The Correlation Between Students’ Reading Interest and Their Reading Comprehension at the Eight Grade Student of SMPN 1 Siak Hulu

CHAPTHER I

INTRODUCTION

A.       Background of the problems

Reading is an interactive process of communication. The interaction between writer and reader is made possible through the text. Reading can include as an important part when we analyze a text, because it can help the students in analyzing what kinds of reading text by them and the information from the reading itself. In learning reading, students have to realize that the aim of learning this skill is to enable them to comprehend reading text and get ideas from that text. They are also expected to read the text effectively and efficiency, they should understand each paragraph in text and relate an idea from one paragraph to other paragraph. In junior high school, the purpose reading is to make them to be able in analyzing of the text. As a result they still can not analyze text well, because they do not understand whether the text mean is. So that, they can not answer the questions are given on the text below.

Interest in learning especially in reading can increase students’ ability in understanding the subject. Because, with good interest the students can enjoy in learning, they more active in class, and get many involving with the activities happening in class such as asking and answering question. After observation on 23 December 2010, the researcher found that the real condition about students in junior high school, most of students are lack of interest in learning especially in learning reading. They think that reading as a boring task, and they feel sleepy when they do it.

Furthermore, with reading a lot can improve their understanding with the subject they have learnt, they will be rich of knowledge, and it can facilitate them to answer the question so that students’ reading interest is very important. Some of cause why the student almost getting lose with interest in learning such as they difficult to understand with teachers’ explanation, they feel sleepy because the teacher are not interesting and using monotonous media in learning, and they think English is difficult subject and not easy to understand it. By choosing good media in teaching can increase students’ interesting in learning English. Media means the method that can support learner more effectively involve in learning. Good media can help the teacher to be easy in teaching and the students will more active in class. The students also will be more facilitated to learn English effectively with god media in teaching and their interest in learning to be increased significantly. So, the teacher must find the way how to increase students interest in learning English especially in reading text.

At Sekolah Menengah Pertama Negeri 1 (SMPN 1 hereafter) Siak Hulu, reading is one of the Standards of Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP hereafter). In reading, the students have to comprehend the meaning on the texts such as recount and descriptive text. The target of the curriculum in this school especially in reading comprehension where the students should be able to find main idea, supporting idea, identify the vocabularies in the text, locating reference, and make inferences.  It means that the students in SMPN 1 Siak Hulu should be able to read loudly and to respond the meaning or message on the text that they read. For instance, by using reading the students will be able to comprehend what text mean. 

Based on the observation at SMPN 1 Siak Hulu, most of the students having problem in reading comprehension and their interest in learning English such as, the students cannot comprehend what the text has read by them, the students are lazy in reading any text, the students’ interest is not so enthusiast in studying process, and the students do not pay attention to the teacher when teaching process is begun. First, students can not comprehend what the text has read by them. The students do not know how to find the main idea or important point of the text. Whereas the students must be forced to know how to understand any text, it is purposed to make them are able to answer the question on the text below. If the students do not know how to understand the text, of course they cannot answer the text.

Second, the students are lazy in reading any text. The students feel sleepy in doing this task as long as they will be bored. The result of this problem caused they do not know what information they get from the text, and they difficult to answer the question on the reading text below. It can produce their ability in reading lower than the students are always reading. So that, the students must read a lot to improve their ability in reading and they will be able to comprehend any text if they do it as much.

Third, the students are not so enthusiastic in studying process at class. It indicates that their process of studying lower than the students have good interest in learning English. To improve their interest in learning English the teacher should have some methods or Medias to increase the student’s interest in learning process at class. And the last, the students do not pay attention to the teacher when the learning process is begun.  The students do much talk to other friend than listen to the teacher explanation. It makes the students are not able to answer the exercises given by the teacher. In order, the students must pay attention to the teacher explanation, it will help them in answering the question or exercises. In brief, to help them more active in learning process, the teacher should find one way to improve their interest in learning English, especially in reading a text.

Dealing with this research, the researcher conducts a correlational research. The type of correlational research in this research is explanatory design. In this research the researcher will use the correlation statistical test to describe and measure the degree of relationship between two variable of this research. So, in conducting this research, he needs statistical number to correlate two variable of this research, that is, students’ reading interest and their reading comprehension.

Based on the problem above, the researcher is interested in carrying out the research entitled “The Correlation Between Students’ Reading Interest and Their Reading Comprehension at the Eight Grade Student of SMPN 1 Siak Hulu”.

