THE EFFECT OF TEACHING SRTATEGIES AND CURIOSITY ON
STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For Magister Degree
By:
UZIANA
Registration Number: 8116112018
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
A Thesis
THE EFFECT OF TEACHING STRATEGIES AND CURIOSITY ON STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION
By:
Uziana
Registration Number: 8116112018
English Applied Linguistics Study Program Postgraduate School State University of Medan
This Thesis was examined on 12th Januari 2017 by the Board of Examiners
Approved by Adviser Commission
Advisor I Advisor II
Prof. Dr. Berlin Sibarani, M.Pd Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum NIP. 19570615 198203 1 005 NIP. 19700522 200112 2001
The Head of English Applied The Director of Linguistics Study Program Postgraduate School
APPROVAL
This thesis was examined on 12th January 2017 by the Board of Exeminers. Board of Exeminers
1. Prof. Dr. Berlin Sibarani, M.Pd _______________ NIP. 19570615 198203 1 005
2. Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum _______________ NIP. 19700522 200112 2001
3. Prof. Busmin Gurning, M. _______________ NIP. 19590713 198601 1 001
4. Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed _______________ NIP. 19620629 198803 1 002
i
ABSTRACT
Uziana. Registration Number:8116112018. The Effect of Teaching Strategies and Curiosity on Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. State University of Medan. 2016
The objectives of this experimental research are to find out whether: 1) The students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by using the Directed Reading Thinking
Aactivity (DRTA) strategy was higher than taught by using the Questions-Answer Relationship(QARs) strategy. 2) The students’ achievement in reading comprehension with
ii
ABSTRAK
Uziana. Pengaruh Strategi Pembelajaran dan keinginantahuan siswa terhadap Hasil Belajar Siswa dalam Membaca.Tesis. Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris. Universitas Negeri Medan. 2016
Penelitian eksperimen ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui apakah: (1) kemampuan siswa dalam membaca yang diajarkan dengan strategi Directed Reading Thinking Activity(DRTA) lebih tinggi daripada kemampuan siswa dalam membaca yang diajarkan dengan strategi
Questions Answer Relationship(QARs),(2) kemampuan siswa dalam membaca yang memiliki
keinginantahuan tinggi lebih tinggi daripada kemampuan siswa dalam membaca yang memiliki keingintahuan rendah, dan (3) ada interaksi antara strategi pembelajaran dengan keinginantahuan terhadap kemampuan siswa dalam membaca. Populasi penelitian meliputi seluruh siswa kelas sebelas MAN KP. Teungoh ajaran 2016/ 2017. Jumlah populasi penelitian adalah 160 siswa. Jumlah sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah 60 siswa yang diambil dengan menggunakan teknik cluster random sampling. Desain penelitian adalah penelitian eksperimen dengan faktorial 2x2. Siswa dibagi ke dalam dua kelompok eksperimen. Kelompok eksperimen pertama(XI IPA2) diajarkan dengan strategi pembelajaran. Directed Reading thinking Activit(DRTA) dan kelompok eksperimen kedua(XI IPS1) diajarkan dengan strategi pembelajaran Questions Answer Relationship(QARs). Tes kuisioner keingintahuan dilaksanakan untuk mengelompokkan siswa ke dalam kelompok siswa dengan keinginantahuan tinggi dan rendah. Kemampuan siswa dalam membaca teks diukur dengan menggunakan tes pemahaman membaca.Data penelitian dianalisa dengan
menggunakan ANAVA dua jalur pada taraf signifikansi α=0.05. Hasil penelitian
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 1.1 Mean Score of the Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension of MAN KP
TeungohLangsa, School Year of 2013/ 2014………... 2
Table 2.1 Characteristics of High and Low Curiosity…...………..………...……27
Table 3.1 Factorial Research Design (2x2)………..………..38
Table 3.2. Specification of Reading Comprehension Test.….……….40
Table 3.3 Specification of Curiosity Statements……….42
Table 3.4. the Procedure of DRTA and QARs strategies………..……..43
Table 3.5 validity of the test………...…….48
Table 3.6 The Difficulty Index Criteria……….………...………50
Table 3.7 The Discrimination Index Criteria……….………….51
Table 4.1 Summary of data analysis………..………..55
Table 4.2.Frequency Distribution of Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension Taught by Using DRTA Strategy……….………56
Table 4.3. Frequency Distribution of the Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension Taught by Using QARs Strategy………..………..………58
Table 4.4. Frequency Distribution of Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension with High Curiosity……….………...60
