STUDENTS’ MOOD IN LEARNING WRITING IN ONLINE CLASS PANDEMIC ERA

The objective of this study was to find out the students’ mood in learning writing in Online Class Pandemic Era at University of Muhammadiyah Bengkulu. This study applied a quantitative research design. A total of 45 sixth semester students Academic Year 2020/2021 participated in this study. The data were collected by using a questionnaire and a guided interview to get information about the students’ emotions in learning writing Online. The writers adapted and modified a new category of emotion categorization, called Hourglass of Emotions, based on the emotions wheel proposed by Cambria et al (2018). The Hourglass Model organizes the primary emotions around four affective dimensions (Pleasantness, Attention, Sensitivity, Aptitude). The finding of this research indicated that the students’ mood in learning writing in Online Class Pandemic Era at University of Muhammadiyah Bengkulu was positive. The students confirmed that they feel positive pleasantness, attention, sensitivity, and aptitude in learning writing by online. It is suggested that both the lecturers and the students to keep the positive mood in process of teaching and learning writing online. For further researchers, this research finding can be used as scientific contribution to investigate the students’ mood in learning writing in Online Class Pandemic Era.


A. Introduction
Writing is one of the important skills that students must acquire well. It is usually used to figure out the students' ability in using English in productive way. There are two kinds of writing skills, they are writing for comprehensibility which concern on communicating messages or information and writing for creativity that included the ability to write freely anything what the student wants to write. However, these two kinds of writing skills take place as an important instrument to assess students' ability of foreign or second language in written form. It means that writing skills, one of the important skills should be acquired by foreign and second language learners.
There are some factors which influence the students in learning writing skill especially by online learning during pandemic era, such as; students' personalities, traits, learning style, and mood. Moreover, the most important thing that influences the students' learning a language is mood. The students' mood is important because it can impact the students feeling while learning English. A mood is defined as "a type of affective state which is transient and particular to a specific time and situation" (Jeon: 1990). As Isen (1984) argues that mood indirectly influences an ongoing and succeeding event, although it does not have real nature effect and change the basic activity or context of that carry-on event. In other words, when a student is in a certain learning process, such as studying the material, concentrating in certain topics, understanding the lectures, memorizing and remembering some jargons or terminologies, and analyzing an experiment result, he/she will be influenced by his/her ongoing mood. As result, one's performance is also affected by what he/she feels.
Mood is divided into two kinds, positive and negative mood. Positive mood is one's mental state and feelings where she/he feels more confident, optimistic, and unconstrained (Forest, Clark,Mills, & Isen, 1979). Individuals with positive moods were likely to process information less systematically, but more creatively and flexibly than those with negative moods, therefore, if they feel good about the target object, they render a positive evaluation. When one feels anxiety, depression, and fatigue, it can be said that negative mood takes place his/her feeling state (Watson and Tellegen, 1985).
Online learning in pandemic era can impact the students' mood in learning writing directly or indirectly. The different teaching strategy, tools, and media absolutely impact the students' interest, willingness, and mood while learning writing. As the interview result done by researcher to sixth semester English study Program students at UMB by Whatsapp voice note, the researcher found that there were some students who had positive and negative mood in learning writing by online. As student 1 said that she felt bored while learning writing by online because no more lecturers' feedback while learning. Then student 3 mentioned that she felt hopeless while learning writing because she cannot explore more her skill while learning writing by online. On the other side, learning writing by online gave positive mood for some students too. As student 4 said that she got enjoyment while learning wrting online because she can use internet without going to campus. And also student 2 mentioned that she can learn writing by online with extra time. Based on the previous observation above, it can be concluded that the students have various mood while learning writing by online, therefore to know the students' mood in learning writing during pandemic era in deeply the researcher will conduct a research entitled "Students' Mood in Learning Writing in Online Class Pandemic Era at University of Muhammadiyah Bengkulu".

