COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT BETWEEN HIGH AND
LOW STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN READING AT THE
SECOND GRADE OF SMPN1 GEDUNG AJI,
TULANG BAWANG
By
ANI MEITIKASARI
A Script
Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of The Requirement for S-1 Degree
in
The Language and Arts Education Department of The Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
ABSTRACT
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW
STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN READING AT THE SECOND GRADE OF
SMPN1 GEDUNG AJI, TULANG BAWANG
By
ANI MEITIKASARI
In the classroom, there are the high and low motivated students which have varied reading achievement. The students could not comprehend the reading text so that they did not pass the standard quality of the school (KKM). There are many factors that may make them difficult to read their handbook and comprehend it; one of them is students’ lack of interest and motivation. Motivation is one of the psychological factors that influence the language achievement especially in reading comprehension achievement. Therefore, this research is intended to find out whether or not there is a difference between the students with high motivation and those with low motivation in reading comprehension achievement. The design of this research is ex post facto research design by using comparative study. This research was conducted in SMPN 1 Gedung Aji, Tulang Bawang, and the population was the second grade that is consists of 56 students. The instruments of this research are questionnaire of motivation in reading to measure the
students’ motivation and the multiple choice test to measure their reading comprehension achievement.
ii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendices pages
1. Questionnaire of Reading Motivation………... 74
2. Reading Comprehension of Try Out Test……… 80
3. Students’ Reading Work Sheet……… 91
4. Level of Difficulty Reading Test……….. 92
5. Discrimination Power of Reading Test………. 94
6. Reliability of Try Out Test……… 96
7. Validity of Questionnaire………. 97
8. Validity of Reading Test……….. 100
9. Students’ Motivation……… 102
10.Students’ Reading Achievement……….. 105
11.The Data Distribution of Students’ Motivation……… 108
12.The Students’ Motivation and Reading Achievement………. 109
13.The Students’ Low Motivation and Reading Achievement…………. 111
14.The Students’ High Motivation and Reading Achievement…………. 112
15.The Computation of Reliability of Try Out Test……… 113
16.Reliability of Questionnaire……….. 114
iii
18.One Way Anova……… 118
19.The Difference of Reading Achievement between High and Low
LIST OF CHARTS
Charts pages
1. Students’ Motivation between High Motivated Students and
Low Motivated Students in Competence and Reading Efficiency
Category………...… 48
2. Students’ Motivation between High Motivated Students and Low
Motivated in Intrinsic Motivation Category……… 49
3. Students’ Motivation between High Motivated Students and Low
Motivated Students in Extrinsic Motivation Category... 51
4. Students’ Motivation between High Motivated Students and Low
Motivated Students in Social Aspect of Reading
Category.………..……… 52
5. Students’ Reading Achievement Based Aspects of
LIST OF TABLES
Table pages
1. The Construction of Reading Motivation………... 35
2. Reading Specification………... 39
3. Students’ Score of Questionnaire of Motivation……….. 46
4. Reading Comprehension Achievement……… 52
5. Students’ Reading Achievement Based Aspects of Reading……….. 53
6. Students’ Motivation in Reading……….. 75
7. Level of Difficulty Reading Test……….. 92
8. Discrimination Power of Reading Test………. 94
9. Reliability of Try Out Test……… 96
10.Validity of Questionnaire………. 93
11.Validity of Reading Test………. 97
12.Students’ Motivation……… 102
13.Students’ Reading Achievement……….. 105
14.The Data Distribution of Students’ Motivation……… 108
15.The Students’ Motivation and Reading Achievement………. 109
16.The Students’ Low Motivation and Reading Achievement………. 113
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with the background of problem, identification of the problems,
limitation of the problems, formulation of problems, objectives of the research,
uses of the research theoretically and practically, scope of the research, and
definition of term used in this research.
1.1.Background of the Problem
Reading is one of the language skills that is related to the understanding of the
written text in the way of communication between the writer and the reader. It
means that readers try to comprehend the text by understanding not only the
meaning but also the purpose of the text in order to get ideas/information by
accumulating the cognitive factors and the psychological factors. In the classroom
context, students must able to comprehend the reading materials that are written in
the textbooks. Based on the Guidelines of SMP Curriculum of English graduates
of Junior High School are expected to read and comprehend the text in order to
In addition, based on the observation, the junior high school students should pass
the final examination that relates to reading aspects especially reading
comprehension. Therefore, the teachers should give more emphasis on this skill.
Based on the observation and interview with an English teacher in SMPN 1
Gedung Aji, it was found out that the students could not comprehend the reading
text so that they did not pass the standard quality of the school (KKM). There are
many factors that may make them difficult to read their handbook and
comprehend it; one of them is students’ lack of interest and motivation. In this
case, the students feel bored with reading activities in the classroom. Although
they know that reading is one of the skills in learning language and they are aware
that reading has an important role to make them know more about knowledge or
information about the world, some of them do not try to apply this reason for
reading.
In this case, teachers, who have a responsibility to make the students want to
learn, already tried to create and apply some various methods or media to increase
their ability and make the teaching learning process becomes more effective and
easier. They hope that by applying the appropriate method the students have
high-desire to learn English and make them more active in the class by getting
knowledge and using language for communication such as enjoying the teaching
learning process, reading many resources related with the material by reading a
book or going to the library, discussing the material with their friend, etc. But, in
fact, it is not the same as the ideal expectation; the students do not feel
lack interest and motivation to learn. In other words, motivation may have an
important role to improve students’ performance in the learning process especially
in reading comprehension achievement.
Motivation is one of the psychological aspects that influence the language
achievement. Motivation leads the students to learn more to achieve certain goals.