Table 4.5. Frequency Distribution of Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension with Low Curiosity Taught by Using DRTA Strateg………62
Table 4.6. Frequency Distribution of Students’ Achievement with High Curiosity Taught by Using DRTA Strategy……….………..64
Table 4.7 Frequency Distribution of Students’ Achievement with Low Curiosity Taught by Using DRTA Strategy………66
Table 4.8. Frequency Distribution of Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension with Low Curiosity Taught by using QARs Strategy ………..68
Table 4.9. Frequency Distribution of students’ Achievement……….70
Table 4.10. The Result of Normality Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test ………..72
Table 4.11. Result of Homogeneity Test on Groups of Teaching Strategies ………..72
Table 4.12. Result of Homogeneity Test on Groups of Curiosity………..………..74
Table 4.14. Summary on Calculation Result of Two-way ANOVA………... 75
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1 Histogram of Students’ Achievement Taught by using DRTA ……. ………. 57
Figure 2 Histogram of Students’ Achievement Taught by using QARs………. 59
Figure 3 Historiogram of Students’ Achievement with High Curiosity ……….. 61
Figure 4 Historiogram ofStudents’ Achievement with Low Curiosity ..………. 63
Figure 5 Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension with High Curiosity Taught by using DRTA Strategi…………..……….…………. ………... 65
Figure 6 Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension with Low Curiosity Taught by using DRTA ……….……….. 67
Figure 7 Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension with High Curiosity Taught by using QARs...……….…………. 69
Figure 8 Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension with Low Curiosity Taught by using QARs ..……….………….………... 71
LIST OF APPENDIXES
APPENDIX A - Reading Comprehension t est………..91
APPENDIX B - Curiosit y Questionnaire………93
APPENDIX C - Lesson Preparat ion Sheet (DRTA)……….95
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Background of the Study
Reading is one great habit that can truly change the life forever. Reading
can entertain and enrich people with knowledge—the only thing that does not
decay with time. Nowadays reading is the key to education so that is why when
people read any literatures related to any fields of study, their lives are rewarded
by others.
Reading means different for different people. Some people read to get
feeling and pleasure while the others read to get ideas, and information. For
students, particularly, they read to have general understanding, specific and
detailed information (Harmer, 2001). It means that when the students read any
texts, they learn to extract meaning from the text. In order to make sense of any
texts, they try to understand what the words mean, see the pictures painted by the
words, engage with what they are reading to respond to the content, and catch the
message conveyed by the writer. Due to those reasons, the students need to be
taught by appropriate and suitable teaching strategies to increase their reading
comprehension.
Brown (2000: 185) states that reading is arguably the most essential skill
for success in all educational contexts and remains a skill of paramount
importance as one creates assessment of language ability. Reading also has one
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language learning, teacher actually activates students’ schemata. If the students
have limited knowledge, they automatically will not be able to write something or
speak something even though they master the structure of English well.
Alderson (2000) argues that knowledge of text genres, in terms of how
texts are organized, how information is signalled and how changes of content
might be marked, has long been thought to be of importance in comprehending
reading. In other words, knowing where to look for the main idea in a paragraph,
being able to find determinant meanings (author intent and implicit meaning of
text), and being able to identify how subsidiary ideas are marked really help the
students process the information and comprehend the whole text. Being familiar
with text genres—taught since the first grade of Senior High School, ideally, the
students have good ability on decoding and comprehending the text. But in fact, it
is found that only 65.29 % of students from public senior high school and 64.73 %
of students from private school are able to reach the score above 4.0—fixed score
decided by Depdikbud(2012). Further more, in MAN Kampung(MAN KP)
Teungoh Langsa, it is found that the major achievement of students in reading
comprehension is still under Minimal Passing Grade Criteria (KriteriaKetuntasan
Minimal: KKM). The data can be seen in table-1-1.
