that attitudes are often adopted and adapted from others, make them similar to other group members, and which are influence by social pressure and persuasion, in the other words, that is the effort to make up other persons attitude.

The Components of Attitudes
The components of attitude refer to effective, behavioural and cognitive aspects (Spooncer, 1992) call them feelings (affective), beliefs (cognitive),and actual action (behavioural). Similarly, according to Baron and Byrne (1984) as cite in Underwood (2007), attitude components such as feelings, beliefs and behaviour may affect specifically someone's idea, object or group.
In addition, Booth in Musgrove (1998) proposes the pairs of positive and negative attitude which may affect learning. The positive ones refer to honesty, courage, persistence, consideration, humility, hope. On the other hand, dishonesty, fear, procrastination, narrow mindedness, arrogance, and despair belong to the negative ones. Matos (1996) also adds that the attitude of many students may the influenced by fear, the feeling of making mistakes for example in academic writing. They are afraid if their writing does not meet others' expectation. It may be said that hopefully the more positive the students' writing attitude, the better writer they will be in the future. She also believes that encouraging a positive attitude toward writing will generate enthusiasm and self-esteem. Some suggestions to change students' negative beliefs by Matos are: first, establishing a comfortable learning atmosphere, second, acknowledging students' effort. Third developing an interest. Next checking their understanding in the assignment by discussing the difficulties they find in writing after that, appreciating their ideas or thoughts. Let them know that they are important. Then, encouraging them to invite any time as the form of expression. Next, giving feedback during the writing process is also important. The critics form peers, teacher or lecturer are very advantageous. Addressing their errors in grammar is needed but the more crucial are the idea and organization of the writing. Finally, being enthusiastic and motivated when teacher or lecturer teaches may also influence the students' attitude toward writing.

The Importance of Writing
Writing ability is the ability to express idea. opinions, feelings and thoughts by communications with other people meaningfully. According to Hairston (1986), writing skill is important to communicate, to find ideas, to clarify concepts, to process and acquire information, to save problems, to evaluate writing assignment, to make learners able write in the system of target language, and to appreciate and organize good writing In addition, Celce-Murcia (1991:233) defines that writing skills are the ability to express someone's ideas in written form accurately and coherently. However, sometimes it is not easy to find ideas and convey them into a piece of writing since writing is defined as the implementation number of strategies, activities, and setting in a peace of good writing. The sentences have to be connected by cohesive devices, such as, sentence connectors (Millward,2000) and the writers should make the explicit signal of the relations between parts of the writing for the readers' understanding

Composition
A composition is one of writing behaviors. A composition written under timed test conditions provides only a sample of a student's writing ability, a sample produced under conditions which more likely do not resemble the condition under which most writing occurs Jacobs et al., (1981:78). They also add that a composition test focuses on the product rather than the process of composing and measures performance in only one mode. In other words, a composition test in this case measures students' writing performance at a particular moment. Furthermore, this test is intended to assess writing ability, not knowledge of discrete points of the language. The reason of this test is to assess the student's skill in composing their ideas and thought into a coherent discourse effectively.
Teachers of English at high school and university level are faced hardly the reliability and validity of students' writing abilities. Sice they must be ready for proficiency test grand exams. The fact is that the academic writing ability cannot be achieved without good academic proficiency.

METHOD AND PROCEDURES
In this study, the data were obtained from the students and computed by using statistical analyses to find out whether students' writing attitude is statistically related to the student composition performance and to test whether the factors of writing attitude significantly increase the significant value of students' composition performance. The information on the operational definitions of the research variables, the population and sample, the instruments is used, and the procedures for collecting and analyzing the data are presented as follows.

Method of Research
In this study the, the writer used descriptive method because she wanted to describe the data collected and analyzed as they are. Best (1993:16) states that descriptive method describes and interprets what it is. It concerned with conditions that are held, processes which occur, impacts that are relevant, or issue that are developing. It is primarily concerned with the present, though it often considers past event and influences related to the lately conditions.