B.     Identification of the problem

Based on the background of the problem above researcher will be identified as follows. First, the students cannot comprehend what the text has read by them. The students do not know how to find the main idea or important point of the text. They find difficulties when the teacher asks them to answer the question on the text below. Second, the students are lazy in reading any text. To answer and understand the text or answer the question, the students have to read the text twice or more. If they do not, it is probably difficult for them to answer the question or understand the text. Third, the students’ interest is not so enthusiast in studying process. It shows that the students are not care about English especially for reading subject. It indicates them are not pay attention to the teacher explanation. And the last, the students do not pay attention to the teacher. Sometimes the students are noisy at the back, and also more like to talk with other than pay attention to the teacher.

C.    Limitation of the problem

Based on the identification of the problem above, it can be seen that there are four problems stated in this study. The researcher focuses the problem on the students’ reading comprehension and their interest that will be correlated one another.

D.    Formulation of the problems

The problem of this research can be formulated in the following questions “how significant is the correlation between the students’ reading interest and their reading comprehension at the eighth grade students of the SMPN 1 Siak Hulu?”

E.     Aims of the research

            There is an aim of this research that can be seen in the following sentence; to find out how significant the correlation between the students’ reading interest and their reading comprehension at the eighth grade students of SMPN 1 Siak Hulu.

F.     Significance of the research

The finding of this research is expected to give contribution to the teacher who teaches the students’ at SMPN 1 Siak Hulu. The teacher will know the students problems with their reading comprehension and their interest in learning English. Secondly, the researcher hopes that this research will give significant contribution to the students where have problem with their reading comprehension. The researcher hopes the students’ reading comprehension more improve after this research is completed by the researcher and the students will be more active involving in learning process. Finally, the researcher hopes this research result is very useful for whoever teacher in teaching English especially in reading subject.

G.    Definition of key terms

The terms used in this research are defined as follows;

1.      Reading comprehension is the skill that a reader understands or gets the meaning of a text easily. In this research, reading comprehension is the ability of students’ to understand reading text

2.      Interest in this research means the students attention, with emotion and felling.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A.    Review of related literature

1.      The Interest

English is one of difficult subjects for students, since they do not have enough vocabulary, and their knowledge is very limit, the students are not interested in paying attention in English subject especially when they are reading a text. So that the teacher must try to find the way how to make students enjoy reading. According to Schiefele in Yong-jun (2009: 61) adopts two components of the personal interest: a feeling-related and value related. Iran-Nejad in Young-jun (2009: 61) argues that interest and liking serve different functions and that the situational interest is not necessarily accompanied by positive feeling. In brief, interest as a feeling of students, it comes from their personal and they active in class.  

Dewey in walker (1999) states that two different elements of interest; identification and absorption. In emphasizing the importance of identification, genuine principle of interest is the principle of the recognized identity of the fact to be learned or the action proposed with the growing self, interest as a form of self-expression that was developmental in nature and therefore varying with age, prior experiences, social opportunities and ‘individual native endowments’ with the latter incorporating innate individual differences.

Dewey in walker (1999) also states genuine interest’ is therefore defined as the accompaniment of the identification, through action, of the self with some object or idea, because of the necessity of that object or idea for the maintenance of a self-initiated activity.

From the expert ideas above, it means that the interest as a dynamic, active state based on real objects and the pleasure associated with them. He emphasizes the place of interest in the maintenance of an enduring activity that develops over time, and also acknowledged the interactive relationship between the individual and aspects of the environment in the creation of interest.

Hidi and Harackiewicz in walker (1999) claim that while most interest theorists concur that ‘interest is a phenomenon that emerges from individuals’ interaction with their environment, motivational researchers assign differing significance to the components of this framework. It means that the students’ interest in learning is affected by their environment and also with their interaction each other.

Hidi in Ainley (2002: 546) claims that two types of factors that contribute to situational interest. The first group includes formal structural characteristics such as novelty, intensity, and ambiguity. The second group consists of content features such as human activity, intensity factors, and life themes. Investigators have argued that situational sources of interest may be particularly important for educators dealing with students who do not have preexisting individual interests in their school activities.

Based on the explanation above, the researcher concludes that the factors influence situational interest in classroom come from their school environment. If the students are not feeling comfort in their school environment, it will make them feel bored while learning, particularly in reading class.