In reality, in the class, there are motivated and unmotivated students. The students
who have motivation tend to have great efforts in learning English. They have a
will and they feel to enjoy learning process. So, if they face the difficulties in
learning such as getting low score in reading test, misspelling in their
pronunciation and so on, they tend to find out the solution to solve this problem
because they have a will to achieve a certain goals. They also tend to perform
their ability confidently in language and influence their achievement. Conversely,
the unmotivated students tend to learn English in a pinch. They feel forced in
learning English not because their interest and motivation. As the result, they did
not have efforts more to improve their language ability so that it effects their
achievement.
Motivation also relates to the learning intensity. It means that if the students have
a will to learn, they tend to improve their ability and knowledge more such as by
having a more time to learn English, doing their homework well, feeling
enthusiasm to read another textbooks referring the material, or discussing the
materials with their friend, so that they can be easier to participate in learning
process in the class. Therefore, it can be assumed that motivation influences their
Therefore, by considering the explanation above, the researcher tried to
investigate whether students with high motivation are different from low’ ones in
reading comprehension achievement.
1.2.Identification of the Problems
Based on the background discussed above, the writer would like to identify the
problems that may cause the problem under discussion as follows:
1. The teaching learning process especially in reading class activity did not
run well.
2. Some of the students tend to be a passive learner without participating
actively.
3. The materials used by the teacher are not appropriate with the students.
4. The method used by the teacher is not appropriate with the students.
5. Students cannot comprehend the reading text well.
6. Students did not pass the standard score of the school (KKM).
7. Students do not feel enthusiastic with the teaching learning process
especially in reading activity.
8. Students’ reading motivation is still low.
9. There are motivated and unmotivated students in the class
1.3.Limitation of the Problems
Based on the identification of problems especially problems that may happen in
the classroom during the teaching learning process, the writer focuses on the
differences between students with high and low motivation in their reading
comprehension achievement.
1.4. Formulation of the Problems
Based on the limitation of the problem above, the writer would like to formulate
the research problems as follows:
a. Is there any significant difference between the students with high motivation and low motivation in reading comprehension achievement?
b. Do students who have high motivation have better reading comprehension achievement than the low’ ones?
1.5.Objectives of the research
Based on the formulation of problems above, the objectives of this research are:
a. to find out whether or not there is a difference between the students with
high motivation and those with low motivation in reading comprehension
achievement
b. to investigate whether or not students who have high motivation have
1.6.Uses of the research
By conducting this study, the writer hopes that the results may give the following
contributions:
Theoretically, the results of this research are expected to be useful in order to
verify some theories related to the students’ motivation in learning English and
theories of reading comprehension.
Practically, the results of this research may contribute:
- to support further research about the motivation and reading comprehension;
- to answer the writer’s curiosity on the differences in reading achievement based
on students’ motivation; and
- to make the teacher of EFL more concerned about their motivation in learning
English in order to improve the students’ reading comprehension.
1.7.Scope of the research
This research is focused on the students’ motivation i.e. high and low motivation
which has better achievement in reading comprehension achievement. It is a
quantitative research that was already conducted at SMPN 1 Gedung Aji, Tulang
Bawang in the second grade of 2012/2013 academic year. The students’
motivation, as independent variable, is measured by using used MRQ (Motivation
for Reading Questionnaire) as suggested by Guthrie and Wigfield (2004) consists
reading curiosity, reading involvement, importance of reading, reading work
avoidance, competition in reading, recognition for reading, reading for grades,
social reasons for reading, and compliance. Reading achievement as a dependent
variable is measured by using test of reading comprehension. The test is focused
on the narrative and recount text based on the 2006 curriculum of English for
Junior High School.
1.8.Definition of Terms
Reading is one of the language skills related to the understanding of the written text in the way of communication between the writer and the reader. In other
words, reading is a process of comprehending the text not only understanding the
meaning but also understanding the purpose of the text in order to get
ideas/information.
Motivation is high-desire to learn English and make the students more active in class by getting knowledge and using language for communication such as
enjoying the teaching learning process, reading many resources related to the
materials by reading a book or going to the library, and discussing the material
CHAPTER 2 FRAME OF THEORIES
This chapter deals with the review of previous research related to motivation in
reading and the review of related literature which consists of the description about
the concept of motivation, classification of motivation, concept of reading
comprehension, type of reading, the relationship between the students’
motivation and reading comprehension achievement and hypothesis.
2.1.Review of Previous Research
There have been several studies which have been carried relating to the topic
under discussion, but it may be seen from different perspectives. For example,
Rismars (2011) investigated the correlation of students’ motivation and language
learning strategies on their reading comprehension achievement at the second year
students of SMAN 1 Bandar Lampung. The result showed that students’
motivation and their language learning strategies had a positive and high
correlation with their reading comprehension achievement.
In addition, by considering the type of motivation which influences the
achievement, Chang (2005) in his thesis investigated the relationship between
students of English in Taiwan. She found that the most frequently motivation was
external motivation and internal motivation correlated highly with the four
learning language strategies.
The other research which proves that motivation influences their achievement in
language learning is conducted by Pei (2009). His study investigated the
relationship between motivation and achievement. He states that instrumental
motivation influences both high achievers and low achievers; while high achievers
have greater integrative motivation than lower ones; interest plays an extremely
important role in this study and high achievers have a strong sense of
achievement. Moreover, Choosri (2011) investigated the relationship between
motivation and students’ English learning achievement in vocational certificate
level Technical College Students. He explained that motivation had positive
relationship with students’ English learning achievement.
Therefore, motivation as psychological aspects plays an important role in order to
improve the students’ achievement. Motivation closely refers to the students’ want
to learn and their efforts including their learning strategies to solve their problem
during teaching learning process. As the result, motivation influences their
achievement. By considering those studies above, the researcher wants to
investigate the differences reading achievement between students with high and
2.2.Review of Related Literature
This section contains some related literature under discussion such as concept of
motivation in learning English, classification of motivation, questionnaire of
reading motivation, concept of reading comprehension, types of reading, and the
relationship between motivation and reading comprehension.