Operational Definitions
Attitude in this study refers to one's tendency or respond to an object or situation on the basis of her/his belief and feeling. In this study, students' writing attitude of semester six of English Study Program PGRI University and Muhammadiyah University were collected by a set of questionnaires. Thus, the students' writing attitude in this study refers to the score which the students got.
Composition performance in this study refers to the students' score given by two ratters' based on the criteria of each subscales in PROFILE in Jacobs et al., (1981). Each subscale focuses on an important aspect of composition and weighs according to its approximate importance for written communication: content (13-30 points), organization (7-20 points), vocabulary (7-20 points), language use (5-25 points), and mechanics (2-5 points). The total weight for each component is further broken down into numerical ranges that correspond to four mastery levels: excellent to very good, good to average, fair to poor, and very poor.

Population and Sample Population
The population of this study was the PGRI University and Muhammadiyah University students of the English Study Program semester VI in the academic year 2006/2007. The total number of the students in the population is 627.

Sample
The writer used random sampling technique since all the students in population have the same chance to be sampled by using lottery. Nasution (1987:131) stated that research may take 10% population randomly as the sample of a study. In this study, the writer took 15% of the population as the sample. Thus, there are 156 students as the sample: eighty-four students of PGRI University consisted of fifty female students and thirty-four male students and all the six semester students of Muhammadiyah University: seventy-two students, fifty-three male students and nineteen female students.

Techniques for Collecting the Data
The students wrote a composition based on an assigned topic. They were also given questionnaire to find out their writing attitude.

Writing Attitude Questionnaire
The writer also distributed writing attitude questionnaire to the students. The questionnaire includes a checklist and rating scale using Likert-scale to obtain the extend of agreement with some statements of opinions on their writing attitude. The correct answer must be chosen among five alternatives that is SA (strongly agree), A (agree), U (undecided), D (disagree), SD (strongly disagree). The letter SA to SD is converted to 1 to 5, for negative statements or 5 to 1, for positive statements respectively (see Henning, 1987:23;Richard &Platt, 1999:377;Suharto, 1988:98-100).
This questionnaire had also been field tested in English Study Program, Sriwijaya University with reliability (coefficient alpha) .78 and it was reliable to be used to find students' writing attitude. In addition, the questions had been analyzed by using factor analysis to group them. There were five factors or subscales. Factor 1 consisted of 5 items, Q1, Q3, Q13, Q19, and Q21. Factor 2 had six items, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q 15, and Q20. Then, factor 3 had three items, Q9, Q12, and Q18. Factor 4 contained two items, Q4 and Q17. The factor 5 had two items, Q16 and Q25. These factors were named for the need analysis: F1 (writing perception), F2 (positive writing activities), F3 (negative writing activities), F4 (reading preference), and F5 (expectation toward others).

Composition Test
The students wrote a composition about the same topic assigned in 30 minutes. It is about 200-300 words. The topic is Why Young People in My Country Need a College Education. The writer assumed that the students are familiar with this topic and it would be appropriate to the sample students in terms of their age, educational levels, and academic field of study. For large-scale evaluations, it is generally Suggested for all students to write on the same topic (Heaton, 1975) in Jacobs et al., (1981:16). Allowing a choice of topics increases the chances, of course, that the students would write on the topics which they believe are easier or more familiar.
The writer numbered each composition paper in advance and then hand out blank index cards at the beginning of the test period on which the students record their names test paper numbers. After that, the students wrote a composition on a piece of paper provided with the topics on the top of it. The reliability of this measurement has been tested as demonstrated in internal consistency estimates of reliability and standard error of measurement for PROFILE scales (Jacobs et al., 1981:68-77).

Techniques for Analyzing the Data
In analyzing the data obtained from the questionnaire and test, the writer used SPSS 11 for computing the descriptive data of students' writing attitude and their writing composition performance. In the case of writing, the students' writing was computed by applying the PROFILE criteria scale (appendix A2). To verify the hypotheses, two statistical analyses would be applied, namely correlation and multiple regression analysis. Weiten et al., (1991) state that a correlation coefficient is indicated by a numerical index of degree which exist between two variables. It show us how strong the relationship between those variables and whether the relationship is positive or negative.

