The Development of a Comic-Based Economy e-Book as Learning
Media
Aang Kurnia, Baedhowi Baedhowi and Hery Sawiji
Postgraduate Program, Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta, Indonesia
Keywords: Economics e-book, comic, learning media.
Abstract: This research aimed to describe the feasibility of a comic-based economy e-book developed based on
feasibility assessment resulting from validation conducted by lecturer, economy teacher and from student
assessment. The procedure of e-book development employed Borg and Gall’s model and conducted up to
small-scale (limited) stage only. The instrument of collecting data used was questionnaire. Considering the
result of assessment, it could be found that the comic-based economics e-book developed was feasible to be
used. The percentage feasibility obtained score of 100% (very feasible) based on the media expert’s
validation, 100% (very feasible) on linguist’s, 96% (very feasible) on material expert’s, 100% (very
feasible) on economy teacher’s validation and 90.96% (very feasible) on student assessment. From those
result, it could be concluded that the comic-based economy e-book developed was feasible to use as
learning media.
1 INTRODUCTION
In instructional process, media is very essential to
support a more interesting and higher-quality
learning process. Susana & Masruri (2015) stated
that applying media to learning does not mean
replacing the teacher’s role or other relevant
methods in learning but supporting, completing and
improving learning quality. Tiurma and Retnawati
(2014) stated that a good learning is the one leading
the students to be active, innovative, creative,
effective and joyful. An alternative to gain an active,
innovative, creative, effective and joyful
instructional process is to develop teaching material
or learning media in line with the student character.
As digital world develops, learning media is not only
in the form of printed or conventional one, but
electronic book or called e-book has also moved
forward. The change of digital era and the
application of 2013 curriculum with scientific
approach in Indonesia require teachers who are able
to develop and to use an interesting teaching
material in instructional process today by means of
developing e-book. Suyatiningsih, Munawaroh, &
Rahmadona (2016) stated that the application of
scientific approach to learning involves process
skills such as observing, classifying, measuring,
predicting, explaining and inferring. In the
implementation process, teacher’s help is much
needed. The teacher’s help can be in term of media
development to facilitate the students learning.
Han’s (2012) study found that preparing high-
quality teacher can be done through the professional
teacher training and development in using new
technology in learning. Meanwhile, Letendre &
Wiseman (2015) stated that improving education
quality can be done by means of improving teachers’
quality through teachers’ training. It can be given by
developing teaching material and learning media. It
can be developed, for example, economy e-book.
The advantage of developing e-book is that it can
give the students high scope of knowledge. In
addition, the students are easier to comprehend the
content of learning material delivered by the
teachers, so that the learning process will be
interesting and can improve the learning outcome.
E-book or electronic book is a hardware and
software system that can present information to the
users in a large number of texts and enable the users
to browse information within it rapidly and easily. It
can be considered as software and physical ware
object. Conceived as software object, e-book is only
an electronic text catering to the same objective as
the printed book does (Anuradha & Usha, 2015).
Rao (in Jindal and Pant, 2011) stated that e-book is a
10
Kurnia, A., Baedhowi, B. and Sawiji, H.
The Development of a Comic-Based Economy e-Book as Learning Media.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Economic Education and Entrepreneurship (ICEEE 2017), pages 10-16
ISBN: 978-989-758-308-7
Copyright © 2017 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

text in digital form or book converted into digital
form or digital reading material or book in computer
file format to be displayed to e-book readers. So, e-
book is an electronic version of printed conventional
module or book. Conventional module or book
generally consists of a set of papers containing text
and figure, so that electronic module or e-book
contains digital information in the form of text,
animation, simulation and figure as well.
A previous study conducted by Embong,
Embong, Noor, Hashim, Ali, & Shaari (2012)
suggested that electronic book or e-book offers a
supplementary media or instruction to the students,
teacher and school to support or to improve learning
process. The development of economic e-book can
produce a learning media that can facilitate the
students understanding with the material or learning
independently aiming to improve the students’
learning outcome. Tang and Ellis (2016) stated that
using e-book exerts a positive effect on the students’
learning outcome. The utilization of digital comic-
based economics e-book in this research is
conducted individually and the teacher serves as
learning facilitator rather than writer in the learning
process. Amri and Ahmad (2010) suggested that in
individual learning, there is still the relationship
between instructor and students, but the relationship
is represented by teaching material or learning
media.
One of e-books that can be used in instructional
process is a comic-based economy e-book.