Table 1.1
Mean Score of the Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension of MAN KP TeungohLangsa, School Year of 2014/ 2015
Class Mean KKM
X 67 70
XI 66 72
XII 67 72
3
The result shown by the table indicates that the students’ achievement in
reading comprehension is very low. The lowness of students’ achievement in
comprehending a text is influenced by some factors. Orasanu (1986: 33) identifies
two factors that affect the reading comprehension: internal and external factors.
Internal factors, called reader variable, refers to everything related to the readers
that includes cognitive ability and strategy, background knowledge, and affective
characteristics such as self- esteem, self- efficacy, willingness, curiosity, interest,
and motivation. External factors, called text variable, context variable, and writer
variable, refer to all factors external to the reader. Text variable includes such
elements as text modality and text-characteristics such as lexical density and
structural complexity, context variable refers to all situational elements such as
the time of reading and the place of reading, and writer variable refers to the
text-producer. Both factors interact to each other.
The interaction between internal and external factors that affect reading
comprehension achievement will lead the readers to interaction conception
regarded meaning as a product of the information encoded in text and the
knowledge and experience of the reader. It means that it was acknowledged that
the reader’s background influenced the perception of the text and the meanings
generated (McNeil, 1992). In other words, the closer the match between what the
reader already knew and the content and structure of the text, the greater the
comprehension.
As cited above, the teachers should have effective reading instruction
strategies to improve students’ reading comprehension, because effective reading
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students to make inferences about text, to think critically about the material they
read, and to creatively transform the text they encounter into other format and
form. Moreover, effective instruction in comprehension should be designed in
way that challenge students to think creatively and to display their creative
thinking to work in ways that are engaging, authentic, and enjoyable. And the
effective strategies are chosen by the researcher in this study that can be used by
teacher to accommodate these skills and improve the students’ reading
comprehension are directed reading thinking activity (DRTA) and QARs.
One of personal factors that provide motivational fuel for learning
reading comprehension is curiosity. Curiosity is considered to be an information-
seeking process that directs and motivates learning (Loewenstein, 1994). When
the students are exposed to DRTA and QARs strategies in comprehending a text,
they, actually, are treated to be information- seekers since they must be aware of
what they know and what they believe by self- questioning and they must
confront what they know and believe with the information conveyed by the
writers in a text by self- clarifying. So, it is undeniable that DRTA and QARs can
provoke curiosity in comprehending a text for the students.
Based on the explanation above, it is believed that The teaching
strategies and the level of students’ curiosity significantly affect reading
comprehension achievement of students. That is why in this research, DRTA and
5
1.2. The Problems of Study
In relation with the background, therefore it is concluded that the problems
of this research are formulated as the following:
1. Is the students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by using
DRTA strategy higher than taught by QARs strategy?
2. Is the students’ achievement in reading comprehension having high curiosity
higher than having low curiosity?
3. Is there any significant interaction between teaching strategies and curiosity
on students’ achievement in reading comprehension?
1.3. The Objectives of the Study
The primary objectives of this study are to answer the questions that
mentioned in the problem of the study, they can be listed as follow:
1. To find out whether the students’ achievement in reading comprehension
taught by using Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy is
significantly higher than QARs strategy.
2. To find out whether students’ achievement in reading comprehension with
high curiosity is significantly higher than with low curiosity.
3. To find out whether there is a significant effect between teaching strategies
and curiosity in students’ achievement on reading comprehension.