Regression Analysis
Regression analysis was applied to test whether variable X (students' English composition performance) significantly determined variable Y (writing attitude). The process was conducted by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 12 for Windows. The F-test was applied to test the significance. The variable X Regression analysis was applied to test whether variable X (students'writing attitude) significantly determined variable Y (writing composition performance). The process was conducted by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 12 for Windows. The F-test was applied to test the significance. The variable X significantly determines variable Y if the value F-obtained exceeds the value of F-table. Meanwhile, the variable X does not significantly determine variable Y if the value of F-table exceeds the value of F-Obtained. The R square value is 0.242 and p= 0.002 (p<0.05). It means that writing attitude influences 24.2% of composition performance and the rest was influenced by other factors. The F-test showed that F value was 9.568 with the significant level of 0.002. Because the probability (0.002) was lower than 0.05, this regression model can be used to predict the composition performance variable. It indicates that the student writing attitude does contribute significantly to the student composition performance.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
The variables involved in this study includedwriting attitude (independent variable) and composition performance (dependent variable). The purpose was to test whether there was statistically significant relationship between students' writing attitude and students' composition performance. In this study 156 students of two private universities (PGRI and Muhammadiyah) constituted the sample. They were asked to complete questionnaire about their writing attitude and write a composition from which the data regarding their writing attitude and composition performance were obtained.
To test whether there was a relationship between student writing attitude and composition performance, a simple regression analysis was applied. Then, to test whether any relationship among the factors or sub scales of independent variable contributed to composition performance, multiple regression analysis was conducted and multiple correlation coefficients and associated F statistics were computed.

Findings
In presenting the findings of the study, the discussion is divided into two sections, the description of the hypothesized findings and the summary of the actual findings. Based on the result of statistics, it was found that the total mean of writing attitude and composition performance are 72.65 and 60.42. Even though gender was nor hypothesized but since this study involved many students, this variable was also discussed to predict the increase of student writing attitude and composition performance In the gender category, female have better writing attitude but male group has better composition performance. The following table is the descriptive statistics of the means and SD of the variable measured.

