THE EFFECT OF TEACHING METHODS AND LEARNING
STYLES ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING
COMPREHENSION
A THESIS
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistic Study Program in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
PARWATI
Registration Number: 8106112044
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
THE EFFECT OF TEACHING METHODS AND LEARNING
STYLES ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING
COMPREHENSION
A THESIS
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistic Study Program in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
PARWATI
Registration Number: 8106112044
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
ABSTRACT
Parwati. Registration Number: 8106112044. The Effect of Teaching Methods and Learning Styles on Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistic Program. State University of Medan. 2013.
The objectives of this experimental research were to investigate whether: 1) students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by using CIRC method was higher than taught by using Jigsaw method. 2) students’ achievement in reading comprehension with visual style was higher than that students with kinesthetic style, 3) there was interaction between teaching methods and learning styles on students’ achievement in reading comprehension. The population of this research was the students in grade X of
State Senior High School 1 Delitua in 2011/2012 school year.
The total number of population were 120 students. There were 100 students selected as
sample of this research by applying cluster random sample technique. The research
design was experimental research by using factorial design 2x2. The students were
divided into two experimental groups. The experimental group 1 was treated by using
CIRC method and experimental group ll was treated by using Jigsaw method. The
questionnaire was conducted for classifying the students upon the visual and kinesthetic learning style. Students’ achievement in reading comprehension text was measured by using reading comprehension test. The data were analyzed by applying two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) at the level of significance α= 0.05. The result reveals that (1) students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by using CIRC was higher than that taught by using Jigsaw method, with Fobs= 3.36>Ftab=2.70, (2) students’ achievement in reading comprehension with visual learning style was higher than that with kinesthetic learning style with Fobs= 8.64>Ftable=2.70, (3) there is
interaction between teaching method and learning styles on students’ achievement in
reading comprehension with Fobs=7.74>Ftable=2.70. After computing the
Scheffe-Test, the result showed that visual style students got higher achievement if they were
taught by using CIRC method while kinesthetic style students got higher achievement if
4.2 Requirement of Data Analysis………... …… .. 75 4.2.1 Hypothesis Testing…………..………... 77 4.3 Discussion……… 81 CHAPTER V : Conclusions, Implication, And Suggestions………... 91
5.1 Conclusions………. 91 5.2 Implications………. 91 5.3 Suggestions……….. 93
REFERENCE……….. 94
LIST OF TABLES
Table 12. Frequency Distribution Score of Students with Visual Learning Style………. 68
Table 13. Frequency Distribution Score of Students with Kinesthetic Learning Style………. 69
Table 16. Frequency Distribution Score of Students’ with kinesthetic Learning style and are taught by CIRC method……... 73
Table 17. Frequency Distribution Score of Students’ with kinesthetic Learning style and are taught by Jigsaw method……... 74
Table 18. The summary on result of Normality test………... 76
Table 19. Homogeneity Test………. 77
Table 20. Two-Way ANOVA with 2 x 2 Factorial Design………. 77
Table 22. The Result Calculation by Using Scheffe-Test………… 80
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Table 22. The Result Calculation by Using Scheffe-Test………… 80
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 2. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement Taught
by Using CIRC Method………. 66
Figure 3. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement Taught
by Using Jigsaw Method……… 67
Figure 4. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement Taught
by Using Visual Learning Style………. 68
Figure 5. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement Taught
by Using Kinesthetic Learning Style……… 70
Figure 6. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement Taught
by CIRC method with Visual Learning Style………….. 71
Figure 7. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement of Students
with Visual Learning Style and taught by using Jigsaw
Method……….. 72
Figure 8. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement of Students
with Kinesthetic Learning Style and taught by using CIRC
Method……….. 74
Figure 9. Students Reading Comprehension Achievement of Students
with Kinesthetic Learning Style and taught by using Jigsaw
Method……….. 75
Figure 10. Interaction between teaching methods and learning style on
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix 1. Personal Learning Style Test………. 98
Appendix 2. Reading Comprehension Test……… 101
Appendix 3. The Computation of Validity Test……… 114
Appendix 4. The Computation of Reliability Test………. 115
Appendix 5. The Computation of Difficulty Index……… 116
Appendix 6. The Computation of Discrimination Power……….. 117
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Study
In mastering English, there are many skills that students have to master. Huda
(1997) stated the specific language skills to be mastered by students are (1) effective
reading ability, (2) ability to understand spoken English, (3) writing ability and (4)
speaking ability. Thus, the order of language skills are reading, listening, writing, and
speaking. One of the steps that learners should be mastered is reading comprehension.