2.2.1. Concept of Motivation in Learning English
In general, a will to do something is commonly called motivation. Motivation is
closely related to students’ needs or certain goals and their efforts to achieve it. In
learning English, motivation is defined as the students’ will to learn English
according to their needs in order to achieve their goals. It means that the students
with high motivation are those who have high-desire to participate actively in
teaching learning process. According to Brown (1987: 114), motivation is an
inner drive, impulse, emotion or desire that moves one to a particular action. In
other words, motivation is commonly thought as an inner state of need or desire
that activates an individual to do something to satisfy them. Someone will learn
language if they feel they need to use language, so they have a will to learn
language itself.
It is supported by Williams and Burden (1997) who states that motivation has
been widely accepted by teachers and researchers as one of the key factors that
influence the success of foreign language learning. In addition, Qin (2002) says
that motivation is a very important factor which determines the success or failure
of using learning strategies, willpower of learning, goal setting, and the
persistence in learning. It can be said that people who have a motivation to learn
language tend to have a definitely goals and enroll their energy intensively to
reach those goals. They will have a reason to learn so that they learn seriously and
persistently.
Qin (2003) also says that learning motivation influences the learners’ autonomous
learning ability and determines the learners’ confidence in overcoming learning
difficulty. These theories on motivation demonstrate that motivation is one of the
crucial factors determining the success in language learning. Motivation
influences their feeling and their preparation in learning English because they will
think English is one of important subjects that should be learned. It means that if
they have a motivation to learn English, they will enjoy learning it and planning
as well as possible to improve their ability in learning English. As the result, they
put great efforts to learn it and it will improve their language achievement. In
other words, the motivated students tend to solve their faced problem in learning
process. Therefore, when they already find out the solution, they will prepare it to
perform their language ability confidently.
Moreover, Brown (2000: 160) states that it is easy in second language learning to
claim that a learner was successful with the proper motivation. With similar
views, Gardner (2006: 241) posits that students with higher levels of motivation
will do better than students with lower levels. He further adds that if one is
motivated, he/she has reasons (motives) for engaging in the relevant activities,
achieve the goal, enjoys the activities, etc. Those current theories enforces that
motivation plays an important role to determine their success in learning language
by improving their achievement.
In addition, Gardner (1985) explored four other motivational orientations:
(a) Reason for learning,
(b) Desire to attain the learning goal,
(c) Positive attitude toward the learning situation, and
(d) Effortful behavior.
It can be said that motivation refers to the orientation in learning such as the
students’ reason for learning because of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Therefore
they have desire to achieve their goals and have positive attitude in learning by
improving their effort to solve the faced problem.
Moreover, according to Gardner (1985), a highly motivated individual will:
(a) enjoy learning the language, and
(b) want to learn the language,
(c) strive to learn the language.
The students who have high motivation tend to learn enjoyably and feel happy
when they learn language. It affects their will to learn language and their efforts to
Furthermore, motivation in learning language can be seen from several theories as
follows:
1. Expectancy – Value Theory
The cognitive notion of expectancy refers to the degree to which individuals
anticipate that their performance in a task will result in success. Value refers
to the relative attractiveness of succeeding or failing at a task (Wigfield &
Tonks, 2002: 54) or to beliefs that individuals hold about the reasons they
want to do an achievement task (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002: 408). It implies that
normally people have their own expectancy before they do something; the
students have an internal motive to learn language in certain way based on the
expectation. Therefore, they will have a certain way to achieve their
expectation.
2. Achievement Motivation Theories
a. Achievement Theories (Atkinson & Raynor, 1974)
In general, people who have a high need for achievement tend to do the
best for their own sake by initiating their achievement activities with high
intensity and persisting in the face of failure. In addition, fear of failure
will guide them to approaching the positive outcome by formulating the
b. Goal-Theory: (Locke & Latham, 1994)
It has differentiated three separate types of goals: Mastery goals (also
called learning goals) which focus on gaining competence or mastering a
new set of knowledge or skills; Performance/normative goals (also called
ego-involvement goals) which focus on achieving normative-based
standards, doing better than others, or doing well without a lot of effort;
Social goals which focus on relationships among people. In the context of
school learning, the important goals is learning goals that contains how
well they can get the knowledge and perform their ability from the
material given during the learning process. After that, it reflects with their
social ability in order to communicate and integrate with the society by
using their knowledge.
3. Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000)
It is assumed that people will do something if they permit their determination
by considering what is interesting, personally important and vitalizing.
According to Ryan and Deci (2000), the degree to which social contexts allow
the satisfaction of these needs is believed to give rise to different types and
qualities of motivation:
The need for competence pertains to the need to experience opportunities
to interact with the social environment, and show one’s capacities
The need for relatedness implies a need to feel that one belongs with, is
cared for, respected by, and connected to significant others (e.g., a teacher,
a family) who are disseminating goals such as classroom values;
The need for autonomy involves a sense of unpressured willingness to
engage in an activity. It is not to be confused with the need for
independence. It assumed that people will do something if they permit
their determination by considering what is interesting, personally
important and vitalizing.
In addition, based on this theory, motivation in learning language is
divided into two major categories: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
In addition, Day and Bamford (1998: 27) state that people do what they expect to
accomplish successfully and tend to avoid what they expect they cannot
accomplish. It means that people want to read a difficult book if they put a high
value on the results of their efforts. The figure below shows that there are 4 main
variables that should be considered when the teachers want to motivate the
students’ willingness to read a second language. It divides into 2 points:
Expectancy and Value. Expectancy refers to the materials and reading ability.
