TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH THINK-PAIR-SHARE (TPS) TECHNIQUE AT SMPN 8
BANDAR LAMPUNG
By
Arini Ayuning Palupi (0913042092)
Supervisors:
1. H.M. Ujang Suparman, M.A., Ph.D. 2. Drs. Ramlan Ginting Suka
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM LANGUAGE AND ART EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
ABSTRACT
TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH THINK-PAIR-SHARE (TPS) TECHNIQUE AT SMPN 8 BANDAR LAMPUNG
By
ARINI AYUNING PALUPI
Reading is considered as a difficult language skill to learn. It is because students need to require reading comprehension in order to get the information that is including identifying the main idea, identifying inference, identifying reference, recognizing the detailed information, and discovering the meaning of vocabularies in the reading texts. Therefore, the objectives of the research are to investigate whether there is a significant difference of the students’ reading comprehension achievement after being taught through Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique and find out the problems that the students face during the application of TPS.
The population of this research was the second year students of SMPN 8 Bandar Lampung consisting of nine classes. Two classes were chosen randomly as the experimental class and the try-out class. One group pre-test and post-test design was carried out to analyze whether there is a significant difference of students’ achievement in reading comprehension before and after being taught through TPS technique. Besides that, after giving the posttest, the interview was done in order to see the problems that the students face during the teaching learning process.
The result of this research proved that there was a significant difference of students’ achievement in reading comprehension before and after being taught through TPS technique. It proved that the students’ scores increased significantly because the value of t-ratio is higher than t-table (9.935>2.042) and the significant level is lower than 0.05 (0.000<0.05). It means that Ho was rejected and Hα was accepted. Besides that, there were some problems that had occurred during the application of TPS technique that concerned with the students’ concentration and their ability in finding the meaning of the difficult words and getting the idea of the text. Therefore, teachers can consider this technique to improve the students’ reading comprehension achievement.
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Specification in Pretest ... 31 2. Specification in Post-test ... 31 3. Rater Analysis of the Pretest ... 40 4. Distribution of the Students’ Score of the Pre-test in the
Experimental Class... 41 5. Distribution of the Students’ Pre-test Achievement in Each
Aspect in reading Comprehension ... 41 6. Distribution of the Students’ Score of the Post-test in the
Experimental Class... 42 7. Distribution of the Students’ Post-test Achievement in Each
Aspect in reading Comprehension ... 43 8. The Increase from Pre-test to Post-test ... 43 9. Increase from Pre-test to Post-test for Each Aspect in reading
Comprehension ... 44 10.Analysis of the Hypothesis ... 45 11.The Problems Specification of the Interview Result... 47
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page Appendix
1. Research Schedule ... 64
2. Reliability Analysis of Upper Lower Group Try Out Test ... 65
3. Reliability Analysis of try-out test ... 67
4. Reliability of Try Out Test ... 68
5. Level of difficulty and discrimination power of the try-out test ... 69
6. The result of students’ score of pretest-posttest in experimental class ... 70
7. Distribution of the Students’ Pre-test Achievement in Reading Comprehension Aspects ... 71
8. Distribution of the Students’ Post-test Achievement in Reading Comprehension Aspects ... 72
9. Table of distribution of the pre-test in experimental class ... 73
10.Table of distribution of the post-test in experimental class ... 74
11.Random Test of the pre-test and post-test in experimental class ... 75
12.The normality of the pre-test and the post-test in experimental class ... 76
13.The analysis of hypothesis ... 77
14.T-table...….…………...……... 78
15.Lesson plan ... 79
16.Try Out Test ... 89
17.Pre Test... ... 97
18.Post Test... ... 103
19.Answer Keys ... 104
20.Interview ... 110
21.Students’ Result of try-out, pre-test and post-test students ... 116 22.Surat keterangan penelitian
I. INTRODUCTION
This chapter covers background of the problem, identification of the problem,
limitation of the problem, formulation of research question, objectives of the
research, uses of the research, scope of the research, and definition of terms.
1.1. Background of the Problems
English has taken a huge part as a communication tool. Therefore English has
been considered as one of the highest priority in teaching learning process. There
are four skills in learning English, those are listening, speaking, reading, and
writing. Among those skills, reading is considered as a difficult language skill to
learn. It is because students need to require reading comprehension to get the
information that is including identifying the main idea, finding inference, finding
reference, recognizing the detailed information, and discovering the meaning of
vocabularies in the reading texts. Therefore, the difficulties in comprehending the
texts have been the main problem to find the solution.
Reading that takes an important part in teaching-learning process is a process of
understanding the written or printed text. The students do not only need to
comprehend the written symbols but also to understand the content of the text.
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written language to what reader have already known and what reader want to
know.
Based on the curriculum that government makes for the 8th grade of junior
high-school, the students are expected to be able to comprehend the aspect of the text.
There are some aspects of reading comprehension, i.e. the main idea, the topic
sentence(s), the factual, stated, and unstated information, and the vocabularies.