Marsh and Cooper in Abrantes (2006: 962) state that student interest reflects input into the course, such as attention level in class, interest in learning the material, perception of a course's intellectual challenge, and acquired competence in the field. Student interest facilitates effective teaching and creates a more favorable learning environment.

It means that the students are not pay attention to the teacher and also lazy to read a text because they do not interest to the topic and there is no facilities that support their interest in learning.

2.      The Components of Interest

Generally, interest can be divided into three part; they are:

1.      Expressed Interest

Someone can express his/her interest trough certain words. For example by using words like, always, often, and etc.

2.      Manifest Interest

Someone can manifest his/her interest trough certain activities. For example, someone who is interested in reading books, he/she will buy, collect, or borrow books and always has time to read it (Dewa Ketut Sukardi in Rika Nuryana 2009: 14)

3.      Inventoried Interest

Someone can evaluate their interest by using answering some questions.

In essential English dictionary (1995: 500), it is stated that someone can be categorized having interest in activity if:

a)      Encourage knowing something interesting deeply, doing that activity or involve in that activity.

b)      Doing the activity with the pleasure and will prepare much time for that activity.

c)      Have high attention and curiosity toward activity.

d)     Feeling lucky in doing the activity. 

3.      Reading Interest

Reading interest is one of the factors to increase the students’ ability in learning especially in learning English. According to Ebbers (2011) reading interest is described as a motivational force that involves the focused allocation of extra attention, leading to deeper processing, better comprehension, and longer recall in reading text. It means that reading interest can make the students full attention and better comprehension to get the meaning of the text that the students have been read. So, reading interest is an important to increase the students’ reading skill.

            Hidi in Ebbers (2011) definite that reading interest is as “a unique motivational variable in reading, as well as a psychological state that occurs during interactions between persons and their objects of interest, and it is characterized by increased attention, concentration and affect”. Based on definition above, reading interest is motivational in reading to comprehend the meaning of the text so that the students have motivation in reading to develop their prior knowledge. In short, reading interest is one of the factors that influence the students’ ability in comprehending a text in reading subject.

Interest is an important aspect of instruction and assessment. Kamil, et all in Ebbers (2011) included interest as one of five key recommendations for improving adolescent literacy. Interest may serve to jumpstart the struggling reader — in any subject area — because when we are interested we are attentive and focused. Such focus often results in better strategy use, prompting inference facilitation, and yielding qualitatively deeper levels of comprehension and more reliable retrieval of information. After experimenting repeatedly with the effects of interest on reading, Hidi in Ebbers (2011) concludes that “Interest has a strong positive influence on readers’ comprehension and recall”. So, interest in reading can improve the students’ comprehension in reading something.

            According to Hildebrandt (2001) readers' well-formed individual interests and their situational interests (evoked by topics and text segments) contributed to their reading comprehension and learning. It means that several studies have demonstrated that personally interesting text segments and passages written on high-interest topics facilitate as well as college students' comprehension, children's inference, and retention. In conclusion, reading interest can increase the students’ comprehension in reading text.

            Schraw, Flowerday, and Lehman in Ebbers (2001) claims that there are some components of reading interest:

1.      Curiosity (provide a mystery, a puzzle, and a provocative question or a secret).

2.      Novelty (provide something unusual, different, new, and including artifact).

3.      Prior knowledge (develop topic knowledge. Provide a variety of topic-specific learning material, of increasing difficulty level, and over time).

4.      Explicitness and coherence (a solution to limited background knowledge).

5.      Purpose (this type of task will “fabricate” interest to help readers focus attention, where they might otherwise feel adrift in a sea of words).

6.      Perspective (this type of reading task helps focus attention and interest on a certain character).

4.      Reading Comprehension

a.      The Reading Concepts

Reading is one of skill that should be mastered by the students. Students’ will be able to understand a text if they master in reading. Nunan (1991: 65) explains that Bottom-up is the process to find the information only after the act of reading activities. It means that the readers’ understanding of the text will depend only on the meaning of the word, sentence, and paragraph. The meaning of the words will contribute to the meaning of a sentence, a sentence to a paragraph and so on.

According to Nunan (1991: 66) top-down reading is the process where the reader can find the information of the text and understanding the text based on their knowledge about the text. Many readers do not understand all of the text, not because they do not know the meaning of the words and sentence in the text but because they do not have appropriate background knowledge about the text.