Value refers to attitude and socio-cultural environment. It can be said that readers
will have a motivation to read if the book provided their interest topic that reflects
their attitude toward reading and it is supported by their reading ability and their
MOTIVATION
Figure 1. Model of major variables of motivation in decision to read in second language (Day et al (1998: 28)).
Thus, motivation relates to the learners need and their desire to achieve their
certain goals, so that they have a positive attitude such as enjoy learning English
and have a great effort such as motivational intensity to learn and their confidence
to solve their faced problem during the learning process in order to achieve their
goals; in this case, the language achievement.
In addition, Heckhausen and Kuhl (1985) developed Theory of Action Control
that tells about how motivation can influences one wants to do something and that
one wants to do it is one thing, but its actual implementation and successful
completion is another. The key components of action control model are
„intention’, which is defined as an activated plan to which the actor has committed
is, the active use of action control strategies to protect dynamic (i.e. ongoing)
behavioral intentions. An activated plan with support from the motivation
memory system becomes what Kuhl (1987, p. 284) calls a “dynamic plan”, which
means that the executional process has been instigated. From this point on the
motivation system carries out a new, chiefly maintenance role, that is, it keeps
sustaining (i.e. energizing) the pursuit of the intention and also protecting it
against the detrimental effects of competing plans. Once the plan has been
completed, the motivation system is turned off. If the execution of the plan is
unsuccessful, an attempt is made to abandon the plan.
They also proposed Process Model of L2 Motivation that contains two
dimensions: Action Sequence and Motivational Influences. The first dimension
represents the behavioral process whereby initial wishes, hopes, and desires are
first transformed into goals, then into intentions, leading eventually to action and,
hopefully, to the accomplishment of the goals, after which the process is
submitted to final evaluation. The second dimension of the model, Motivational
Influences, includes all the energy sources and motivational forces that underlie
and fuel the behavioral process.
It can be said that the students, who have motivation in learning English, will have
an intentions to pay attention more in their learning. Therefore, it will influence
their action and lead them to learn intensively about the language such as trying
an appropriate learning strategies to overcome their difficulties during learning
can, having much more time to learn or going library to broaden their, etc in order
to get the certain goals, the language achievement.
Furthermore, separating various levels of motivation, Bandura (1991) provided
the following definition: Motivation is a general construct linked to a system of
regulatory mechanisms that are commonly ascribed both directive and activating
functions. At the generic level it encompasses the diverse classes of events that
move one to action. Level of motivation is typically indexed in terms of choice of
courses of action and intensity and persistence of effort. Attempts to explain the
motivational sources of behavior therefore primarily aim at clarifying the
determinants and intervening mechanisms that govern the selection, activation,
and sustained direction of behavior toward certain goals. (p. 69).
Referring to the reading comprehension skill, the motivation also plays an
important role in order to do the best in reading. In the beginning, the students
who have high motivation tend to have a will in reading so that it will lead them
to read many books that interest them to spent their time, as the result they will
have a broader knowledge than the low one. Next, if they faced the problem
during teaching learning process, they will have a great effort to solve their
problem such as trying many learning strategies or trying to find out the media
that will help them in overcoming their problem. As the result, motivation relates
to not only the learning intensity that make them will have more time to learn
enjoy, but also the language performance (self-confidence) that influences their
Motivation also relates to the students’ attitude about the teacher and the
environment in learning; the students will have a positive think about the teacher,
therefore, when the teacher explains the reading materials or delivers the
strategies of answering reading questions, they will pay attention more which will
be applied by them.
2.2.2. Classification of Motivation
Motivation is an important concept in psycholinguistics. There are many theories
about the classification of motivation. According to Deci and Ryan (1985),
motivation can be divided into two basic types:
a. Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation reflects the desire to do something because it is enjoyable.
It can be said that intrinsic motivation refers to internals factor of people; they
do it because of themselves. It may not be influenced by praise or awards. For
example, the students enjoy writing a narrative text because they like to write
it as their hobby, some of them interest with reading a fiction text because they
are curious with the topic and want to know the content of the text.
b. Extrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivation reflects the desire to do something because of external
rewards such as awards, money, and praise. People can not enjoy with their
activities because extrinsic factors like get a rewards are their motivation.
the best for writing a narrative text if they get a good score from the teacher
and the senior high students will chose a certain major because of the salary or
certain available qualification.
Gardner and Lambert (1972) classify motivation into two categories based on two
different kinds of attitudes:
1. Instrumental Motivation
Instrumental motivation refers to motivation to acquire language as a means
for getting instrumental goals such as furthering carrier, reading technical
material, and translation. It means that instrumental motivation reflects to the
learner's desire to learn a language for utilitarian purposes.
2. Integrative motivation
Integrative motivation is used when a learners wishes to integrate himself
within the culture of L2 group, to identify himself with and become a part of
that society. It means that integrative motivation refers to the desire to learn a
language to integrate successfully into the target language community.
Therefore, a learner is integratively motivated when he/she learns a language
because he/she wants to know more of the culture and values of the foreign
language group… to make contact with the speakers of the languages… to live
in the country concerned (Wilkins, 1972: 184).
There are many theories that reveal the kind of motivation. Based on the
according to the point of views; from inside and outside. Ryan and Deci (1985)
tend to focus on the origin of stimuli factors; external and internal. External
factors refer to stimuli given by others to lead them to learn such as rewards,
praises etc. On other hand, internal factors refer to their own willing and
expectancy to learn such as they will enjoy read a certain book which contains
their interest topic.
Whereas, the type of motivation presented by Gardner and Lambert (1972) tends
to focus on the learner attitude toward language i.e. instrumental and integrative.