Hypothesized Findings
The statistical analyses of the actual data for testing each hypotheses of the study are presented in this part. These include value derived from using multiple regressions for (1) student writing attitude (total), (2) student composition performance (total), (3) the five factors of writing attitude, and (4) the five sub scales of composition performance.
In order to know whether student writing attitude correlated with student composition performance, I correlated the value of student writing attitude with composition performance scores using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient analysis. The result showed the correlation coefficient between student writing attitude (total) and their composition performance was .242 at the statistical significant value of .002. It indicates that there is significant correlation between writing attitude and their composition performance The result of the statistical analysis using Pearson Product Moment Coefficient Correlation showed that out of five of writing attitude, there were three factors which had a significant statistical relationship with student composition performance. They were writing perception (F1), positive writing activities (F2), and reading preference (F4). First, there was significant correlation between writing perception (F1) and composition performance with the coefficient correlation .220 at the statistical significant value of .006 at the alpha level. Next, there was also correlation between positive writing activities (F2) and composition performance in which coefficient correlation is .176 at the statistically significant value of .028 of the alpha level. Finally, there was a significant correlation between reading preference (F4) and composition performance with the coefficient correlation .193 at the statistically significant value .016 of the alpha level.
Based on the result of the analysis, I also found that there were correlations among the subscales of each variable. It was found that writing perception (F1) has significant correlation with sub scale content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanic. The coefficient correlation was respectively were .176, .146, .089, .206 and .230 at the statistically significant value of .028, .006, 026, .010 and .004 of the alpha level. While, positive writing activities (F2) has relationship with sub scales content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanic with the coefficient correlation were respectively .180, .156, .093, .084 and .090 with the correlation coefficient were respectively .024, .025, 024, 029 and 026 of the alpha level. Finally, reading preference(F4) has significant correlation with sub scale content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanic with the coefficient correlation respectively . 244, .155, .117, .117, .077 at the statistical correlation value of .002, .054, .014, .014, .034 at the alpha level.
Based on the results of findings, several points need to be discussed. There is evidence that writing attitude contributes significantly to the prediction of the student composition performance in this study. The R square value is .242 and p= .002 (p<.05). It means that writing attitude influences 24.2% of composition performance and the rest was influenced by other factors. The F-test showed that F value was 9.568 with the significant level of .002. Because the probability (.002) was lower than .05, this regression model can be used to predict the composition performance variable. It indicates that the student writing attitude does contribute significantly to the student composition performance.
In order to have a better understanding about the contribution of sub scale in writing attitude to the student composition performance, I thought that it was also important to look closely at each sub scale. Next, it showed that the degree of freedom (df) was 3 which means there were three variables input in the final model. In model 1, the R value were respectively .220, .176, and .193, and the R square were .049, .031, and .037 respectively and sig.006, .028, and .016 respectively (p<.05) showed that there were positive correlation. Based on the results, sub scale writing perception (F1), positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) contributed the composition performance, while the rest of subscales do not really affect give contribution to student composition performance. It did not mean that those other factors cannot predict the increase of the composition performance but the contribution was small.
The value of the three variables was determined by the coefficient of R square of each variable. First, writing perception (F1) can predict the students' ability in composition performance for about 4.9%. When positive writing activities(F2) was added, there was an increase for 1.5% from 4.9% to .6.4% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced composition performance, as the B value .188 while positive writing activities(F2) was .128. It means that writing perception (F1) contributed 18.8% to the increase of composition performance while positive writing activities(F2) were 12.8%. In the final model, when reading preference (F4) was added to writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities (F2), there was an increase for 0.7% from 7.1% to 6.4% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced composition performance, as the B value was .151 while positive writing activities (F2) and reading preference(F4) were .109 and .098. It meant that writing perception (F1) contributed 15.1% to the increase of composition performance while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were 10.9% and 9.8%.
Second, positive writing activities(F2) can predict the students' composition for about 3.1%. When writing perception (F1) was added to positive writing activities(F2), there was an increase for 3.3% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced composition performance, as the B value was .188 while positive writing activities(F2) was .128. It means that writing perception (F1) contributed 18.8% while positive writing activity (F2) was12.8%. In the final model, when reading preference(F4) was added to writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2), there was an increase for 0.7% from 6.4% to 7.1% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced composition performance, as the B value was .151 while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were .109 and .098. It meant that writing perception (F1) contributed 15.1% to the increase of composition performance while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were 20.9% and 9.8%.
Finally, sub-scale reading preference(F4) can predict the students' composition performance for about 3.7%. When writing perception (F1) was added to reading preference(F4), there was an increase for 2.4% from 3.7% to 6.1% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced composition performance, as the B value was .169 while reading preference(F4) was .122. It meant that writing perception (F1) contributed 16.9% to the increase of composition performance while reading preference(F4) 12.2%. In the final model, when positive writing activities(F2) positive writing activities was added to writing perception (F1) and reading preference(F4), there was an increase for 0.1% from 6.1% to 7.1% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced composition as the B value was .151 while positive writing activities(F2), and reading preference(F4) were .109 and .098. It meant that writing perception (F1) contributed 15.1% to the increase of composition performance while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were 10.9% and 9.8%.