This thing puts reading comprehension as the main purpose of foreign language
teaching in Indonesia but acquiring and mastering this step seems complex to many
learners and they often find it is difficult to exploit this skills in their learning
experience.
Reading is an essential skill for an students all levels and it has a large portion in
teaching and learning. It is supported by Brown (2000: 185) stating that reading is
arguably the most essential skill for success in all education contexts and remains a skill
of paramount importance as one creates assessment of language ability.
The purpose of reading is to connect ideas in the page to what you already know.
By reading the students are able to gain information and to improve their knowledge.
Nunan (1999: 68) stated that reading is a fluent process of readers combining
information from a text and their own background knowledge to built meaning. The
fact shows that the result of teaching learning English is still low. For example, the
students who have graduated from junior high school, they still find difficulty in
reading. (Balitbang Depdiknas, 2002). An other fact, reading is not as a people think. It
information appropriately. Willis (1996:72) states that “I understand all the words but I
don’t know what the writer is getting at” is a common complaint from the students
reading a foreign language. Consequently, students will need to read the text two or
three times to get even an appropriate sense. All this takes time and many less motivated
students to give up.
In another words students may use their productive skills, yet still be able to
comprehend texts with some degrees of proficiency. Reading whether in the first or
second language context, involves the reader, the text, and the interaction between the
reader and the text.
Nowadays, the ability to read and understand written materials in a foreign
language is very important. It indicates that reading ability is one of the requirements to
succeed not only in academic life but also in occupation, since most information and
references are written in English. This condition is turns out to be one of the major
concern in developing English teaching in Indonesia. Thus, it is understandable that
reading and speaking ability should be acquired by Indonesian students. It is the fact
that majority of the students are not independent readers and do not achieve good ability
of it. The fact shows that when the students face the time-test, some of them cannot use
the time wisely and answer the question correctly. It is said above that the most Senior
High School students have difficulties in some English test, especially in reading
comprehension. They found difficulties to understand reading text. Both of them are
Recount and Narrative text.
It is as what is argued by Light and McNaughton (2012). They uttered that the
reading comprehension is require the learner to decode or recognize by sight the words
in the written text, understand the meaning of the words/ sentences, relate the meaning
the topic, use this prior knowledge to infer meaning and support understanding, monitor
understanding of the text continually.
Finally reading is a productive skill. Although one may read fictions for
pleasure, one often read nonfictions with eyes to perform the pleasure reading therefore
serves to integrate a variety of language activities and purposes. Scientific and
technological information written in English are available in large number nowadays.
To access such as information, the students need to be able to read and understand
written source. One of the requirements of understanding the text is having linguistics
competence. Linguistic competence is the system of rules that governs an individual’s
tacit understanding of what is acceptable and what is not in the language they use.
In line with above consideration, the improvement of teaching reading
comprehension has long been a challenge to the teachers of English and researchers as
well. Reading the basic skill in mastering a foreign language since reading is an English
proficiency beside listening, speaking, and writing.
Moreover, the Senior High School Curriculum concentrates on the use of genre.
According to 2007/2008 the Competency Standard for Senior High School (Depdiknas,
2007 :2) the students should be able comprehend short functional text, dialogue and
monologue text in form of Narrative, Recount, News Item, Descriptive, Report,
Exposition, Explanation, and Discussion. They are not hoped to write a text in a certain
genre, but they are expected to be able to comprehend some shorts of text and answer
some questions related to the text. Therefore, it is important for the students to master
genres, besides language proficiency, because they will be able to understand a reading
text by mastering them.
The fact that must be realized is that to be able to access the world’s scientific
much more attention to the implementation of developing reading comprehension. And
we know, the significance of reading comprehension is really realized by government so
that in the national examination (UN), the government inserts some questions which are
based on reading comprehension activities from text. Event, the reading comprehension
takes dominant point among the other kinds of questions starting from number sixteen
until forty.