Instrumental motivation aims to external desire which influences their attitude and
effort to learn language; it means that implicitly the learners have an expectancy
which guides them to learn language in order to achieve certain external desire in
the future such as fulfilling the job requirement, getting good score in English
achievement and so on. In the contrary, integrative motivation is more concern
with the internal desire which reflects their attitudes toward language such as they
only fulfill their hobbies with pleasure in reading certain topic or they want to
know the culture and values of language in order to integrate with the society.
Therefore, those types of motivation have a similar assumption implicitly; there
are two factors that influence the learner motivation i.e. inside and outside.
2.2.3. Level of Motivation
In the classroom, there are students who have high and low motivation. The high
motivation students tend to have great efforts and ways as the result of their
expectation in reading. It means that they will have an internal motive to learn
students did not have great efforts in a way to achieve their expectation; therefore,
they tend to learn language as usual without trying to do the best in learning.
In addition, according to achievement theories (Atkinson & Raynor, 1974), the
high motivated students refer to their language performance in order to show their
ability and to get the certain achievement that they want. It means that they have
awareness to attain learning goals; their performance and their achievement.
Therefore, it also refers to the learning intensity and the effort by trial error. In
other words, they will have a persistence to formulate the solution of their
problem so that it influences their performance and their achievement.
Moreover, based on self determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), the students
who have high motivation in the classroom tend to have unpressured willingness
to learn, so that they will learn language based on their own desire without felling
forcedly. Conversely, the low motivated students feel a pressured willingness to
learn, therefore, they can not enjoy the learning process.
Therefore, the high motivation is one of the factors that cause successful learning,
but the later process of creating successful learning which can develop and train
the motivation may be under teacher’s control. It means that what they think of
the teacher and what they think of the course heavily affect their lesson, for
example, the choice of teaching materials and the information content should be
2.2.4. Questionnaire of Reading Motivation
There are 11 constructs of reading motivation that were originally developed by
Wigfield and Guthrie (2004) to assess different aspects of student’s reading
motivation by considering help of motivational interviews with students,
classroom reading instruction observations, and alignment with motivational
theory.
1. Reading Efficacy
2. Reading Challenge Competence and Reading Efficiency
3. Reading Work Avoidance
4. Reading Involvement Achievement Values and Goals
5. Importance of Reading (Intrinsic Motivation)
6. Reading Curiosity
7. Competition in Reading Achievement Values and Goals
8. Recognition for Reading (Extrinsic Motivation)
9. Reading for Grades
10. Social Reasons for Reading Social Aspects of Reading
The first category concerns an individual's sense of efficacy. It consists of 3
criteria; Reading Efficacy, Reading Challenge and Reading Work Avoidance.
1. The notion of Reading Efficacy refers to their beliefs about their ability
that can be successful in reading
2. The notion of Reading Challenge refers to the satisfaction of
understanding complicated ideas in a text; it means that the learner have a
willingness to take on the difficult text.
3. The notion of Work Avoidance refers to aspects of reading the informer
dislike or their desire to avoid reading activities.
The second category is derived from theories of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,
achievement goal orientation, and achievement values, and is further
sub-categorized into two parts. The first is mostly concerned with intrinsic motivation,
and the second with extrinsic motivation and performance goal orientation (Ames,
1992; Nicholls, Cheung, Lauer & Patachnick, 1989).
The former that contains an intrinsic motivation entails Reading Curiosity,
Reading Involvement, and the Importance of Reading.
1. Reading Curiosity refers to the desire to learn about a certain idea, and is
related to work on reading interest (Renninger, 1992; Schiegele, 1996)
2. Reading Involvement refers to the enjoyment involved with reading
different kinds of texts, and, thus, corresponds to Schallert and Reed's
3. Importance of Reading refers to subjective task value about reading that is
grounded in Wigfield and Eccles' (1992) work.
The second sub-category which determines an external motivation includes
Competition in Reading, Reading Recognition, and Reading for Grades.
1. Reading Competition is concerned with an individual's attempt to
outperform others in reading,
2. Reading Recognition is related with tangible forms of recognition such as
teacher or peer approval for success in reading,
3. Reading for Grades is associated mainly with the teacher's evaluation of
learners' reading performance.
The last category consists of Social Reasons for Reading and Reading
Compliance, based on the assumption that reading can be a social activity in a
way that children often read in social settings and, thus, read to achieve social
goals.
1. Social Reasons for Reading are concerned with the process in which
children share the meanings of the text with significant others
2. Reading Compliance refers to the kind of reading required by the teacher
or others’ expectation
2.2.5. Concept of Reading Comprehension
According to Goodman and Smith as cited in Suparman (2005), reading is an
reading is defined as the meaningful interpretation of printed or written verbal
symbols. Grabe (1997) also states that reading is an interaction between reader
and text; reading requires efficient knowledge of world and a given topic also an
efficient knowledge of the language. It means that the readers try to process the
reading passage in their brain accumulated with the background knowledge and
the meaning of the vocabulary and making sense of the ideas to get some
information or message in. Therefore, reading is concern not only with
understanding the meaning but also interpreting and attributing the interpretation
about the meaning in the text.
Bernhardt (1991) says that reading consists of two rubrics: cognitive and social. In
the cognitive perspective, reading is a process that act on information like a
computer program; so the internal interpretation of duplicate is not a duplicate if
the input text, the comprehension of the text was accepted when “if….then”
statements; as a result of reading the passage, understanding the meaning by
making sense of the text, interpreting the meaning to become the term of
“problem solving”, already completed by the readers. Besides that, in the social
perspective, reading performs a socializing function which is reader acculturates
and makes them belong to the group. It means that reading certain textbooks make
them know about other social and culture values especially the culture of the text
comes. It can facilitate the readers to interpret the real meaning of the text by
considering the social aspect. In addition, people who have broad knowledge can
The main purpose for reading is to comprehend the ideas in the material. Without
comprehension, reading would be empty and meaningless. It means that the
readers not only know or understand the meaning of the word in the text but also
comprehend the main idea of the text and its purposes. Chundong & Dai (1996:
48) says that the ability of reading is actually referring to the ability of reading
comprehension. Comprehension is what most people think reading is. This is
because comprehension is the main reason why we read. Reading comprehension
refers to understanding what a text is all about. It is more than just understanding
words in isolation. It is putting them together and using prior knowledge to
develop meaning or knowing the purpose of the text. Reading comprehension is
the most complex aspect of reading which requires the reader to draw upon
general thinking skills so that the readers involves actively to understand the text
by asking and answering the questions based on text or summarizing what they
have read.