In the analysis, it was found that some factors of writing attitude also give contribution to sub scales of composition as presented in the table 7. The result of statistics indicated that first, writing perception (F1) can predict the students' ability in content for about 3.1%. When positive writing activities(F2) was added to writing perception (F1), there was an increase for 1.9% from 3.1% to 5.0% in which positive writing activities(F2) was the biggest contributor that influenced content, as the B value was .176 while writing perception (F1) was .139. It meant that positive writing activities(F2) contributed 17.6% to the increase of content while writing perception (F1) was 13.9%. In the final model, when reading preference(F4) was added to writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2), there was an increase for 2.7% from 5.0% to 7.7% in which reading preference(F4) was the biggest contributor that influenced content, as the B value .182 while writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2) were .071 and .110. It mean that reading preference(F4) contributed 18.2% to the increase of content while writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2) were 7.1% and 11%.
Second, writing perception (F1) can predict the students' composition performance in organization for about 2.2%. When positive writing activities(F2) was added to writing perception (F1), there was an increase for 1.5% from 2.2% to 3.7% in which positive writing activities(F2) was the biggest contributor that influenced organization, as the B value was .126 and writing perception (F1) was .116. It meant that positive writing activities(F2) contributed 12.6% to the increase of organization while writing perception (F1) 11.6%. in the final model, when reading preference(F4) was added to writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2), there was an increase for 0.6% from 3.7% to 4.3% in which positive writing activities(F2) was the biggest contributor that influenced organization, as the B value .109 while writing perception (F1) and reading preference(F4) were .082 and .089. It meant that positive writing activities(F2) contributed 10.9% to the increase of organization while writing perception (F1) and reading preference(F4) were 8.2% and 8.9%.
Third, writing perception (F1) can predict the students' composition performance in vocabulary even though it was very small for about 0.8%. however, when positive writing activities(F2) was added to writing perception (F1), there was an increase for 0.5% from 0.8% to 1.3% in which positive writing activities(F2) was the biggest contributor that influenced vocabulary, as the B value was .75 while writing perception (F1) was .67. It meant that positive writing activities(F2) contributed 7.5% to the increase of vocabulary while writing perception (F1) was 6.7%. In the final model, when positive writing activities(F2) was added to writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2), there was an increase for 0.6% from 1.3% to 1.9% in which reading preference(F4) was the biggest contributor that influenced vocabulary, as B value .084 while writing perception (F1), and positive writing activities(F2) were .039 and .059. It meant that reading preference(F4) contributed 8.4% to the increase of vocabulary while writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2) were 3.9% and 5.9%.
Fourth, writing perception (F1) can predict the students' composition performance in language use for about 4.3%. when, positive writing activities(F2) was added to writing perception (F1), there was an increase for 0.1% from 4.3% to 4.4% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced language use, as the B value was .198 while positive writing activities(F2) was .033. It meant that writing perception (F1) contributed 19.8% to the increase of language use while positive writing activities(F2) were 3.3%. In the final model, when reading preference(F4) was added to writing perception (F1) and positive writing activities(F2), there was no increase to the language use in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced language use, as the B value .186 while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were .072 and .032. It meant that writing perception (F1) contributed 18.6% to the increase of the language use while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were 2.7% and 3.2%.
Fifth, writing perception (F1) can predict the increase the students' composition performance in mechanic for 5.3%. when positive writing activities(F2) was added to writing perception (F1), there was an increase for 0.1% from 5.3% to 5.4% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced mechanic, as the B value was .221 while positive writing activities(F2) was .033. It means that writing perception (F1) contributed 22.1% to the increase of mechanic while positive writing activities(F2) were 3.3%. In the final model, when reading preference(F4) was added towriting perception (F1) andpositive writing activities(F2), there was an increase for 0.1% from 5.4% to 5.5% in which writing perception (F1) was the biggest contributor that influenced mechanic, as the B value was .233 while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were .039 and .032. It meant that writing perception (F1) contributed 23.3% to the increase of mechanic while positive writing activities(F2) and reading preference(F4) were 3.9% and 3.2%. see table 7 Unhypothesized Findings I considered it was important to know the role of other factor in order to get better understanding of the relationship between student writing attitude and student composition performance. The factor was the student gender. The result of student writing attitude questionnaire and composition scores was computed using Pearson Product Moment Coefficient Correlation. First, the result showed that there was no significant correlation between gender and writing attitude in which the coefficient correlation is .102 at the statistical significant value of .205 higher than .05 of alpha level. Second, the result of the analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between student composition performance and gender with the correlation coefficient of .029 at the statistical significant value of .721 alpha level. The statistical analysis indicated that even though there was no correlation between gender and writing attitude when Pearson Product Moment was applied. The result of statistics showed that the value F=1.061 and p= .305 (p<0, 05). It means that there was difference but it was not significant since the significance coefficient more than the alpha level .05. It can also be shown the difference of mean between female and male students. The female students' mean value was 72.10 and the male students' was 73.72. The difference of the mean value showed that the male students' writing composition attitude was better than the female students' one.
Based on the result of analysis, it was found that there was no significant difference between students' composition performance and gender. It can be seen from the value of F = 2.566 and p= .111. In which the significance coefficient .111 was higher than the statistical value of alpha level .005. It means that there was no significant difference in composition performance between female and male students. It can also be shown the difference of mean between female and male students. The mean value of the female students was 60.646 and the second one's mean value was 59.981. It means that the female students' composition performance was better than the male students' composition performance. Based on the result of the analysis, when writing attitude was added to gender, there was increase for 5.8% from 0.1% to 5.9% in which writing attitude gave the biggest contribution as the B value was .241 while gender B value was .004.