1.4. The Scope of the Study
Achievement in reading comprehension is caused by many factors namely
6
study, the researcher restricts the study to two teaching strategies, namely
Directed Reading Thinking Activities (DRTA) Strategy and QARs Strategy in
reading comprehension. The students, in this study, are only given explanatory
texts in grade XI. Then, the researcher will identify the level of students’ curiosity
text. By knowing the level of curiosity of the students whether they have high or
low curiosity, it is expected that this research will give clear description on the
effect of teaching strategies and curiosity on students’ achievement in reading
comprehension.
1.5. The Significance of the study
First of all, findings are expected to be useful for development of theory
and practice. Theoretically, this study will give positive input for teaching in
overcoming problem in area of reading comprehension either to the teachers,
students, or researchers through value finding in the area of teaching reading.
Practically, the finding of this research will provide students to improve their
reading comprehension and to be more enjoyable when reading process and also
teachers with series of guides of reading strategies (DRTA and QARs) related
with reading comprehension. So, they can practice both strategies in their
classroom when they are teaching reading. Then, it is also hoped that the finding
of this study will lead the teachers, students, and other researchers to multi-
dimensional perspectives and give beneficial solution to the problem faced by
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
Based on data analysis, hypotheses testing, research findings, and
discussion, it can be concluded that :
1) Reading comprehension achievement of students taught by using DRTA
strategy is significantly higher than those taught by using QARs strategy.
2) Reading comprehension achievement of students having high curiosity is
significantly higher than those having low curiosity.
3) There is significant interaction between teaching strategies and curiosity on
students’ achievement in reading comprehension. Students having high
curiosity showed significant effect in their reading comprehension
achievement if they were taught by using DRTA strategy while students
having low curiosity showed significant effect in their reading comprehension
if they were taught by using QARs strategy.
5.2 Implications
The findings of this study gives implication to the students who want to
improve their reading comprehension achievement and to the teachers who want
to develop reading comprehension skill of their students when learning and
teaching process takes part in the classroom. This study has examined two reading
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low curiosity in order to know which teaching strategy is more suitable for them
in improving their reading comprehension achievement.
The first finding of this research shows that students with high curiosity
have higher achievement in reading comprehension when they were taught by
using DRTA strategy. it implies that English teacher should try to apply this
strategy for it can activate students’ prior knowledge, retrieve information from
the text, interpret it, and reflect their understanding by creating their personal
knowledge. This strategy really helps the students become active readers.
Moreover, DRTA strategy also can make English teachers become easier in
managing learning activity because they just function as facilitator. At the end of
DRTA session, the teachers clarify the findings of the students during reading
process. Therefore, this strategy can be a good choice for English teacher in
teaching reading comprehension.
The second finding of this research showed that reading comprehension
achievement of students with high curiosity is higher than those with low
curiosity. It gives implications for English teacher that before teaching reading
comprehension, the teacher should identify their students’ curiosity. The
identification of students’ curiosity can determine the teachers in deciding what
efforts they will do to make the students pay more attention when they are
teaching reading comprehension. So, understanding that students have different
curiosity is the key to success in teaching reading comprehension since the
teachers can choose which strategy is more suitable to apply in the classroom.
The third finding of this research reveals that there is significant
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reading comprehension. It implies that any teaching strategy applied by the
teachers should be related to the levels of students’ curiosity. The way the
teachers provoke students’ curiosity determine the attitude of the students in
learning reading comprehension. Finally, it is suggested that DRTA strategy is
applied to students with high curiosity while QARs is applied to students with low
curiosity in order that they can achieve their reading comprehension achievement
significantly.
5.3Suggestions
In relation to the conclusions presented in previous chapter, it is
suggested that:
1) English teachers are recommended using DRTA and QARs strategy
because both strategies can improve students’ reading comprehension
achievement.
2) English teacher should provoke and encourage students with low
curiosity to participate more active in the classroom in order that they
can achieve better achievement in reading comprehension.
3) Other researchers can develop further study in the area of DRTA and
QARs strategies in order to improve students’ achievement in reading
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