In addition, there are the reading aspects that should be considered in measuring
reading comprehension: (1) Determining main idea; the main idea refers to the
author develops through out the paragraph. It is not always explicitly sated in the
sentences, so that the readers should be able to comprehend the text and think out
the text. (2) Inference; it refers to the prediction about something unknown based
on the available facts and information in the text by using the readers’ logical
thinking. (3) References; it contains words or phrases used as a signal to know
other meaning referring the words provided in the text in order to avoid
unnecessary repletion of words or phrases. (4) Finding detail information; in order
specific information which affects the meaning by giving definition, examples,
facts, the process of comparison or analogy etc. (5) Vocabulary; it plays an
important role to understanding the meaning of the text by identifying the
synonyms, antonyms, compound words and their components, and also
grammatical category.
2.2.6. Types of Reading
Types of reading can be classified into two types of activities based on the
purposes of reading: intensive and extensive reading.
a. Extensive reading
Hafiz and Tudor (1989: 5) claim that the pedagogical value attributed to
extensive reading is based on the assumption that exposing learners to large
quantities of meaningful and interesting L2 material will, in the long run,
produce a beneficial effect on the learners’ command of the L2.
According to Hedge (2003: 567), extensive reading varies according to
students’ motivation and school resources. Then, the teacher has to find the
correct material to meet the students, needs. Extensive reading is an individual
activity that can be not only in class but also at home. It helps students to find
their way to be independent. Learners can be allowed to select their own
Hedge describes the advantages of extensive use in the following lines:
Learners can build their language competence, progress in their reading
ability, become more independent in their studies, acquire cultural knowledge,
and develop confidence and motivation to carry on learning (Hedge, 2003:
204-205).
It can be said that extensive reading is a reading activities to fulfill their
enjoyment independently to read and it can be done not only in formal
situation like in the school but also in the home. In other words, extensive
reading refers to read a book for pleasure. The readers will get the value from
the materials what they read such as understanding text in general or getting
new information, knowledge, and motivation in reading.
b. Intensive Reading
Intensive reading is associated with short texts used to make students explore
the meaning and get familiar with the writing mechanism. However, Hedge
states that it is only through more extensive reading that learners can gain
substantial practice in operating these strategies more independently on a
range of materials. (Hedge, 2003: 202)
Intensive reading is text reading or passage reading. In this reading the learner
read the text to get knowledge or analysis. This reading is done to carry out to
2.2.5. The Relationship between Motivation and Reading Comprehension
Reading is one of skills of language learning that aims to get idea/ information
from the text by accumulating cognitive factors like understanding the meaning
of the text and comprehend main idea based on their ability and their background
knowledge and psychological factors like motivation, attitude etc. Motivation is
defined as an inner desire to do something to achieve the certain goals. The
readers want to read a certain reading passage if they feel they need or will to
read it. In other words, the students will read the material in learning English if
they feel enjoy or need to read it.
According to Qin (2003) says that learning motivation influences the learners’
autonomous learning ability, and determines the learners’ confidence in
overcoming learning difficulty. Moreover, Brown (2000) also states that the
students will get a high achievement with proper motivation. It means that those
students who have a high motivation in learning English especially in reading
comprehension tend to perform their ability confidently and try to solve their
problem faced during the teaching learning process. Therefore, it can influence
their language performance and achievement indirectly.
2.3. Theoretical Assumptions
In the classroom, there are motivated and unmotivated students. The motivated
students tend to have a will to learn and solve their learning problem during the
teaching learning process such as find out the difficult words or their meaning.
they do not have a will to learn and solve their faced problem in learning. In
addition, motivation also refers to learning intensity of the students. It means that
the motivated students tend to have a longer time to learn than the unmotivated
ones. Therefore, it can influence their learning achievement especially in reading
comprehension achievement.
Moreover, it is also supported by Brown (2000) that the students will get a high
achievement with proper motivation. In other words, motivation as a desire of
people to do something influences their achievement. Therefore, the writer
assumes that students with high motivation will perform better in reading
comprehension and they will get better achievement than the low’ ones.
2.4. Hypothesis
By concerning the theories and the assumption above, the research formulated the
hypothesis as follow:
H0there is no significant difference between students who have high motivation
and the students who have low motivation in reading comprehension
achievement.
H1there is a significant difference between students who have high motivation
and the students who have low motivation in reading comprehension
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODS
This chapter contains of research design, population and sample of the research,
data collections, and the instruments of the research, the procedures of data
collection, data analysis, and hypothesis testing.