However, one of the greatest problems is that reading comprehension of senior
high school students in SMAN 1 Delitua are still poor. The reality is there are so many
students who are able to read aloud some texts in the class with the appropriate
pronunciation but they do not know what they are reading about. They just spent their
time to earn the meaning word by word, then consult the unknown vocabularies,
continue with the meaning of each sentences. The fact the writer found the data from
2010/2011 and 2011/2012, many students of SMAN 1 Delitua failed in the English final
Examination. It is shown by the highest scores that they got only 60,5 from 100 and the
average score is about 59,5. The students made an argument that it was not easy for
them to comprehend the text. Because many specific texts that they have to comprehend
and through the text many specific words were needed to translate by them. Other data
found that 70 % of the topics taught to the students were about reading comprehension
and most of the texts were contain of specific words. It is not easy to solve this problem
by the teacher and the students, but there are some books which explain about reading
methods and effective reading to help learners in reading comprehension and also there
are some books about the methods in teaching reading to help teacher to teach reading
comprehension.
Table 1 below show the preliminary data about the scores average of SMAN 1
Table 1 English semester data of SMAN 1 Delitua 2010/2011 and 2011/2012
Semester Means of students’ achievement in language learning
Based on the score of students list above, it was found out that teaching English
hasn’t been satisfied especially in reading skill. It is because the students get bored
directly when the text is given for them. As the result, they are less interested with
further activities related with the reading text. Consider the fact happened shows that
methods which are challenging the students is needed so that they are more curious in
reading class. However, not all teaching methods are applicable for reading
comprehension. To get effective classrooms, teachers are responsible for helping
students develop better metacognitive skills by incorporating active reflection
throughout the learning process (Shannon, 2008). The teaching methods needed are
those able to connect the students’ prior knowledge with the new information in given
text.
By having some facts related to reading comprehension, students need methods
in order to overcome their lack desire of reading comprehension. By having those
methods, students are expected to achieve good comprehension in reading. There are
many methods can be used to increase students’ reading comprehension. Here are two
simple methods which are selected in this study. They are Cooperative Integrated
Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) is a comprehensive
approach to instruction in reading and composition/language arts for grades ten in senior
high school. In CIRC students are taught in reading groups and then return to mixed
ability teams to work on a series of cognitively engaging activities, including partner
reading, making predictions, identification of characters, settings, problem and problem
solutions, summarization, vocabulary, reading comprehension exercises, and
story-related writing. Meanwhile, Jigsaw is a cooperative teaching strategy with a three
decade track record of successfully reducing racial conflict and increasing positive
educational outcomes. The jigsaw process encaurages listening, engagement, and
empathy by giving each member of the group an essential part to play in the academic
activity. Group member must work together as a team to accomplish a common goal;
each person depends on all the others. No student can succeed completely unless
everyone works well together as a team.
These two methods actually are not new anymore. They apply students centered
approach where the students are in active learning while the teacher is just a facilitator.
These two methods will be treated the different students’ learning styles because
students must have different learning style in teaching-learning proccess in reading.
Terrence Morrison (2001:53) stated that within each from intellegence, people are also
who exhibit different learning style. So, realizing the condition, the learning style is also
considered as interesting one to be researched in order to see the effect of Cooperative
Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) and Jigsaw methods. Visual and
kinesthetic learning style are chosen in this research.
Visual learning style is learning style is learning through seeing. It means the
students need to see the teacher’s body language and facial expression to fully
including pictures, Diagrams, illustrated text books, overhead transparencies, videos,
flipcharts and hand-outs. In visual learning style the students need notes to absorb the
information. Kinesthetic learning style is learning more effective through touch. It
means kinesthetic learners receive and process information through their sense of touch.
Students learn best when they are able to physically participate directly in what they are
required to learn or understand. Kinesthetic learners usually excel when they are able to
handle something in order to learn about it. Kinesthetic learners may do especially well
in classes where lab work is required.
Besides those methods, and learning styles the researcher will carry the reading
comprehension focus to Recount and Narrative text. Based on Senior High School
Syllabus developed by government, Recount and Narrative are taught in the first grade
of Senior High School. That is why the researcher considers that Recount and Narrative
is the most important genre since it is taught in the first grade of Senior High Scool.
1.2 The Problems Identification of the study
The problems identification of this study is gathered by the researcher after
observing SMAN 1 Delitua. From the observation, it is known that the students’ result
in reading is the lowest one if it is compared with other language skills such as listening,
writing, and speaking. In edition, the students also stated that they felt difficult in
getting the real meaning eventhough they have had known the meaning of each
vocabulary. Because of these reason, the researcher identifies that the problem which is
the most important to be solved is the problem related with reading comprehension so
that they are be able to get the meaning of each words and communicate with the text by
By focus on this research, the researcher want to prove that Cooperative
Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) and Jigsaw methods appropriate to the
visual and kinesthetic learning styles and will be affected significantly on students’
reading comprehension.