Harmer (1995: 190) defines that reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and brain. It means that the eyes receive messages and brain then has to work out the significance of these messages. Indeed, reading is an activity of the eyes and brain to delivery information or message to the reader. Richards and Renandya (2002:277) define that reading for comprehension is the primary purpose for reading (though this is sometimes overlooked when students are asked to read overly difficult texts); raising students’ awareness of main ideas in a text and exploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension. It means that reading comprehension is the primary purpose for reading by the reader to get the meaning of the text which they are reading. So, reading comprehension is important for the students in understanding a text.

Alyousef (2006: 64) states that “reading can be seen as an “interactive” process between a reader and a text which leads to automaticity or reading fluency”. It means that reader should understand the text well. It is purposed to make him/her get the point of the text and whether the text means.

 After that, Ziegler (2005:3) defines that “reading is the process of understanding speech written down”. Harris (1984:12) also defines that reading is a result of the interaction between: the perception of graphic symbol that represent language and the reader’s language skills, cognitive skills, and knowledge of the word. It means that students’ who mastering in reading they can understand to gain information from the text. The students’ can be easy to enrich their ability in reading.

According to Nunan (1990:33) reading is an interactive process between what a reader already knows about given topic or subject and what the writer writes. Reading is a process of understanding of the symbol. It means that the reader which wants to understand any text he/she should know whether the text means is.

b.      Reading Approaches

Some of the teaching approaches used to develop reading are given below.

Definitions were mainly taken from Harris and Hodges in Al-Jarf (2007: 6-7):

1.      Alphabetic approach: a synthetic method of teaching reading and spelling in use from ancient times until the early part of the 19th century. In this method, students first identified letters by their names; next spelled out syllable; then words containing from one to eight syllables.

2.      Linguistic approach: It is based upon regular sound-symbol patterns.

3.      Phonics: It stresses symbol-sound relationships especially in beginning reading instruction. In synthetic phonics, the student learns the sounds represented by letters and letter combinations, blends these sounds together to pronounce words and is taught the phonic generalizations that apply in learning symbol-sound correspondences. In analytical phonics, the student learns a number of key sight words, is taught the relevant phonic generalizations to particular examples in learning symbol-sound correspondences. In whole-word phonics, the sounds represented by certain letters and groups of letters within whole words are compared and contrasted to those in other whole words, avoiding the separate sounding of word parts.

4.      Word method: A substantial number of words is learned as whole units for reading before word analysis is started.

5.      Analytic approach: It starts with whole units of language as words, phrases or sentences, and later breaks these down into their parts.

6.      Synthetic approach: It starts with word parts or elements as letters, sounds, or syllables, and later combines them into words.

7.      Language experience approach: Here, the student's own words or oral composition are written down and used as materials of instruction for reading, writing and spelling, speaking and listening.

8.      Whole language approach: It is a "top-down" theory of reading which emphasizes the importance of teaching language as a whole entity as contrasted with a skills oriented approach associated with the "bottom-up" model of reading. It includes the teaching and learning of skills and/or strategies within a setting in order to accomplish a goal that cements, extends, and expands learning. It is frequently coupled with an integrated or thematic approach to learning.

9.      Balanced approach: draws on both phonics and whole-language methods.

From the experts’ ideas above can be concluded that there are some approach in developing reading comprehension. if we know the approach of reading well, it will improve our ability in reading and understand any text.

c.       The Strategies of Reading Comprehension

According to Bordman (2007: 3-4) there are some strategies and good reader:

1.      Rapid and accurate word reading

2.      Setting goals for reading

3.      Noting the structure and organization of text

4.      Monitoring their understanding while reading

5.      Creating mental notes and summaries

6.      Making predictions about what will happen, checking them as they go along, and revising and evaluating them as needed

7.      Capitalizing on what they know about the topic and integrating that with new learning

8.      Making inferences

9.      Using mental images such as visualization to assist them in remembering or understanding events or characters

From Bordman’s ideas above, the researcher takes conclusion that there are some strategies to measure the students’ ability in reading. The teacher can know what aspect that should be measured from the students’ ability in reading. If the students do all strategies they will more careful in understanding reading a text in getting ideas about whether the text mean is.  

d.      Three Phases in Teaching Reading

There are some steps in teaching reading that should be known by teacher to successful in teaching reading. According to Avery & Graves in Duplass (2005) there are three phases of reading, pre-reading, whilst-reading, and post-reading as in the following:

1.      Pre reading

Pre reading activity is the activity before reading process, the aims of this phase are:

a.    To introduce and arouse the interest of the students to the topic. In this phase, the teacher introduce to the students about the topic which they will discuss in the reading class.

b.   To motivate the students to give a reaction for the reading. Teacher can ask the students some questions related to the topic.

c.    To provide some languages preparation for the text. In this term, teacher can show some language preparation, such as the word, phrases, or sentences that can be used to lead the student attention to the material.