1.1.Research Design
The design of this research is ex post facto research design by using comparative
study. Moreover, Hatch and Farhady (1982:26) states that ex post facto design
was used when the researcher does not have control over the selection and
manipulation of the independent variable (the researcher do not give treatment in
the research). This research attempts to get the empirical data as a quantitative
research that intended to investigate whether there is a significant difference
between the students who have high motivation and the students who have low
The research design is formulated as follows:
X1
Y
X2
X1 : Students’ high motivation (Questionnaire) X2 : Students’ low motivation (Questionnaire)
Y : Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement (Test)
1.2.Variables
In this research, there are two variables: dependent variables and independent
variables. Dependent variable is a product from all interaction that involve in the
research. In other hand, independent variables is a variables in the research that
determining the effect of the dependent variable. There are the variables follow:
a. Students’ motivation as independent variable, so that it can be assumed
that students’ motivation influences the students’ reading comprehension
achievement. Students’ motivation divides into 2 levels: high and low
motivation.
b. Students’ reading comprehension achievement as dependent variable, so
1.3.Population and Sample
The population of this research is the second grade of SMPN 1 Gedung Aji,
Tulang Bawang. There are 99 students; they are the students of VIII A, VIII B and
VIII C, are placed on second year of SMPN 1 Gedung Aji. The writer will take
two classes; VII C as a try out class which consists of 30 students and class VIII A
and VIII B which consists of 56 students as a subject class. There is no favorite
class that consists of clever students only and each of the students may have the
similar opportunity to become sample of the research. Therefore, the samples of
the research are chosen randomly in order to avoid subjectivity in this research.
1.4.Data Collecting Technique
The data of this research are collected by means of two research instruments:
a. Questionnaire of Students’ Motivation
Questionnaire is one of the variables assessment that contains some questions
to be answered by the certain students related with the students’ motivation.
b. Students’ Reading Comprehension Test
The test is an objective test, in the form of multiple-choice type, to measure
the students’ reading comprehension. Multiple-choice type can be scored
1.4.1. Questionnaire of Students’ Motivation
This questionnaire is used to investigate the students’ motivation and to know the
level students’ motivation: high, medium and low motivation by calculating the
score from the criteria. The criteria are:
30 – 75 Low Motivation
76 – 90 Medium Motivation
91 – 120 High Motivation
It consists of 30 questions which refers to MRQ (Motivation for Reading
Questionnaire) intended to reflect 11 constructs of reading motivation (Guthrie &
Wigfield, 2004):
No Elements Number of Items Statements
1. Reading Efficacy 2 Items 1,2
2. Reading Challenge 3 Items 3,4,5
3. Reading Curiosity 4 Items 6,7,8,9
4. Reading Involvement 3 Items 10,11,12
5. Importance of Reading 2 Items 13,14
6. Reading Work Avoidance 2 Items 15,16
7. Competition in Reading 3 Items 17,18,19
8. Recognition for Reading 3 Items 20,21,22
9. Reading for Grades 3 Items 23,24,25
10 Social Reasons for Reading 3 Items 26,27,28
11. Compliance 2 Items 29,30
The Number of Correct Number
Score= x100
The Number of Items The instructions are:
If the statement is very different from yours, circle a 1.
If the statement is a little different from yours, circle a 2.
If the statement is a little like yours, circle a 3.
If the statement is a lot like yours, circle a 4
1.4.2. Written Test for Reading
This test is used to measure the students’ reading comprehension achievement. It
consists of 40 questions that the students answer for about 45 minutes. The correct
answer was scored 1 and the wrong one was scored 0.
The scoring system used this formula as follows:
1.5.Procedure of Data Collection
The procedures of collecting data are as follows:
1. Selecting instruments material of questionnaire and test
The instrument material was elaborated by the researcher between the focus of
the research and the Guidelines of students’ competence especially in the
reading aspect. And the questionnaire also refers to MRQ to investigate their
2. Determining research instruments
A test was administered in multiple choice form about reading comprehension
and the questionnaire about their motivation in reading.
3. Determining the sample of the research
The sample of the research comprise VIII A and VIII B classes of the second
grade of SMPN 1 Gedung Aji, Tulang Bawang consisting of 56 students
chosen by using simple probability sampling.
4. Administering Test
The test is divided into two parts: the first is questionnaire about their
motivation in reading, which consists of 30 items. The second is reading
comprehension, which also consists of 40 items.
5. Analyzing, interpreting, concluding the data gained
After data are collected, those data about students’ motivation and reading
comprehension scores were thoroughly analyzed to see the differences
between high and low motivated students in reading comprehension
achievement by using comparative study (One Way Anova), then interpret the
data and conclude the result.
3.6.Reliability
3.6.1. Reliability of the Questionnaire
Reliability is a consistency of certain measurement in getting the result. The
reliability of the questionnaire is described by using Cronbach’s alpha called
correlation coefficient which is has range between 0 and 1, (Setiyadi, 2006:
3.6.2. Reliability of Test
Reliability of the test is found by using this formula:
r1 =
Where:
r1 = coefficient of reliability between first and second half group
X = total numbers of first half group
Y = total numbers of first second group
X2 = Square of X
Y2 = Square of Y
After that, it will continue the calculation by using formula of Spearman
Brown (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 268)
2 rl
rk =
1 + rl
Where:
rk = the reliability of the test
rl = the reliability of the half test
The criteria of reliability:
0, 90 – 1, 00 = high
0, 50 – 0, 89 = moderate
3.7.Validity
Validity refers to the test measures what was intended to be measured. There are
four types of validity: face validity, content validity, construct validity and
empirical validity. The writer tends to use content and construct validity in this
research.
3.7.1. Content Validity
Content validity is related with the test items in the measurement. It means that
the test should cover the focus of the course and represent the subject matter
content. In this research, the material given is suitable with the Guidelines of SMP
Curriculum of English (KTSP for English) in second grade of Junior High School.
In order to get construct validity, the test was adopted from the students’
handbook and determines with the material that was taught by the teachers in
second semester period. In order to measure the reading comprehension test,
according to Nuttal (1985), there are five aspects of readings that should be
fulfilled as follows in table of specification below:
3.7.2. Construct Validity
Construct validity plays an important role to measure what should be
measured related to the theories. The construction of test refers to the theory in
line with Nuttal (1985) about five aspects of reading skills, i. e. determining
main idea, identifying inference, identifying reference, finding detail
information understanding vocabulary. Therefore, reading specification that
related to aspects of reading skills are construct validity, and the item number
that refers to materials students’ handbook the are a part of content validity.