B. Research Methodology
This study used a quantitative research design. It intended to find out the students' mood in learning writing skills online. A total of 45 sixth semester students Academic Year 2020/2021 participated in this study. The data were collected by using a questionnaire and a guided interview to get information about the students' emotions in learning writing Online. The writers adapted and modified a new category of emotion categorization, called Hourglass of Emotions, based on the emotions wheel proposed by Cambria et al (2018). The Hourglass Model organizes the primary emotions around four affective dimensions (Pleasantness, Attention, Sensitivity, Aptitude). Each affective dimension is characterized by six septic levels. These levels have a set of 24 basic emotions, six emotions for each affective dimension, which are used in the association of emotion with text. The data were collected by following steps ; (1) The leader of the class was asked to create a whats-app group to make sure that all of the students were included in the group and eligible to participate in the study, (2) The questionnaire was distributed in a google form, then the students answered based on questions in the google form.

C. Findings and Discussion
This study intended to find out the students' mood in learning writing skill by online learning at English Education program of Muhammadiyah University of Bengkulu. The instrument that was used to collect the data was a questionnaire. The writers adapted and modified a new category of emotion categorization, called Hourglass of Emotions, based on the emotions wheel proposed by Cambria et al (2018). The Hourglass Model organizes the primary emotions around four affective dimensions (Pleasantness, Attention, Sensitivity, Aptitude). Each affective dimension was characterized by six septic levels. These levels have a set of 24 basic emotions, six emotions for each affective dimension, which are used in the association of emotion with text. Moreover, based on the data analysis procedure the questionnaire result was divided into two categories; positive (always and usually) and negative (seldom and never) for positive mood and positive (seldom and never) and negative (always and usually) for negative mood. There were 12 items of positive mood and 12 items of negative mood.

Positive Mood
Positive mood states increase memory on various tasks, mastery of a discrimination task, and altruism. In 1996, Bryan et. al. find that positive mood also facilitates complex cognitive functions that require flexibility, integration, and utilization of cognitive material (e.g., word association and memory, creativity, and problem-solving). Their study also finds that positive moods induce students to organize the academic material in memory for better recall. It supports that student's positive mood will provide excitement to him/her to study; as a result, they are able to perform a better academic performance. It can be said that a higher level of one's positive mood, a higher of one's eagerness and motivation to study and get a better or higher examination result. The positive mood is divided into 12 items of pleasantness, attention, sensitivity, and aptitude. The result was as follow.

Negative Mood
One's negative moods sometime have certain ability in processing information more systematic, although at the same time, less creativity. Negative moods, for example, have also been found to produce low-effort processing of information, the use of less complex semantic processing strategies and lower cognitive processing effort. Brand, Reimer, and Opwis (2007) find that one's negative mood will deteriorate learning process; therefore, it would produce adverted academic performance. It can be stated that a higher level of negative moods, a higher possibility of one gets lazy and is not motivated to study, as a result, he/she will get an un-optimal academic performance. The result of items was as in table 2. The conclusion of each items of students' mood will be showed in the table below. The percentage in positive and negative column were found from the amount of percentages always and often for positive column and seldom and never for negative column. The percentages are got based on previous tables of each mood. The summary of the questionnaire result revealed that the students' mood was positive for pleasantness, attention, sensitivity, and ineptitude in learning writing by online.