2.      Whilst-reading

Whilst-reading activity is the chore of the lesson. In this phase the students divided into small groups. A group consists of three or four members to discuss the task. Through whilst reading tasks, students are trained how to read the text effectively and efficiently.

3.      Post-reading

This phase is the last activities for reading class which the aim as follows:

a. To consolidate or reflect up on has been read

b.To relate the text to the students’ knowledge interest or views.

According to Hedge (2000:221) the reading lesson should aim to build learners’ ability to engage in purposeful reading, to adopt a range of reading style necessary for interacting successfully with authentic texts, and to develop critical awareness. It means that reading is one of important subjects in English learning, with reading the students can easy to get new information and knowledge, in reading process the students can be used some steps so that they are not boring when they read.

Hedge in Alyousef (2006: 67) states that any reading component of an English language course may include a set of learning goals for:

1. The ability to read a wide range of texts in English. This is the long-range goal most teachers seek to develop through independent readers outside EFL/ESL classroom.
2. Building a knowledge of language which will facilitate reading ability
3. Building schematic knowledge.
4. The ability to adapt the reading style according to reading purpose (i.e. skimming, scanning)
5. Developing an awareness of the structure of written texts in English
6. Taking a critical stance to the contents of the texts

It means that the component reading will facilitate the students in understanding any text. They can improve their ability in reading lesson and the teacher expected to them in order that can give improvement for the students. 

e.       The Factors Influence Reading Ability

According to Kathlen in Nuryana (2009: 18) there are many factors that influence students’ reading ability it can be seen as follows:

1.      Internal Factors

Internal factors mean factors that influence the students come from inside.

a)      Background Knowledge

The amount of knowledge we have about topic influence how easily and how fast we will able to read about it. Suppose we were asked to read as excerpt from an organic chemistry text. If we have completed several chemistry courses, the excerpt would be fairly easy to understand. On the other hand, if we have never taken chemistry difficult to read, and we would probably understand very little.

b)      Physical and Mental State

How we fell, how much sleep we had, whether we are recovering from a cold, and whether we are happy or relaxed after enjoying a dinner, can all affect our ability to read and concentrate. Ideally, try to complete analytic or careful reading assignments when we are at our physical peak and can maintain an optimum level of concentrate.

c)      Interest Level

Most of people have little difficult understanding and remembering material if the subject is highly interesting. Interest, then, can facilitate comprehension and rate; also, a lack of interest or motivation can have an adverse affect.

d)     Reading Skill

Our ability to comprehend directly influences how well and how fast we are able to read a given page: our vocabulary is also an important factor. If our vocabulary is limited, for example, we will encounter numerous unfamiliar words that will impair our comprehension and slow down. On the other hand, an extensive, well-develop vocabulary will enable us to grasp meanings accurately and rapidly.

2.      External Factors

External factors means factors that come from outside of the students, for example: reading facility, reading purpose, parent motivation, economic background, reading habit, teacher, environment, etc. 

f.        Components of reading Paragraphs

            According to Syafi‘i  et al, (2007:2) states that three are three components of paragraph that may help students to read carefully. They are:

a.          Topic sentence or main idea

The main idea of a paragraph is what the author wants students to know about the topic. Identifying the topic can generally help the reader to understand the main idea. The main idea makes a particular statement or emphasizes a special aspect of the topic. The main idea is usually expressed as complete thought, and the main idea usually indicates the author’s reason or purpose for writing and the message he or she wants to share with the reader. The main idea is not only in the beginning of the paragraph, but also in the middle and at the end of the paragraph.

b.         Supporting Sentences

Supporting sentences/supporting details should also help students from an impression that will reveal the topic. The support can take the from of examples, reasons, statistics, explanations, or simply relevant information. It is also support of main idea in order that all contents of text can be understood easily.

c.          Making inferences/Concluding

The problem including the test of English as a foreign language is making inferences. In this question type, students need to use the evidence students have to make an inference. It means that after students have evidence from reading a passage, students can make a logical conclusion based on the evidences; it can be about the author’s viewpoints.