3.8.Discrimination Power
The discrimination power relates to know which the items are can be
differentiated between the high and low students in answering the test. It means
that, the good items of tests can be done by the good students and the bad students
got fails in answering the test. To calculate the discrimination power, the
researcher uses the following formula:
U - L
DP =
½ N
Notes:
DP = Discrimination Power
U = the proportion of upper group students
L = the proportion of lower group students
The criteria are:
1. If the value is positive discrimination a large number of more knowledgeable students then poor students got the item correct. If the value is zero, no
students’ point of view. To see the level of difficulty, the researcher will use the
following formula:
U : the number of students who answer correctly
L : the proportion of lower group students
The criteria are:
< 0. 30 = difficult
0.30 – 0.70 = average
< 0. 70 = easy
( Shohamy, 1985: 7)
3.10. Result of Try Out
In order to make sure that the instruments i.e. questionnaire and reading test are
reliable and valid, the researcher already measured the reliability of questionnaire.
The data showed (See Appendix 11) that the reliability of questionnaire is 0.870.
It means that the reliability of questionnaire was high; therefore, it can be used to
measure the students’ motivation. The questionnaire of motivation refers to MRQ
(Motivation for Reading Questionnaire) intended to reflect 11 constructs of
reading motivation (Guthrie and Wigfield, 2004); reading efficacy, reading
challenge, reading curiosity, reading involvement, importance of reading, reading
work avoidance, competition in reading, recognition for reading, reading for
grades, social reasons for reading, and compliance.
In addition, the reading comprehension achievement is measured by using
multiple choice reading tests with providing four alternative answers (a, b, c, d).
The result showed that the test had reliability 0. 928 (See Appendix 10), therefore,
it means that the reading test had high reliability.
In this research, the validity of reading test consists of content and constructs
validity. Therefore, to make sure that the test represents the content of subject
(content validity), the researcher use the materials that was adopted from the
reading test (construct validity) refers to the five aspects of reading
comprehension i. e. determining main idea, identifying inference, identifying
reference, finding detail information and understanding vocabulary (Nuttal: 1985).
Moreover, validity of questionnaire refers to the 11 constructs of motivation in
reading that is developed by Guthrie and Wigfield (2004).
Reading test consist of 40 questions with four options for each item that should be
answered by the students about 60 minutes. Data shows that the try out test had 16
(40%) difficult items, 7 (17. 5%) easy items, and the 17 (42. 5%) are in average.
In addition, the discrimination power indexes show that 8 items are in good, 10
items are in satisfactory, 10 items are in poor and 8 items are in bad.
3.11. Hypothesis Testing
The hypothesis testing was used in order to prove the hypothesis proposed in this
research was accepted or not.
The hypothesis of this research is “there is a significant difference between
students who have high motivation and the students who have low motivation in
reading comprehension achievement”.
The hypothesis was statistically analyzed using Comparative Study (One Way
Anova) that draws the conclusion in significant level if P > 0. 05, H0 accepted, and
H0there is no significant difference between students who have high motivation
and the students who have low motivation in reading comprehension
achievement.
H1there is a significant difference between students who have high motivation
and the students who have low motivation in reading comprehension
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter deals with the conclusion of the result research and the suggestion, as
follows:
4.1. Conclusions
Based on the result of the data analysis and discussions, the researcher draws the
conclusion as follows:
1. There is significant difference between students who have high motivation and
the students who have low motivation in reading comprehension achievement
in SMPN 1 Gedung Aji, Tulang Bawang. It can be seen from the result of data
analysis that sig = 0. 016 (sig < 0.05). It means that the students with high
motivation have difference reading achievement with the students with low
motivation. In addition, the high motivated students tend to have high
achievement in three aspect of reading i. e. determining main idea, making
inference and understanding difficult vocabulary. Conversely, the low
motivated students tend to have high achievement in the term of identifying
important role in order to facilitate the students to learn more because of their
want, therefore, it can influences their achievement.
2. The students with high motivation have better achievement than the students
with low motivation. It means that if the students who have high motivation in
reading; their reading achievement was high too. It can be seen from the data
that mean score of reading achievement of students with high motivation is
46. 2 and the mean of motivation are 97. 7. Conversely, the mean score of
reading of students who have low motivation is 35. 06 and the mean of
motivation are 65. 05. It can be concluded that the difference between the high
and low is 11. 14.
4.2. Suggestions
Based on the conclusions above, the researcher drew the following
recommendations:
1. The writer suggests that English teacher should motivate their students in
learning English especially in reading. Inviting the students to read a
certain topic that interest them or developing the method in teaching
reading is one of the ways to improve the students’ motivation in reading.
2. The students should try to maintain and improve their motivation in
learning English because motivation plays important role in order to get
better achievement in learning English.
3. The procedure of motivating the students in reading comprehension
specifically in term of aspects of reading may become an interesting topic
REFERENCES
Ames, C. (1992), Classrooms: Goals, strictures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 261-271.
Arikunto, S. 2002. Prosedur Penelitian Suatu Pendekatan Praktek. Jakarta: Penerbit Rineka Cipta
Atkinson, J. W., & Raynor, J. O. (Eds.). (1974).Motivation and achievement. Washington, D.C.: Winston.
Bandura, A. (1991) Self-regulation of motivation through anticipatory and self-reactive mechanisms. Nebraska Symposium on motivation 1990, 39. 69-164.
Bernhardt, E.B. 1991 Reading development in a second langauge; Theoritical, empirical, and classroom perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Brown, H. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. New Jersey: Prentice
Brown, R.1.E (1987). Classical and operant paradigms in the management of gambling addictions. Behavioural Psychotherapy, 15, 111-122.