Based on the pre-observation, in fact, junior high-school students get some
difficulties in reading comprehension that can make the teaching-learning process
ineffective and inefficient. The students’ lack of motivation also takes a big part in
comprehending the reading texts. Those problems may affect the students in
enjoying the teaching-learning process. After that, they will not feel confident in
showing their ideas because they are afraid of making mistakes.
Concerning those statements above, teacher should find a way to succeed the
teaching-learning process. A suitable technique is really needed to keep the
students’ motivation to read the whole part of the text then they can get the
necessary information. Besides that, the technique should increase students’
reading comprehension and make them enjoy the teaching-learning process.
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is one of techniques that is expected to be a good answer
for the teacher to increase the students’ reading comprehension. TPS is a
1.2. Identification of the Problems
In reference to background of the problem, the following problems can be found:
1) The students get difficulties in comprehending the reading text that is
concerning in finding the specific information and main idea.
2) The students’ motivation in learning English are still low therefore they
keep thinking that English is a difficult subject.
3) The students keep asking the teacher about the unknown words without
trying to infer those words or consulting in the dictionary.
4) The students are lack of vocabularies that make them hard to understand
English. Thus, they prefer being passive to showing their idea confidently.
5) The students do not feel comfortable with the way of teacher’s teaching.
1.3. Limitation of the Problems
In line with the identification of the problems above, the current study is focused
on the students’ difficulties in comprehending the reading text and their courage
in showing their ideas. As a solution, this research use Think-Pair-Share (TPS) as
a technique in order to increase the students’ reading comprehension. It is
assumed that this technique is an effective way to help the students understand
4 1.4. Formulation of Research Questions
The explanation above leads to the following research questions as follows:
1. Is there any significant difference of students’ reading comprehension
achievement after the using of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique in
teaching reading?
2. What problems do the students face during the application of
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique?
1.5. Objectives of the Research
Based on the formulation of the problems above, the objectives of this research
are:
1. To find out whether there is significant difference of students’ reading
comprehension achievement after applying Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
technique in teaching reading.
2. To find out the problems that students face during the application of
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique.
1.6. Uses of the Research
The uses of the research are:
a) Theoretically, the findings of the research may support the existing theory
on reading comprehension.
b) Practically, English teachers may use the findings of the research as
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique for improving their achievement in reading
comprehension.
1.7. Definition of Terms
Here are the definitions of the key terms that are presented to avoid
misunderstanding concerning the terms.
a) Reading is a process of grasping the main idea and scanning the
information from a text. Whereas, reading comprehension is considering
that the students who are not only going to read the printed marks but they
also need to understand the content of the text is stated as a reading
comprehension. Thus, Reading comprehension skill is the ability to
comprehend and obtain information from a text. While thinking process,
the readers use their eyes to transmit the images to the brain that will be
continued by the brain to read.
b) Recount text is a text that tells the reader about a story or activity in order
to retell about someone experience. The goal of this text is to entertain and
inform the reader.
c) Technique is a particular trick or strategy that is used to accomplish an
objective.
d) Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is a technique that consists of three steps;
thinking, pairing, and sharing. TPS gives the students opportunities to
work both individually and in a group. In the thinking process, they will
read the text then think about it individually. After that it will be continued
II. FRAME OF THEORIES
This chapter covers the review of previous research and the review of related
literature that includes definition of reading, definition of teaching reading,
definition of Think-Pair-Share (TPS), procedures of teaching reading through
Think-Pair-Share (TPS), advantages of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique,
disadvantages of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique, definition of recount text,
assumption and hypothesis.
2.1. Review of Previous Research
There is some previous research that is used in order to locate this research in the
constellations of the research that has been conducted as elaborated in the
following section:
1. The first research is conducted by Faradiaswita in 2012 that is about
the implementation of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique. She
investigated the students’ problems in learning narrative reading texts
by using think-pair-share technique. In this research, she used one
group pretest and posttest as the research design. There were two
The data analysis on students’ pretest and posttest scores revels that
the students performed better in the posttest
than they did in the pretest . Their behavior in
both tests are also found to be consistent (Pearson correlation
coefficient r = 0.892, significance value p = 0.000, p < 0.05).
paired-samples t-test indicates significant increase of students’ reading
comprehension achievement after the application of TPS technique
(t(29) = 9.672; p = 0.000, p < 0.05). In conclusion, TPS technique is
worth applying in the teaching-learning of English reading
comprehension ability, particularly at the second grade of MTsN 1
Tanjung Karang.
2. Another piece of research is investigated by Hariyanti. The research
that was conducted in 2010 was also about the implementation of
cooperative learning by using Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique in
reading comprehension achievement. She was conducted the research
in SMAN 1 Bandar Sribawono. In this research, she investigated
whether there was significant difference after the application of
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique in reading comprehension achievement or
not. This research used two classes as the experimental class (that
applied Think-Pair-Share (TPS) as technique) and the control class
(that did not apply Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique).