D. Discussion
This study aimed to find out the students' mood in learning writing by online. The finding of this research showed that the students' mood in learning writing by online at sixth semester students of English study Program of Muhammadiyah University of Bengkulu was positive. This research findings also confirmed some theories from experts. Related to the students' ability in learning English , there are some factors which influence the students in learning receptive and productive skills of English above, such as; students' personalities, traits, learning style, and mood. Moreover, the most important thing that influences the students' learning a language is mood. As Isen (1984) argues that mood indirectly influences an on-going and succeeding event, although it does not have real nature effect and change the basic activity or context of that carry-on event. In other words, when a student is in a certain learning process, such as studying the material, concentrating in certain topics, understanding the lectures, memorizing and remembering some jargon or terminologies, and analyzing an experiment result, he/she will be influenced by his/her on-going mood. As result, one's performance is also affected by what he/she feels.
Positive mood facilitates complex cognitive functions requiring flexibility, integration, and utilization of cognitive material such as memory, categorization, creative problem solving, decision-making and learning. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that it also affects underlying cognitive organization (Isen, 1987). In general, in studies of the impact of mood, positive mood has shown a facilitating impact on memory, learning, and behavior, whereas negative affect has a depressing impact. Positive mood has also been found to enhance the performance of behaviors that lead to positive outcomes such as greater personal power and greater freedom to act as one wishes. Positive mood is the condition of the student's emotional that given the positive impact in the students' ability in the EFL classroom and negative mood is the bad condition of the student's emotional that given the negative impact in the students' ability in the EFL classroom which supported by Sunardi (2015:4). Mood types were analyzed through students and teacher conversation during the classroom activity. By finding out the mood types used, the researcher can see the moods used by both students and teacher.
In 1996, Bryan et. al. find that positive mood also facilitates complex cognitive functions that require flexibility, integration, and utilization of cognitive material (e.g., word association and memory, creativity, and problem-solving). Their study also finds that positive moods induce students to organize the academic material in memory for better recall. It supports that student's positive mood will provide excitement to him/her to study; as a result, they are able to perform a better academic performance. It can be said that a higher level of one's positive mood, a higher of one's eagerness and motivation to study and get a better or higher examination result.
This findings were also in line with some previous studies. The first study written by Beedie (2005) entitled "Distinctions between emotion and mood". The result of this research show that evidence for a distinction between emotion and mood based on any specific criterion, they lay an empirical foundation for future research and should prove useful to investigators interested in developing a clearer scientific distinction between emotion and mood than is currently available. The finding of this research also confirmed previous study from Irawan et al (2020) entitled "Psychological Impacts of Students on Online Learning During the Pandemic COVID-19" who found that that students have started to get bored with online learning after the first two weeks of learning from home,considerable anxiety on research subjects whose parents have low income, because they have to buy quotas to be able to participate in online learning, mood or mood changes occur due to too many assignments and considered ineffective by students.
The second study by Sedikides (1992) entitled is "Mood as a Determinant of Attentional Focus". The result of this research show that the effects of happy mood were indistinguishable from the effects of neutral mood, despite the manipulation checks showing that subjects in the happy mood condition reported being happier than subjects in the neutral mood condition. The reasons for this are not clear. One possibility is that the effects of happy mood (compared to the effects of sad mood) are short-lived, and subjects quickly relapse to a neutral mood state, which is naturally a slightly affective pleasant state. Third research is by Wisniwska and Nowicka (2017) entitled "Individual Differences in Mood Changes". The results showed different patterns of mood changes for increasing and decreasing regulative types. Those differences were visible especially in the positive mood regulation. While the decreasing type decreased the induced positive mood, the increasing type was characterized by mood changes manifested in energetic arousal increase and tense reduction. Moreover, high Neuroticism and low Extra-version in the decreasing type contributed to a negative mood increment manifested in reduction of energetic arousal. The same effect was revealed for high Conscientiousness for the increasing type. The results are discussed in the context of psychological status of mood regulation strategies (automatic/controlled) and with reference to previous research in this area.
The third, a study by Beedie (2005) entitled "Distinctions between emotion and mood". The result of this research show that evidence for a distinction between emotion and mood based on any specific criterion, they lay an empirical foundation for future research and should prove useful to investigators interested in developing a clearer scientific distinction between emotion and mood than is currently available. Future research should aim to identify the congruence between such folk psychology theories and biological/neurological indices to further our knowledge of the true nature(s) of emotion and mood. Then, a research by Lee (2012) entitled "Research Trends on Emotional Factors in the e-Learning Context". It was found that considering the value of positive emotional experiences to reduce ambiguity in communication and enhance the learning experience, factors influencing emotional experience and design strategies for emotionally sensitive elearning need more attention in research and practice.
The last, a study conducted by Febrilia and Waroka (2011) entitled "The Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on University Students' Learning and Academic Performance: Evidence from Indonesia". The result, based on analysis using structural equation modeling, indicates that the tested model has an acceptable fit. The findings also indicate that (1) positive mood has no influence on learning, (2) negative mood has negative influence on learning, and (3) learning has positive influence on student's academic performance. To conclude, the students' mood in learning writing by online at sixth semester students of English study Program of Muhammadiyah University of Bengkulu was positive.

D. Conclusion
Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the students' mood in learning writing in Online Class Pandemic Era at University of Muhammadiyah Bengkulu was positive. The students confirmed that they feel positive pleasantness, attention, sensitivity, and aptitude in learning writing by online.