     In addition, Brown (2004: 206) stated that there are some reading comprehension question features that can be evaluated:

1.      Main ideas

2.      Expressions/idiom/phrase in context

3.      Inference (implied detail)

4.      Grammatical features

5.      Detail (scanning for a specifically stated detail)

6.      Excluding fact not written (unstated detail)

7.      Supporting idea

8.      Vocabulary in context

9.      Locating reference

From the components of reading above, it can be known that the students will understand the paragraphs and they must master the components of reading first. Related to the 2006 curriculum, the components of reading that should be learned are main idea, supporting idea, vocabulary in context, locating reference and inference. Thus, the writer used these components as indicator of this research.     

B.     Review of Related Finding

There are some researcher had done their research entitled to the correlation between students’ reading interest and their reading comprehension. First, Nuryana (2009: iii) found that “there is positive correlation between students’ interest in reading and their reading comprehension ability in learning English at SMPN 3 Ukui. It means that between students interest in learning and their reading comprehension have positive correlation. Zam (2009: 65) found that: the correlation between motivation towards English and the speaking ability of the female students of English Study Program FKIP-UNRI are in good level. It means that most of the students have good motivation to speak English, especially in term of presentation. Motivation is needed, motivation is one of influence factor that can change behavior, so with motivation can make the speaking ability of the students be well.

Haji (2004: 49) found that there is significant correlation between the students’ motivation and their achievement in attending English course for the sixth year students of SD Santa Maria in Pekanbaru. It means that in fact the most of students do not want to follow courses. Salwa (2010: 53) found that “There are two hypothesis needed to be answered from her research, the hypotheses are: there is no correlation between the motivation towards speaking and the speaking achievement of the fifth semester students of English study program FKIP Riau University and there is a correlation between the motivation towards and the speaking achievement of the fifth semester students of English study program FKIP Riau University. It means that only a few of English students use English in communication while others seldom practices in real environment, this problem caused by lack of students motivation, so that motivation is very important for students with motivation can easy to get the goal of  learning process.

C.    Conceptual Framework

Interest is persisting tendency to attention an object, with emotion and felling. The students’ interest in learning is very influencing their ability in reading. Most of students are lazy to read, because they have low interest in learning. We are as a teacher should know how to improve the students’ interest in learning English especially in reading class. Reading comprehension is the way of students to understand about text. In short in this research the researcher concludes that there are some factors that needed to be operated in conceptual framework. Hornby in Nuryana  (2009: 21) says that a concept is an idea underlying something general nation.

There are two variable in this research. They are variable X and Y, variable X means the students’ interest, and variable Y means the students’ ability in reading comprehension.

Variable X:

a)      The indicators of the Interest in learning

1.      curiosity 

2.      novelty

3.      prior knowledge

4.      purpose

5.      perspective

6.      explicitness and coherence

Variable Y:

b)        The indicators of students’ ability in Reading Comprehension Ability 

1.      Students are able to find main

2.      Students are able to find supporting idea

3.      Students are able to find identify the vocabularies in the text

4.      Students are able to find locating reference

5.      Students are able to make inferences

D.    Hypothesis

The hypotheses will be resulted in this research, such as:

Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): There is a correlation between students’ interest in learning English and their reading comprehension ability at grade eight of SMPN 1 Siak Hulu.

Null Hypothesis (Ho): There is no correlation between students’ interest in     learning English and their reading comprehension ability at grade eight of SMPN 1 Siak Hulu.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A.    Kind of the Research

This research was designed as correlational research as one of quantitative research. Creswell (2005: 325) defines that correlational research is statistical test to determine the tendency or pattern for two (or more) variables or two sets of data to vary consistently. It means that the researcher used the correlation statistical test to describe and measure the degree of relationship between two variable of this research. In correlational research there were two parts of design, that were explanatory design and prediction design. But, in this research the researcher used explanatory design because he explained the two variable of this research. Creswell (2005: 327) defines that explanatory research design is a correlational research design in which the researcher is interested in the extent to which two variables (or more) co-vary, that is, where changes in one variable are reflected in changes in the other.