The result of the research showed that there was no significant
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those taught through Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique and those
through discussion. The hypothesis test shows that the value of the two
tail significant is p = 0.926. So, the H0 was accepted.
3. Besides that, this research is also considering Sari’s research (2010) as
the previous research. She is investigated whether there is a significant
difference of students’ reading achievement who are taught through
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique and those who are taught through
conventional technique. She did the research in SMAN 1 Natar. She
used two classes as experimental class and control class. She used
control class for a comparison purpose in order to ensure that the
improvement was due to the application of Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
technique.
The improvement showed that the achievement of the experimental
group was higher than in control group, viewed by the mean given
76.55 > 62.68 and the level of significance p = 0.000 (p < 0.05). It
implied that Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique had positive effect on
students’ reading comprehension achievement.
Based on the previous research, it was found that those two research have
significant difference after the application of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique
but there is still one research has no significant difference. However, there is still
one issue that has not been solved, that is the problems that the students face while
in the process of the application of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique. Besides
of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique. Therefore, this research would be carried
out to deal with that issue.
2.2. Review of Related Literature
This review of related literature covers some definition and supporting
information in order to give more explanation that is defined as follows:
2.2.1. Definition of Reading
Reading is one of skills that is considered as the best way to get information.
People are known that they are better in understanding and remembering what
they have read than what they have heard. Suparman (2007:13) states that the
most important keywords in definition of reading are to take in, to understand, to
interpret, and to attribute an interpretation.
It seems that reading take a big part in the communication way. The roles of the
readers are not only to get the information but also to understand and interpret the
information. According to Suparman (2005:1) states that there are two major
reasons for reading; those are reading for pleasure and reading for information.
The readers do not only see the printed symbols but they have to understand the
text in order to find out something or do something with the information that the
readers get. Dallman (1982:23) adds that reading is more than knowing what each
letter of the alphabet stands for, and it involves more than word recognition. As
Faradiaswita (2012:8) says that reading is difficult to analyze because it involves
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other words, reading is a printed thinking that requires critical thinking in making
the interpretation.
In order to get the information, the reader should have comprehension ability.
While the readers are in the process of reading, actually they attempt to
understand what is written through this ability. Comprehension always follows
reading because there will be no reading without comprehension. There are three
levels of reading comprehension:
a. Literal comprehension
Literal comprehension is a process of understanding the ideas and
information that is explicitly stated in the passage, such as identifying
the meaning of the word, recalling direct-stated details, paraphrasing,
and understanding the grammatical clues like subjects, verbs,
pronouns, conjunction, etc. In this level, the reading comprehension
question is factual and detailed.
b. Interpretative comprehension
Interpretative comprehension refers to the understanding of the ideas
or information that is not explicitly stated in the passage. It includes
the understanding of the author’s tone, purpose, and attitude; inferring
the factual information, main ideas, comparisons, cause-effect
relationships; and summarizing the story content.
c. Critical comprehension
Critical comprehension refers to the analyzing, evaluating, and
instance; indicating the overall meaning to the reader and analyzing the
quality of the written symbols and/or information in terms of
established standards.
Those three kinds of comprehension are needed in order to understand the texts.
The researcher realizes that each of them help the readers to apprehend the texts.
Basically the readers are started their interactive process that involves the readers’
background knowledge. Background knowledge is a knowledge that the reader
has known before reading the text. Therefore it can support the reader in order to
comprehend the text. As Suparman (2012) states that there are several aspects of
reading comprehension skills that should be mastered by reader to comprehend
the text, i.e. main idea, specific information, references, inference, and
vocabulary. These aspects are explained below:
1. Main Idea
Main idea of a text is an important part in reading comprehension. The reader should find out what the author’s want to the reader to know about.
It is necessary to know the main idea because main idea develops the rest
of the paragraph. In order to get the main idea of the text, the reader should
know what the story is mainly telling about.
2. Specific information
Specific information means that the supporting sentences that supports the
main idea. It develops the topic sentence by giving definition, examples,
facts, comparison, analogy, cause and effect, statistics, and quotation. The
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because actually the answer of the specific information has been written in
the text.
3. Reference
References are used to give a signal to the reader to find the meaning
elsewhere in the text. The reader can find the meaning of the unknown
words or phrases by themselves. The unknown word might represent the
other word that is written in the sentence before that word.
4. Inference
Inferences refer to the unknown words or phrases that can be identified by
predicting or guessing. The reader may guess or predict something
unknown based on available facts and information in the text. The reader
may be able to make an interpretation of a passage in order to give them
the rough idea. The reader should use their ability in identifying the
inference by using their knowledge that they have got. Therefore it will be
easier for them to answer the inferences’ questions.
.
5. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is a fundamental for everyone who wants to produce
something both orally and written. In reading, the reader can easily
2.2.2. Definition of Teaching Reading
Hedge (2003) states that reading component of an English language teaching may
include a set of learning goals for:
1. Developing the language range goal through independent readers
outside EFL/ESL classroom is the most teachers seek in reading
English texts.
2. Building knowledge of language which will facilitate reading ability.
3. Building schematic knowledge.
4. Adapting the reading technique according to its reading purposes.
5. Developing an awareness of the structure of written texts in English.
6. Taking a critical stance to the contents of the texts.
It is important to build up students’ ability to adapt the reading technique
according to its purpose as goal in teaching reading. According to Alyousef
(2006:7), in teaching reading, contemporary reading tasks, unlike the traditional
materials involve three-phase procedure: pre-, while-, and post-reading stages. In
pre-reading stage, it is used to activate the relevant scheme, for example, teacher
can ask the students some questions that can arouse their interest while
previewing the reading text. While-reading stage is an interactive process that can
develop students’ ability in doing their tests by developing their linguistics and
schematic knowledge. In the last stage, post-reading is used to enhance learning
comprehension by using reading comprehension tests such as matching, cloze
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Basically the purpose of teaching reading is to develop students’ skill of the
reading English texts effectively and efficiently. Teaching effectively and
efficiently always become the focus of the teaching-learning, especially in
reading, that has been put as the basic in choosing the techniques in many various
types of texts. Therefore, the teaching technique should be matched with the
reading purposes. Suparman (2005:1) states that whether it is for pleasure or for
information, reading should be meaningful besides efficient and effective.
The appropriate technique should be applied based on the purpose of reading in
order to increase the reading classroom activities. Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is one
of the techniques that can be applied in junior high-school students because this
technique will provide effective, efficient, independent, and responsible reader
before they step into higher education.
2.2.3. Definition of Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is a technique that might support teacher in
teaching-learning process. It helps the students who prefer working in a group without
ignoring those who feel more comfortable with doing task individually. Those
types of students are facilitated through thinking stage then will be continued to
the sharing stage. As Lie (2002:57) states that Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is a
technique that gives the opportunity to the students to work alone and also in a
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) developed by Frank Lyman and his collages (1981) in
Maryland. It gives the students more time to think, to respond, and to help each
other. There are three steps of this technique:
1) Thinking
Firstly, the teacher will divide the text into two parts before
distributing to the students. Then the teacher will give the students
time to think few moments. The students are supposed to think about
the text individually.
2) Pairing
After that, the students have to find their pair who has different part of
the text. Each of them has to talk about their thinking of the text
before. Then they will gather the idea of the text in order to get the
whole idea. Both of them will share the text to identify the
interpretation of the text.
3) Sharing
In the last step, the students will find the other pair to share the
information that they have discussed before in pairing step. Each of
them will collect the all information then fix it as the best information.
This technique may be used to increase the class participation that are directed to
work both individually and collaborative contribution of giving and taking
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2.2.4. Procedures of Teaching Reading Through Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
Here are the procedures of teaching reading through Think-Pair-Share (TPS):
1) Pre activity
In this stage:
a. The teacher divides the text into two parts before distributing them to
the students
b. The teacher asks the students to read the text then gives them more
time to think about what the text is mainly telling about. In this time,
the students should try to comprehend the text individually that
represent the thinking step.
2) While Activity
a. The teacher asks the students to find their pair who has different part of
the text to discuss about what they have thought before that is
considered as the pairing step.
b. The teacher asks the students to gather the ideas that two of them have
before. The students have to combine the whole text information.
Therefore each of them must to pay attention to their partner’s
explanation.
c. The teacher asks the students to find the other pair to share the
information. This exchange information is considered as the sharing
step. Each of them will gather the all information to get the best
interpretation. In this stage, the information will depend on their
3) Post Activity
a. The teacher gives the students several question related to the text to
check their reading comprehension. This stage is considered as the
evaluation activity.
b. The teacher asks the students one by one in order to see the result of
reading comprehension.
2.2.5. Advantages of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) Technique
Allen (2007:17) states some benefits of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) as a technique:
1) It provides students time to think to prepare their own information into the
discussion with their pair.
2) It allows both independent and collaborative learning. The students have
their own time to work by themselves and together with their partner(s).
3) It gives students opportunities to collaborate the refining definition. While
they are in the stage of sharing process, they have opportunities to
exchange information with their pair.
4) It invites equal participation. Each of students will tell the information that
she/he has to their pair.
5) It engages students into active learning. This technique can force the
students who are passive to be active because in pairing and sharing step,
each of them should join and invite their friends to discuss.
6) It invites students to share their understanding in both kinesthetic and
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use body language and face-to-face interaction to send their information to
their friends.
Concerning those benefits, teachers can reach the goal of teaching reading
because students can really understand the content of the text. Each of students
also has the same opportunity to share their ideas with their friends.