Discussion
Based on the findings, there is evidence that writing attitude has correlation with writing composition performance in which it influences 5.8% of the writing composition performance. We can also see that the mean of writing attitude is good enough (72.65). However, the mean of writing composition performance is still low (60.42) since the maximum point is 100. From five factors of writing attitude, it is found that only three writing perception (F1), positive writing activities (F2), and reading preference (F4) give high contribution to the writing composition performance. The results also show that those three factors correlate with the five sub scales in composition performance.
Since there are three dominant sub scales that influences student composition performance, it is shown that the students under this study have good personal writing perception, positive writing activities and reading preference. Based on the result of the study, writing perception gives the biggest contributor to content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanic.
Some respondents feel that writing is something they can do as good as other activities. However, they are not willing to tell other people that they do not like writing. Some of the students hate writing and think that writing is boring. They think writing takes a long time. These students have low writing performance. Like one of Matos' students (1996:2) says I hate writing for school because there are too many rules.
Some respondents also like to write letters or diary report whenever they have time. Moreover, they get really excited about their letters or diary report they have written. They also like to write letter or report at home. They like to write to escape from problem, too. It might be said that they like to write whatever happen in their daily lives because not all people can tell other people about their problems as Matos' student (1996:1) says I think that writing is the best way for me to express myself.
They also generally check out at least a book in a library when they want to write. Moreover, by having a lot of books in their room at home, we can say that they have reading preference or interest. A lot of information can be obtained from books and the way a writer or author writes sometimes inspiring people to write and share the writing with other people. This kind of students should be able to communicate well both in spoken and written form since they will be prospective English teacher after they finish their study. It can be concluded that the better writing perception, writing activities and reading preference or interest, the better writing performance they will have. Therefore, this good writing perception, positive writing attitude, and reading preference can enhance their effort to do better in any activities including writing.
Other contribution can also be obtained from gender dimension. There is correlation between writing composition performance and gender. Even though, it was not significant. In addition, mean score of the writing composition performance shows that the female students higher score (60.646) compared to the male students (59.981). It might be assumed that female students are more diligent, patient, and neat than male ones.
There is no significant difference between writing attitude and gender. Mean of the writing attitude shows that male students get higher score (73.72) compared to female students (72.10). It means that male students have better writing attitude than female students. It probably occurred due to the learning experience of the students and their exposure to writing inside or outside the class.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Conclusions
Based on the findings, some conclusions can be drawn. First, students' writing attitude was related positively with the students' English composition performance. The Mean of writing attitude indicate that the students' writing attitude is good enough (72.65). However, the contribution of writing attitude factors to composition performance is still low (5.8%). The result of the study also shows that the Mean of composition performance is low (60.420). Therefore, the students still need more motivation especially from the teachers to give them exciting, practical writing experience in the class supported by many kinds of related material from books, magazine, etc. Moreover, the students should be given the chance to express themselves through writing without being afraid that their writing is full of such grammatical mistakes. If they have motivation, they might have better writing attitude since writing is one of English aspects they should acquire in order to be able to communicate in written or spoken form. In other words, by having good writing perception, positive writing activities and reading interest or preference, hopefully they will have better performance especially in writing.
Second, other contribution can also be achieved from gender. Gender does not give significant difference to writing attitude. Thus, the process of teaching and learning in the class should give the students the same opportunities in writing activities and encourage the students to read a lot to increase the content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanic of their writing. Since they might become English teacher in the future, the students should have good perception, positive activities, and reading preference or interest to increase their performance including writing ability.

Suggestions
The result of this study shows that there is a significant relationship between writing attitude and writing composition performance. In general the students have good writing attitude. Even though, writing attitude in total give small distribution to writing composition performance, the teacher should be able to motivate students to enjoy writing and give not only theories but also experience of writing because some people feel that writing is the most difficult skill of English. Thus, the teacher should find technique to make writing a joyful activity since in the classroom sometimes teachers only check the linguistic aspects. Teachers may give up to date material related to daily activity from books, magazine, or internet.
Furthermore, due to the limitations in relation to time, energy and fund in conducting this study, hopefully in the future related study can be done using more extensive instruments with bigger number of population in order to get better understanding of student writing attitude and writing composition performance.