Educative comic is the one carrying on story and
message about education to the readers. Meanwhile,
textbooks at Kindergarten – College levels have
used comic as one element of its learning material,
despite simple visualization. Tatalovic (2009) stated
that the education-themed comic can help explain
science to the students, because of its visual
attractiveness inserted with science, so that comic is
a good media to deliver lesson material to the
students. Buchori and Setyawati (2015) said that
learning model, through comic, can stimulate and
motivate the student to learn and can improve the
students’ character effectively. This statement is
confirmed by Daryanto (2010), suggesting that
comic contains visual element and strong story. The
expression visualized makes the readers involved
emotionally within it thereby reading continuously
until the end.
The combination of figure and economic
learning material can result in an attractive message,
because the power of figure and story languages
makes comic the effective graphic media to deliver
message or content of economic subject to the
students. The figure of character and story in the
comic can grow the students’ imagination to think
more critically during instructional process as the
figures existing in e-book makes the learning
material, comic’s text makes the economic subject
more understandable to the students, while the plot
of story makes the message or information to be
delivered followed and remembered easily by the
students. It also inspires the author to develop the
comic-based e-book, containing economic subject as
the learning media for the students.
The use of comic-based economy e-book is
displayed through android application. Android is a
linux-based operation system for cellular phone such
as smart phone. Android, according to Safaat (2011),
is a linux-based operation system for mobile ware
including operation system, middleware, and
application. Android provides an open operation
system to the developers to create and to modify
application as they want. There are two types of
android operation system distribution: playstore and
open handset distributor (OHD). Playstore is the use
of android operation system (OS) supported with
google, while open handset distributor (OHD) is the
independent android operation system (OS) without
google’s support.
The advantage of android operation system is
providing a system facilitating the designer to make
development without terms and conditions that
should be paid for developing android platform or
application. Android can also be used as learning
media as it provides many supporting applications
for learning process including math workout, words,
android app, periodic table, epub reader, e-book
android, ireader. This research and development
employs android operation system with pocket book
application available in the playstore. Suyoso and
Nurohman (2014) stated that learning using android-
based electronic media can improve the students’
learning achievement and learning outcome.
The problem of research is how feasible is the
comic-based economy e-book as the learning media.
Meanwhile, the objective of research is to describe
the feasibility of comic-based economic e-book
development as learning media.
2 METHODS
The procedure of developing a comic-based
economy e-book employed Borg and Gall’s (1998)
model consisting of (1) Research and information
collection, (2) Planning, (3) Development
preliminary form of product, (4) Preliminary field
The Development of a Comic-Based Economy e-Book as Learning Media
11

testing, (5) Main product revision, (6) Main field
testing, (7) Operational product revision, (8)
Operating field testing, (9) Final product, (10)
Dissemination & implementation. The development
of economy e-book was conducted up to Preliminary
field testing stage only.
The procedure of developing comic-based
economy e-book is done in some stages adopted
from Borg and Gall’s development model: (1)
Research and information collection. The first stage
of development is conducted in two steps: research
and information collection or preliminary study
starting with pre-survey or need analysis aiming to
collect necessary data and information about the
problem in learning process, particularly the one
related to the development of comic-based economy
e-book, (2) Development Planning. It is to design
the e-book development related to objective, benefit,
and user of e-book, why the e-book developed is
considered as important and how the process of
developing comic-based economy e-book is, (3)
Development preliminary form of product. This
stage is one stage of e-book development based on
the analysis of teacher and student’s needs. The
comic-based economy e-book is designed and
adjusted with learning objective, material, need for
attractive learning material, to facilitate the students
understand the content of economy learning
material, (4) Preliminary field testing. The design of
comic-based economic e-book developed was then
tried out in small-scale trial through expert
validation and with the students using questionnaire
to measure the feasibility of e-book developed.
The procedure of developing comic-based
economy e-book adopted from Borg and Gall’s
development model is illustrated in the figure below.
Figure 1: Development Stage
Techniques of collecting data used in the
development of comic-based economic e-book were
validation questionnaire and response questionnaire
distributed to students. The data of questionnaire
contains the judgment (assessment) of media expert,
material expert, linguist, economic teacher and
students over the comic-based economy e-book
developed. The data collection stage includes: (1)
The validation of comic-based economy e-book to
obtain qualitative data in the form of assessment,
critique and recommendation to the e-book
developed indicating whether the product is feasible
or not to be used as the learning media, (2) Small-
scale tryout with 23 students, (3) Revision of comic-
based economic e book.
Then, the data obtained was analyzed
qualitatively and descriptive quantitatively. The
comic-based economy e-book is feasible to use as
learning media when the percentage assessment of e-
book is ≥ 61% (good criterion) for all aspects
(Ridwan, 2010).
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This research was taken place in SMA Negeri 1
Pekalongan, Lampung Timur on January 2017. The
model used in e-book development is Borg and
Gall’s research procedure and this research and
development only comes to at small-scale tryout
stage only. Furthermore, the procedure of
development is divided into some stages based on
preliminary study through interviewing teachers and
students to collect information related to the
availability of teacher and school and teaching
material completeness and instructional process.