2.2.6. Disadvantages of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) Technique
Choosing Think-Pair-Share (TPS) as a technique in teaching reading can solve
students’ reading problems but every teaching-learning technique has its own
drawbacks. There are some disadvantages of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) as a
technique as follows:
1) This technique spends much time when the process does not run well.
2) While sharing stage, the teacher cannot fully monitor each pair because
there are not any specific rules about how long they will speak. It means
that the discussion may be dominated by certain students. In order to avoid
this problem, teacher should work hard to monitor the process of
discussion.
3) The information received by the students is limited to what their friends
know.
2.2.7. Definition of Recount Text
Recount text is a text which retells the events or experiences that happened in the
experiences, recount text can occurred in the form of personal recount such as
biography, factual recount, or imaginative recount.
The generic structure of recount text:
1) Orientation
This is the opening of recount texts. It is about introducing the
participants, place, and time.
2) Events
After telling the orientation, the author will write the events. It will
describe the series of event that happened in the past.
3) Reorientation
This stage is an optional, the author may write this or not. It may start
from the personal comment.
Language feature that is used in recount text:
- Introducing personal participant (I, my group, etc)
- Using chronological connection (first, then, etc)
- Using linking verb (was, were, saw, etc)
- Using action verb (look, go, change, etc)
20 Here is the example of recount text.
Based on the generic structure, the recount text above can be divided as follows:
1) Orientation
Last month, my family and I went to the beach. We wanted to refresh our
mind and enjoy the fresh air. We went there early in the morning by car.
2) Events
After parking our car, we walked along the beach barefooted. We could
feel the smoothness of the sand. The cold water touched our feet. Then, we
looked for the place to take a rest. We rolled out the mat on the ground
and then we had meals together. While eating, we saw many things. Many
children built sand castles. Some of them played with their balls. We also
saw some people sunbathe. After having meals, I was interested in doing
the same things. I made sand castles with my sister. Meanwhile, my
brother collected some sea shells. In the Beach
Last month, my family and I went to the beach. We wanted to refresh our mind and enjoy the fresh air. We went there early in the morning by car.
3) Reorientation
I was so happy and really enjoyed the day.
In the orientation, it introduced who the main characters were, where the place
took place, and when it happened, i.e. my family and I, beach, and last month.
After that, the author told what his family and he did at the beach in the second
paragraph. At the end of story, the author wrote his own personal comment.
Principally, recount text is quite similar with narrative text but recount texts
explore the events of the participants. These events are the main elements in
composing the recount texts because if the text is focusing on the conflict, it is
called narrative texts.
2.2.8. Assumption
Reading is considered as one of skills that the students need to master. Reading is
not only a process of seeing from one symbol to the other. The readers are
supposed to understand about what the writer wants to talk about. By having an
ability to comprehend the text, the reader hopefully will not only read but also will
get the information which written in the text. Therefore, appropriate technique is
really needed to help the students in order to get the information.
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique might be the solution. This technique has three steps that
the researcher assumes that TPS technique is an effective technique in improving
22 2.2.9. Hypothesis
Based on the theoretical assumption; therefore, the hypothesis can be formulated
that applying Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique can help the students to
remember and learn; thus, it will improve the students’ reading comprehension
III. RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter discusses research design, setting of the research, population and
sample, variables, research procedures, data collection technique, and hypothesis
testing.
3.1. Research Design
This research investigated about the difference between the result before and after
the application of think-pair-share as the technique. Therefore, a quantitative
study that applies one-group pretest-posttest is chosen as the design. The research
design is outlined as follows:
T1 X T2
Where:
T1 : Pre-Test (a test that is given before the treatment is applied)
X : Treatments (teaching listening through drill technique)
T2 : Post-Test (a test that is given after the treatment is applied)
Hatch and Farady (1982)
The pretest was used to find out the students’ preliminary ability and the posttest
was used to see whether there was an increase of students’ reading achievement
after the treatment (X). The pretest, treatment and posttest would be conducted in
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The interview was also conducted in this research. The interview was conducted
in the form of open questions and formal types. It was conducted toward some
representatives of the students as the interviewees, which were chosen from low
and high scores based on the mean score of the post-test, in order to find out the
problems that the students faced during the application of Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
technique.
3.2. Setting of the Research
The research was conducted in SMPN 8 Bandar Lampung. From eight classes of
the second year of SMPN 8 Bandar Lampung, there were only two classes that
were used. These classes were the tryout class and the experimental class. The
experimental class was used for the pretest, treatment, and posttest.
This research was held in the second semester because the material was
appropriate with the curriculum. It is written in the syllabus that the second year
students have recount text as the topic that they had to learn in this semester.