1.3 The Problems of The Study
Based on the background which is given above, this study will investigate the
use of Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) on visual and
kinesthetic learning style in English classroom. The problem of the study can be
formulated in the following questions:
1. Is the students’ achievement taught by using Cooperative Integrated Reading
and Composition (CIRC) higher than Jigsaw on students’ achievement in
reading comprehension?
2. Is the students’ learning achievement with visual learning style higher than
kinesthetic learning style on students’ reading comprehension?
3. Is there any interaction
between teaching methods and learning styles?
1.4 The Scope of the Study
This research is to know the effect of teaching methods and learning styles on
students’ reading comprehension. Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition
(CIRC) and Jigsaw are applied to be the teaching methods in the classroom. And visual
and kinesthetic are chosen as a students’ learning style in applying teaching methods.
comprehension. The text of narrative and recount were used as the reading materials for
senior high school.
1.5 The Objectives of the Study
Based on the background and the problem above the objectives of the research
can be formulated as:
1) to analyze whether the students’ learning achievement are taught by
Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) is higher than
Jigsaw on students’ reading comprehension.
2) to analyze whether the students learning achievement with visual learning
style is higher than kinesthetic on students’ reading comprehension.
3) to analize the interaction between teaching methods and learning styles.
1.6 The Significances of the Study
The significances of the study can be theoretically and practically, namely:
a. Theoretically:
-The teachers will get the input which can make the students’ reading
comprehension improve.
-The result of this research can be used as the references for those who want to
conduct a research in improving the reading comprehension.
b. Practically:
-Students’ ability in reading comprehension can be developed to the higher level
-Students’ learning styles should be investigated and accommodated by the
teacher before teaching and learning process.
-English teachers as a contribution in improving their teaching methods
especially in teaching reading comprehension as well as improving their
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
Based on the data analysis and research findings at the previous chapter,
it is concluded that:
1) students’ achievement in reading comprehension text by using CIRC
method is higher than that taught by using jigsaw method.
2) in reading comprehension, the achievement of students with visual
learning style is higher than students with kinesthetic learning style.
3) there is significant interaction between teaching methods and
learning style on students’ achievement in reading comprehension.
On the other words, it can be said that the students’ achievement in
reading comprehension is influenced by teaching method and
students’ learning style.
5.2. Implications
It is known that the students’ achievement in reading comprehension
taught by using CIRC method is higher than taught by using jigsaw method. It
emphasis that actually whatever the method chosen by teachers is good if it is
based on the students’ need, style and background so that it is highly matching. It
In this research, the methods had attempted to be matched with students’
learning styles. Although the conclusion from data analysis, research findings and
discussions indicate that the students’ achievement taught by using CIRC method
is higher than by using jigsaw method especially when it is taught for students
with visual style. It is because students with visual style are more curious in
learning something through picture, structure, or chart so that they feel challenged
when they are asked to make their own knowledge. In this case, the students will
be as creative as possible in getting new information which contains all the
information in the text through some key words or paraphrase.
However, it does not mean the jigsaw method is not as good as CIRC
method. It is proven by the students’ achievement taught by jigsaw method can
also achieve satisfactory score when it is taught for students with kinesthetic style.
It is because the way of comprehending a text suited for students with kinesthetic
style is through students work in pairs to identify five critical features of each
narrative or recount story: characters, setting, problems, attempted solutions, final
solution. That is why jigsaw method is suitable to be applied for students with
kinesthetic style.
The fact explained also proofs that actually all learning styles of students
are good. Either visual or kinesthetic styles had been able to achieve satisfactory
score. Therefore , it can not be argued that a learning style is better than others
because it comes naturally in the students’ it selves what should be done is how to
find eligible method for the learning styles so that their ability can be explored
5.3 Suggestions
In connection to the conclusions, there are some suggestions staged as the
following:
1. English teachers are recommended using CIRC and Jigsaw method in
teaching reading comprehension since these two methods can be
improve students’ achievement in reading comprehension. Teacher
should recognize and understand the students’ learning styles of each
student when they are applying the methods in teaching.
2. it is highly recommended for teachers to use CIRC method for class
dominated by students with visual style while for class dominated by
students with kinesthetic style, teachers is recommended to use jigsaw
method.
3. other researchers may take a further research in the area CIRC and
jigsaw method that will improve students achievement in reading
comprehension. While still many weakness of this research, for the
other research who want to conduct this method, it is suggested to
learn more about the symbols in CIRC method and the application of
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