B.     Population and Sample

The population of this research was all of students at the eighth grade of SMPN 1 Siak Hulu. There were eight classes for grade eight of the students at this school. Each of class (VIII.A up to VIII.H) consists of (34, 37, 36, 32, 38, 37, 36, and 33 students). So, the amount all of the students were 283 students. Since of the number was large, it was necessary to have sample.

With regard to the population number, the researcher has been taken sample because the total of population was large number. Gay (2000: 121) defines that sampling is the process of selecting a number of individuals for a study in such a way that they represent the larger group from which they are selected. It means that the researcher used purposive sampling to collect the data. The researcher was not presented all of the students but he takes one class as delegation from all of the students. Gay (2000:138) also states that purposive sampling is the researcher selects a sample based on his or her experience or knowledge of the group to be sample. In addition, according to Arikunto (2006: 131) sample adalah sebagian atau wakil populasi yang diteliti. Indeed, the researcher took one class as the participants in getting the data. The sample in this research was the students at class VIII D of Junior High School 1 Siak Hulu.

Table 3.1

Population and sample of the Eight

SEX	POPULATION	SAMPLE
Male	123	14
Female	160	18
Total	283	32

C.    Instrumentations

There were some instruments have been used by the researcher in this research, they were test and questionnaire it can be seen as follows:

1.      Test

To measure students’ ability was using test. We could know how was their understanding with material have been learnt by the students if the test was used. Test was important point in this research because the researcher wants to know the students’ ability in reading comprehension. The researcher also used this instrument to identify the percentage of the students’ ability in reading comprehension.

2.      Questionnaire

          It has been used by the researcher in identifying and knowing the percentage of students’ reading interest. Creswell (2005: 217) states that: “on questionnaires, you ask some questions that are close ended and some that open-ended”. So, the researcher has been given some question to the students, and the students have been guided by the researcher to checklist on the blank box of the table. The form of table can be seen in the following:

Table 3.2

The questionnaire

No	The questionnaire	A	B	C	D	E
1
2
3
4
5

A         :  Always = 5               C         :  Sometime = 3           E          :  Never = 1

B         :  Often    = 4              D         :  Seldom     = 2

   (Gay 2000: 158)

D.    Data Collection Technique

There were some techniques in collecting the data for this research they were test and questionnaire.

1.      Test

This instrument was used by the researcher to get the data about the students’ ability in reading comprehension. The researcher used this instrument to know the percentage of their reading comprehension. In reading test, the researcher gave descriptive and recount text. The form of the test was multiple-choice as a form of assessment in which the students were asked to select one of correct answer among a, b, c, and d. In this test, the students read two or three paragraphs that were provided by the researcher, after that the students answered 20 questions that were related to the paragraph. Each of correct answer was made by the students have been scored 5 point. In short, if the students were correct the entire test, they have been getting 100 point. 

2.      Questionnaire

This instrument was as supporting instruments for the test. The researcher gave close-ended questions to the students that correlate to the research problems. In this instrument contained 20 items that indicated the students’ interest, they were going to select one of the choices of any single items such as always, often, sometime, seldom, and never.

E.     Techniques of Analyzing the Data

The data were gathered from the participants of this research by using test and questionnaire have been analyzed by the researcher to identify the correlation between the students’ reading interest and their reading comprehension and to know what factors that influenced the correlation between the students’ reading interest and their reading comprehension.

The data that were gained from test and questionnaire have been analyzed simultaneously with quantitative data by using formula can be seen as follows:

                   R_tris =

Where:

                        R_tris        = coefficient of correlation

Or         = the lower ordinate

Ot         = the higher ordinate

M          = mean

SD tot = the total of standard deviation

P          = individual proportion 

                                                                                                    (Arikunto, 2006 : 280)

Then, to interpret the level of students’ reading interest has been interpreted based on the following terms:

Tabel 3.3

 Level of the students’ interest

Score	Categories
76-100	High
60-75	Midle
0-59	Low

                                                                                               (Arikunto, 1996: 244)

In order to get the description of the answer that was given by the students, the data have been analyzed as in the following formula:

N =  x 100

Where : N= Score

           

The students’ reading comprehension has been classified according to the score they got from the test. Then, their ability has been classified into four level. The levels of ability were follow:

Table 3.4

The Participants Score

Interval	Categorizes
76 – 100	Good
56 – 75	Fair
40 – 55	Less
0 – 39	Bad

                                                                                                (Arikunto, 1996: 244)