3.1 Research and Information
Collection
Considering the result of preliminary study through
observation and interview in SMA Negeri 1
Pekalongan, Lampung Timur, it can be found that
economic study area has not developed the learning
media yet, particularly comic-based economic e-
book. In addition, the students need attractive
learning media that facilitates the students to learn
independently. Therefore, there should be a learning
media facilitating the students in understanding the
economy learning material and in learning. The
comic-based economy e-book is developed along
with the 2013 curriculum referring to scientific
approach and organized according to BNSP about
how to develop a good learning media.
3.2 Planning
The product developed is an economy e-book within
which there is an illustration of comic attributed to
Research and information collection
Development preliminary form of
product
Preliminary field testing
Planning
ICEEE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Economic Education and Entrepreneurship
12

the content of economy learning material. The type
of comic used is cartoon and consists of five
characters with different characteristics. Using
comic illustration is intended to facilitate the
students understanding with the difficult material in
learning economics’ material particularly in Central
Bank and Financial Service Authority. In addition,
on its implementation, the economy e-book
developed employs android application thereby
facilitating the students learning independently both
in the classroom and out of school environment. The
comic-based economy e-book uses android
operation system with pocket book application
available in the playstore.
3.3 Development Preliminary Form of
Product
The development stage conducted includes
developing draft e-book starting with designing the
prior product (prototype). The design of and the
draft economy e-book are adjusted with scientific
approach applied in the 2013 curriculum consisting
of (1) the front page of comic-based economic e-
book including author’s name, curriculum, e-book
title, figure, user, study program, and year; (2) the
identity of e-book includes author and those
contributing to the comic-based economy e-book
developed, (3) preface containing acknowledgment
and information about the role of comic-based
economy e-book, (4) table of content containing the
component existing in the comic-based economic e-
book completed with page number, (5) the
introduction of comic figures containing the name of
comic characters existing in the comic-based
economic e-book. The names of comic characters
existing in e-book include Kenta, Akira, Ken, Chio
and Pak Tada, (6) manual instruction containing the
instruction of using the comic-based economy e-
book, (7) basic competency containing basic
competency and learning objective to be achieved
using the comic-based economy e-book, (8) concept
map containing the concepts of material to be learnt
or discussed in the comic-based economic e-book,
(9) learning objective containing the learning
objective including the material to be achieved and
mastered by students using the comic-based
economic e-book, (10) introduction containing the
description of material to be discussed in learning
activity process using the comic-based economy e-
book, (11) learning activity containing indicators or
learning objective to be achieved by the students in
learning the comic-based economy e-book, (12)
material section containing the explanation of
knowledge, concept and principle existing in the
comic-based economy e-book, related to Central
Bank and Financial Service Authority the students
should learn, (13) exercises containing practicing
questions the students should work on aiming to
practice the students’ ability of learning and
understanding the material existing in the comic-
based economy e-book. Meanwhile, the questions
existing in e-book are organized based on indicator
and learning objective, (14) summary containing the
review of material presented briefly to facilitate the
students learn the material existing in comic-based
economy e-book, (15) references containing the
references used in organizing the comic-based
economic e-book, (16) answer key containing the
answers to exercises existing in the comic-based
economy e-book, (17) glossary containing
terminologies used in the comic-based economy e-
book, and (8) back cover containing author’s
identity.
3.4 Preliminary Field Testing
The e-book developed is then tried out to find out
whether or not it is feasible to use for the students in
learning process. This tryout is conducted through
the validation made by media expert, material
expert, linguists, economy teacher, and students’
assessment. The summary of validation made by
media expert, material expert, linguists, practitioner
or economy teacher, and students’ assessment is
presented in the table number.
Table 1: Summary of Validation by Media Expert
Indicator of
Media
Assessment
Rating Scale
∑ni
∑N
100%
Score
Criteria
Design of e-
book
appearance
and material
44
44
100%
100
Very
good
Function and
benefit of
media
48
48
100%
100
Very
good
Characteristi
cs of e-book
as learning
media
108
108
100%
100
Very
good
Total score
200
200
100%
100
Very
good
The result of media expert’s assessment in table 1
shows that the indicator of e-book appearance and
material design obtains score of 100 with very good
criterion, function and benefit of media obtains score
The Development of a Comic-Based Economy e-Book as Learning Media
13

of 100 with very good criterion, e-book
characteristic as learning media obtains score of 100
with very good criterion. From the result of
calculation, total score of 100 is obtained with very
good criterion. Furthermore, the summary result of
validation from material expert can be seen in table
2 number.