3.3. Population and Sample
The population of this research was the all second year students of SMPN 8
Bandar Lampung. Each class consists of 34-39 students. There were two classes
that were used as the sample where 8 H was the tryout class and 8 F was the
experimental class. Both classes were selected randomly through random
3.4. Research Procedures
In collecting the data, the writer used the following procedures to get the best
result of the research:
a) Determining the research problems
The problem of research was to find out whether there was significant
difference of students’ reading comprehension achievement after
applying Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique in teaching reading and find
out the problems that the students faced during the application of
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique.
b) Determining the research design
The researcher conducted the research by using one group
pretest-posttest design and interview.
c) Finding the population and sample
The population of this research was the all second year students of
SMPN 8 Bandar Lampung. Two classes were used as the sample. The
first class was the try out class and the second class was the experimental
class. The classes were selected randomly by using lottery since there
was no stratified and priority class.
d) Determining the research instrument
This research used two data collecting technique that were in the form of
questions (pretest and posttest) and interview. The students’ English
textbooks were used as the references in making the questions in order to
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questions in order to avoid the students from being reluctant in
answering the questions.
e) Administering the try out test
The tryout test was given to the students in order to know the quality of
the test. It was administered to find out the test before it would used,
whether the items were good or not in validity, reliability, level of
difficulty, and the discrimination power. The tryout test was multiple
choices that consisted of 40 items with four alternative options A, B, C,
and D. The try out test was conducted for 60 minutes.
f) Administering the pretest
This test was given to find out the students’ basic reading
comprehension. This test was administered that was consisting of 25
multiple choices items. It was conducted for 45 minutes.
g) Conducting the treatment
After the pretest, the researcher conducted the treatment for three
meeting that takes 90 minutes in every meeting. The researcher taught
reading comprehension by using think-pair-share as the technique to the
students’ experimental class. The material that was used was the recount
texts.
h) Administering the posttest
The posttest was given to evaluate the students’ reading comprehension
multiple choices that consisted the 25 items and it was conducted for 45
minutes.
i) Conducting the interview
The interview was conducted in experimental class, 8 F. The interview
was conducted to find out the problems the students faced during the
application of Think-pair-Share (TPS) technique.
j) Analyzing the data
Both pretest and posttest results were analyzed by using Repeated
Measures t-test to compare the data of the two means score (Hatch and
Farhady, 1982:108). The researcher analyzed the improvement by
comparing the scores of pretest and posttest from the experimental class.
If the score of posttest is better than pretest, it means that there is a
progress of students’ reading comprehension achievement.
k) Concluding and reporting the result of the data analysis
After analyzing the results of pretest and posttest, the researcher drew
the conclusion and the results of this research that was reported in this
script including suggestion from the researcher.
3.5. Data Collecting Technique
In this research, the instrument for data collection was in the form of questions of
the reading comprehension tests, i.e. pretest and posttest and interview. The
questions were used as the measurement that used recount texts as the topic of the
28
and D) with one correct answer and three distracters. In order to find out the
problems that the students faced during the application of Think-pair-Share (TPS)
technique, the researcher did interview to several students as the representatives of
upper and lower students. The upper and lower group student was identified after
giving the posttest.
Those two forms of questions were arranged as pretest and posttest. They were
similar, only the order of the texts and their corresponding items were rearranged
for the posttest. The instrument for those two tests was previously qualified trough
the tryout test.
In collecting the data, this research will be conducted as the following steps:
1) Pretest
The pretest was conducted before the treatment. It was used to identify
whether the students had understood about main idea, detailed
information, reference, inference, and vocabulary. The pretest included 25
items with four options (A, B, C, and D); one correct answer and three
distracters. The pretest required 45 minutes for the test. The materials that
were tested were recount text. Pretest was given to know how far the
students’ competence in reading comprehension before treatment was
conducted.
2) Posttest
The posttest was conducted after the treatment. The test was multiple
choices consisting of 25 items; each item has four options (A, B, C, and
test. It was used to identify whether the students had understood about the
aspects of reading comprehension and how well they could comprehend
the reading texts after the application of TPS technique in
teaching-learning process. The items of the posttest were similar to those in the
pretest, but the order of the texts and their corresponding items were
rearranged.
Shohami (1985) states that a good quality of multiple-choice items has a
satisfactory degree of validity, reliability, level of difficulty and the discrimination
power.
a) Validity
Validity shows how far the test measures what supposed to be measured
(Setiyadi, 2006). This is used to measure whether instruments have a good
validity or not. A test can be considered to valid if it can precisely measure
the quality of the test. There are several types of validity according to the
different purpose of the tests. Face validity refers to the layout of the test
and criterion-related validity is measuring the success in the future as the
replacement test (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:251). According to the Hatch
and Farhady (1982:281), there are two basic types of validity, such as
content validity and construct validity that the writer used in this research
as follows.
- Content Validity
Content validity is the extent to which the test measures a
representative sample of the subject matter content, the focus of
30
appearance of the test (Hatch and Farhady,1982: 251). Since the test
instrument was conducted to get the data of the students’ reading
comprehension achievement, the content validity of the test items were
conducted by arranging the material that is suitable with the
curriculum. Thus, if the measuring instrument has represented all the
ideas that connected with the materials that will be measured, that
measuring instrument has fulfilled the content validity.
- Construct Validity
Construct validity is concerned with whether the test is actually in line
with the theory of what it means to know the language (Shohamy.
1985; 74). Knowing the test was true reflection of the theory in reading
comprehension, the researcher examined whether the test questions
actually reflected the means of reading comprehension or not. The test
consisted of some reading skills namely, determining the main idea,
finding specific information, identifying inference, identifying
reference, and identifying vocabulary.
As Suparman (2012) states that reading have five aspects in order to
comprehend the text. In this research, the researcher had formulated
the table of specification. The content of the item was presented in the
Table 1. Specification in Pre-test
No Reading Skills Item Numbers Percentage
1 Determining main idea 1, 12, 17 12 %
2 Finding detailed information 4, 7, 9, 14, 15, 18, 20, 24 32 %
3 Identifying references 2, 8, 10, 13, 25 20 %
4 Identifying inferences 3, 19, 22 12 %
5 Identifying vocabulary 5, 6, 11, 16, 21, 23 24 %
Total 25 100%
Table 2. Specification in Post-test
No Reading Skills Item Numbers Percentage
1 Determining main idea 5, 12, 17 12 %
2 Finding detailed information 3, 8, 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 23 32 %
3 Identifying references 4, 6, 18, 22, 24 20 %
4 Identifying inferences 1, 7, 14, 12 %
5 Identifying vocabulary 2, 9, 10, 16, 21, 25 24 %
Total 25 100%
Those were the representative of the materials from the subject. In
order to measure the content and construct validity, rater analysis was
used to make the reading test instrument more valid. Thus, English
teacher of SMPN 8 Bandar Lampung would be the rater; she is Hj.
Mainiar, S.Pd. She was the one who examine whether the test has
fulfilled the content and construct validity or not.
b) Reliability
Reliability is defined as the extent to which a questionnaire, test,
observation or any measurement procedure produces the same results on
repeated trials. In short, it is the stability or consistency of scores over
time or across ratters. As Shohamy (1985:70) states that reliability refers
to whether the test is consistent in its scoring and gives us an indication of
how accurate the test score are. It is a measurement of accuracy,
32
administration of particular examination. According to Heaton (1988:162)
reliability is a necessary characteristic of any good test.
To measure the coefficient of the reliability between odd and even number
(reliability of half test), the researcher uses Pearson Product Moment, in
the following formula:
Note:
rl : Coefficient of reliability between odd and even numbers items.
x : Odd number. y : Even number.
x2 : Total score of odd number items. y2 : Total score of even number items. xy : Total number of odd and even numbers.
(Lado, 1961 in Hughes, 1991:32).
The criteria of reliability:
0.0 – 0.49 = low 0.5 – 0.89 = moderate 0.9 – 1.00 = high
In this research, the result of reliability of the try-out test is 0.96 (see
appendix 4). It could be inferred that the test had very high level of
reliability, in the range 0.80-1.00. It indicated that this instrument would
produce consistent result when it was administered under similar condition
and participants but in different time (Hatch and Farhady, 1882: 286). So,
c) Level of difficulty
Level of difficulty is used to see whether the test items are good or not. The
test has to have an average score that is telling that the test is not too
difficult and not too easy. In the other word the difficulty level is average.
The classification of the difficulty level is as follow:
0,0 – 0,3 = too difficult 0,3 – 0,7 = average 0,7 – 1,0 = too easy
The formula that will be used to determine the difficulty level of each test
item is as follow:
LD = R/N
In which:
LD : level of difficulty
R : the number of correct answers
N : the number of students taking the test
Based on the criteria above, there were 6 easy items in the try-out
test (1, 4, 6, 8, 30, and 33). There were 7 difficult items (14, 18, 21, 27, 32,
33, and 39). And, there were 27 average items. (see appendix 5)
d) Discrimination Power
Discrimination power is the ability of the item to differentiate between the
students who have high ability and those who have low ability. It can be
34 In which:
D : discrimination power
U : the number of students from the upper who answer correctly
L : the number of students from the lower who answer correctly
N : the number of students
(Shohamy, 1985:82)
The criteria are:
- (negative) = Bad items, should be ommited 0.00-0.20 = Poor items
0.21-0.40 = Satisfactory items 0.41-0.70 = Good items 0.71-1.00 = Excellent items
(Heaton, 1975:180)
Based on the criteria above, there were 13 items in the try-out test which
did not fulfill the standard of discrimination power, since those items had
discrimination index under 0.20 which meant that the items had bad and
poor discrimination power. By looking discrimination power and level of
difficulty, the total items that were administered were 25 items (2, 3, 5, 7,
9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29,31, 36, 37, 38,
and 40). Those items had discrimination power above 0.21 with the
criteria from satisfactory to excellent items. (see appendix 5)
Students’ responses in the tryout, the pretest, and the posttest were scored
using the following formula:
In which:
S : the score
3.6. Data Analysis
Data analysis was following the steps below:
a) Scoring the pretest and the posttest.
b) Tabulating the result of the pretest and the posttest and calculating the
means of both,
c) Testing the hypothesis using paired-samples t-test via SPSS for
Windows to see whether the improvement gained is significant or not
by the students after the application of TPS technique.
d) Interpreting the result of statistical calculations and drawing the
conclusion.