Table 2: Summary of Validation by Material Expert
Indicator of
Material
Assesment
Rating Scale
∑ni
∑N
100%
Score
Criteria
Content
feasibility
78
80
100%
97.5
Very
good
Display
feasibility
91
92
100%
98.91
Very
good
Learning
with E-book
23
28
100%
82.14
Very
good
Total score
192
200
100%
96
Very
good
The result of material expert shown in table 2
suggests that the indicator of e-book content
feasibility obtains score of 97.5 with very good
criterion, presentation feasibility obtains score of
98.91 with very good criteria, and learning using
comic-based e-book obtains score of 82.14 with very
good criterion. From the result of calculation, total
score of 96 is obtained with very good criteria.
Furthermore, the summary result of validation from
linguist can be seen in table 3 number.
Table 3: Summary of Validation by Linguist
Indicator of
Material
Assessment
Rating Scale
∑ni
∑N
100%
Score
Criteria
Language
assessment
52
52
100%
100
Very
good
The result of linguist assessment shown in table 3
suggests that indicator of language assessment
obtains score of 100 with very good criteria. From
the result of calculation, total score of 100 is
obtained with very good criterion. Furthermore, the
summary result of validation from Economics
teacher can be seen in table 4 number.
Table 4: Validation by Economic Teacher
Indicator of
Material
Assessment
Rating Scale
∑ni
∑N
100%
Score
Criteria
Content
feasibility
80
80
100%
100
Very
good
Display
feasibility
92
92
100%
100
Very
good
Learning
with E-book
28
28
100%
100
Very
good
Total Score
200
200
100%
100
Very
good
The result of assessment by practitioners shown in
table 4 suggests that the indicator of e-book content
feasibility obtains score of 100 with very good
criteria, presentation feasibility obtains score of 100
with very good criteria, and learning using comic-
based e-book obtains score of 100 with very good
criteria. From the result of calculation, total score of
100 is obtained with very good criterion.
Considering the table of assessment summary by
some experts above, it can be found that the media
experts rates 100% with very good criteria. Material
expert rates 96% with very good criteria, linguist
rates 100% with very good criteria, and economy
teacher rates 100% with very good criteria. These
results indicate that the comic-based economy e-
book is feasible to use as learning media as it has
very good criteria as a learning media. The media
expert says that the appearance of e-book has been
very attractive as the material section contains the
subject matter illustrated using comic conversation,
thereby facilitating the students understand the
material. Rota and Izquierdo (2003) stated that using
comic can facilitate the students understand the
science delivered through fiction story to grow the
students’ imagination. E-book has passed through
validation stages and has been corrected or revised,
so that it can be used for the small-scale tryout to
obtain the students’ assessment. The tryout is
conducted with all of the 10
th
IIS 3 graders as the
sample aiming to get students’ recommendation,
input and assessment concerning the comic-based
economic e-book. The result of students’ assessment
response to comic-based economic e-book in the 10
th
IIS 3 grade consisting of 22 students can be seen in
table 5.
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Table 5: Summary Students’ Response
Aspect
∑ ni
∑ N
Score
Criteria
Appearance
896
968
92.56
Very Good
Material
Display
1259
1408
89.42
Very Good
Benefit of
e-book
1047
1144
91.52
Very Good
Total Score
3202
3520
90.96
Very Good
Considering the summaries of assessment on the
comic-based economy e-book by the students, it can
be seen that the appearance aspect scores 92.56 with
very good criteria, material display scores 89.42
with very good criteria, and benefit scores 91.52
with very good criteria, with the total score of 90.96.
The result shows that the comic-based economic e-
book is feasible to use by the students as the learning
media. To obtain a high-quality e-book that is
feasible to use in the learning process, some
revisions should be made. The revision on e-book is
done following the trial through expert validation
and small-scale trial with the students, so that
critique and recommendation are obtained to the e-
book developed.
The result of revision can be the change of e-
book’s front page appearance, font and size, and the
addition of design to background of comic stories.
The comic-based economic e-book that has been
validated will be revised corresponding to the result
of assessment by validation expert and input from
the students, so that it can be used as the learning
material for the students.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Considering the result of research and data analysis
conducted, it can be concluded that the comic-based
economy e-book developed is feasible to use by the
students as the learning media. The result of
validation obtains score of 100% with very good
criteria from media expert, 96% with very good
criteria from material expert, 100% with very good
criteria from linguist, and 100% with very good
criteria from economy teacher’s assessment. Then,
the small scale try out conducted with the students
obtain score 90.96% with very good criteria. The
result of research indicates that the comic-based
economy e-book that has been assessed by the
validation experts and students can be used in the
instructional process.
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