The other instrument was interview, which was conducted in 8 F in the form of
open and formal questions. The questions must be in the form of explanation or
description rather than “yes” or “no” answers, to avoid the students from being
reluctant to answer the questions given, to analyze its qualitative data, matrix
analysis, in this case description analysis was used, since the researcher used her
own idea, including her own interpretation toward the data (Setiyadi, 2006:262).
3.7. Hypothesis Testing
The hypothesis testing was tested to see whether the teaching learning through
TPS technique would increase the students’ reading comprehension significantly
or not. The repeated measure t-test was used to measure it. The hypothesis was
also statistically tested by using statistical computerization (SPSS 17), in which
the significance is determined by p<0.05. Therefore, the hypothesis which can be
36
H0 = There is no significant difference of students’ reading
comprehension achievement after the application of
Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique for understanding teaching reading recount
text.
Hα = There is significant difference of students’ reading comprehension
achievement after the application of Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
technique for understanding teaching reading recount text.
(Setiyadi, 2006:97)
Besides that, the interview was also conducted. The interview was in 8 F in the
form of open and formal questions. The questions must be in the form of
explanation or description rather than “yes” or “no” answers, to avoid the students
from being reluctant to answer the questions given, to analyze its qualitative data
in order to find out the problems the students face during Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
technique, in this case description analysis was used, since the researcher used her
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter presents conclusions that are based on the research’s results and
discussions in the previous chapter. It also presents some suggestions for English
teachers and other researchers who want to try to apply Think-Pair-Share (TPS)
technique in the teaching of listening.
5.1. Conclusions
There have been many techniques to increase students’ reading ability. In this
research, the researcher used Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique in helping
students to improve their reading ability. Based on the result of the data analysis,
several points are concluded as follows:
1. There was a significant difference of students’ reading comprehension
after being taught through Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique at SMPN 8
Bandar Lampung. It can be seen from the value of ratio is higher than
t-table (9.935>2.042) and the significant level is lower than 0.05
(0.000<0.05). It means that H0 was rejected and Hα was accepted. It was
also proved from the increase of the students’ mean score in the post-test
which was higher than in the pre-test. Their mean score in experimental
class which increased from 50.44 up to 62.89 with gain score 12.45. This
58
such as determining main idea from 71.30 % up to 78.70 %, finding
specific information from 53.82 % up to 58.33 %, identifying references
from 43.89 % up to 51.11 %, identifying inference from 50 % up to 66.67
%, and identifying vocabularies from 41.20 % up to 55.56 %. The aspect
of reading comprehension was mostly improved was identifying the
inference with the increase 16.67 % and finding specific information was
the aspect that had the lowest increase, 4.51 %.
2. There were some problems the students faced during learning reading
comprehension through Think-Pair-Share (TPS) technique which could be
divided as follow:
- Finding the meaning of the difficult words that the students faced
during thinking process. This problem might influence the next process
because they have to understand the text first before they discuss it
with their pairs.
- Getting the idea of the text in the pairing process. Some of the students
who do not understand the text yet could not tell their pair about the
information of the text they got.
- Focusing on the lesson by being cooperative in every steps of this
technique. They keep talking outside the text if the teacher does not put
attention on them.
5.2. Suggestions
Regarding the conclusions stated previously, the researcher would like to propose
1. There are some students who still have difficulties in comprehending the
meaning of difficult vocabularies. It is stated that their lack of vocabularies
might influence their thinking process. Therefore, the teacher may ask the
students to make a sentence from those difficult words to strengthen their
comprehension on the meanings of the words in various contexts. More
than one sentence might be necessary for each new word.
2. In this research, it is found that finding detailed information had the lowest
improvement. This problem might occur because each of students only
told about what the text was mainly talking about so they did not tell the
whole sentence to their pair. Therefore the teacher should make sure that
they are not going to tell the gist of the text only but they have also need to
tell the other information which is stated in the text, for example: the cause
and effect that happen in the story, the data from the text, the comparison,
etc.
3. Basically the students have good improvement in identifying the inference
but the teacher might give the students a brainstorming first before they
got the text. This brainstorming can activate their background knowledge
which can help them in understanding the text. The teacher may start by
asking several question which is related with the text first in order to relate
what they have already known to what they are going to read.
4. In this research, the researcher applied interview in order to see the
students’ problems during the application of TPS technique. For further
research, it is suggested to add the other method in collecting the data, for
60
used to see the achievement of the students’ reading comprehension and
the problems during the application of TPS technique. Therefore, by using
triangulation, the better result will find out because it will not only
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