i
i ABSTRACT
Rita Meutia, Registration Number: 8106112047, The Effect of Teaching Strategies and Curiosity on Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension. A Thesis, English Applied Linguistic Study Program, State University of Medan, 2013.
The objectives of this study are to know whether: (1) students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by KWL is significantly higher than taught by QARs, (2) students’ achievement in reading comprehension having high curiosity is higher than having low curiosity, (3) there is significant interaction between teaching strategies and curiosity on students’ achievement in reading comprehension. An experimental research with factorial design 2x2 was used in this study. There were 120 students of science classes from grade XII of 2012/2013 academic year of SMA Negeri 1 Tanjungbalai as sample of this study. The students were divided into two groups. Each group consists of 60 students. The first group was treated by using KWL strategy and the second group was treated by using QARs strategy. Curiosity of the two groups was measured by giving questionnaire to classify the students having high and low curiosity. Students’ achievement in reading comprehension was measured by giving 40 questions of explanatory texts taken from State Examination (Ujian Nasional: UN ) in form of multiple choice tests. The data were analyzed by applying Two-Way ANOVA. The finding of the data shows that: (1) students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by using KWL strategy is higher than those taught by using QARs strategy. The mean of group taught by KWL strategy is 74.1 while the mean of group taught by using QARs strategy is 73.3 with Fobserved = 6.74 > Ftable = 3.92 at level of significance =
0.05 (2) students’ achievement in reading comprehension having high curiosity is higher than having low curiosity. The mean of group having high curiosity is 83 while the mean of group having low curiosity is 64.6 with Fobserved = 5.91 > Ftable = 3.92 at level of significance
= 0.05, (3) there is significant interaction between teaching strategies and curiosity on students’ achievement in reading comprehension with Fobserved = 4.70 > Ftable = 3.92 at level of
ii ABSTRAK
Rita Meutia, Nomor Registrasi: 8106112047, Pengaruh Strategi Pengajaran dan Rasa Ingin Tahu terhadap Kemampuan Siswa dalam Membaca. Sebuah Tesis, Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Negeri Medan, 2013.
Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui apakah: (1) siswa yang diajarkan dengan strategi KWL memiliki kemampuan yang lebih tinggi daripada siswa yang diajarkan dengan menggunakan strategi QARs dalam membaca, (2) siswa yang tinggi rasa ingin tahunya memiliki kemampuan yang lebih tinggi daripada siswa yang rasa ingin tahunya rendah, (3) ada interaksi yang signifikan antara strategi pengajaran dan rasa ingin tahu siswa terhadap kemampuan membaca. Penelitian ini menggunakan Metode eksperimen dengan desain faktorial 2x2. 120 orang siswa kelas XII dari jurusan IPA SMA Negeri 1 Tanjungbalai tahun akademik 2012/2013 menjadi sampel dalam penelitian ini. Para siswa dibagi dalam dua kelompok. Masing- masing kelompok terdiri dari 60 orang siswa. Kelompok pertama diajarkan dengan strategi KWL dan kelompok kedua diajarkan dengan menggunakan strategi QARs. Tinggi rendahnya rasa ingin tahu siswa dari dua kelompok ini diukur dengan menggunakan angket penelitian (questionnaire). Kemampuan membaca siswa diukur dengan memberikan 40 pertanyaan dalam bentuk pilihan ganda dari teks eksplanatif yang diambil dari soal- soal Ujian Nasional. Data dianalisa dengan menggunakan ANOVA dua arah. Hasil dari olah data menunjukkan bahwa: (1) siswa yang diajarkan dengna menggunakan strategi KWL memiliki kemamouan membaca yang lebih tinggi daripada sisiwa yang diajarkan dengan menggunakan strategi QARs. Nilai rata-rata dari kelompok siswa yang diajarkan dengan menggunakan strategi KWL adalah 74.1 sedangkan nilai rata-rata kelompok siswa yang diajarkan dengan strategi QARs adalah 73.3 dengan Fobservasi = 6.74 > Ftabel = 3.92 pada
tingkat signifikan = 0.05, (2) siswa yang tinggi rasa ingin tahunya memiliki kemampuan yang lebih tinggi daripada siswa yang rasa ingin tahunya rendah. Nilai rata-rata dari kelompok siswa yang rasa ingin tahunya tinggi adalah 83 sedangkan nilai rata-rata kelompok siswa yang rendah rasa ingin tahunya adalah 64.6 dengan Fobservasi = 5.91 > Ftabel = 3.92 pada
tingkat signifikan = 0.05, (3) ada interaksi yang signifikan antara strategi pengajaran dan rasa ingin tahu siswa terhadap kemampuan membaca dengan Fobservasi = 4.70 > Ftabel = 3.92
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Praise to Allah SWT for his blessings and mercy that have been endlessly poured to the writer before, during, and after accomplishing this thesis. The writer are indebted to many people who always give attention, affection, love, and spirit. Only prayer, sincerity and special thanks that can be presented by her.
Her appreciation goes to Dr. Eddy Setia, M.Ed., TESP and Dr. I Wayan Dirgayasa Tangkas, M.Hum as her advisers for their excellent and constructive suggestions, comments, and evaluation. The time and the moment passed through are unforgettable. They have afforded much knowledge and experience.
Her special thank go to Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd, and Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S as her reviewers and examiners for their valuable suggestions, corrections during thesis propossal and examination.
Her great complimentss go to all lectures at English Applied Linguistics Study Program, State University of Medan who have shared their worthful knowledge during her academic year.
Her kind regards go to the Principal of SMA Negeri 1 Tanjungbalai, Dra. Rosminah, MM for her help during the process of collecting the data in this research.
Her eternal gratitude goes to her husband, AKP. Hairun Edi Sidauruk, S.H for his full supports when the writer is down , understanding when the writer busies herself with her tasks, and love when the writer needs to share her gladness and sadness with. Her profound thanks also go to her father M. Hasan Ibrahim, SE, brother and sisters; Takim and Ayi for their continous pray and motivation.
Last but not least, the writer would also like to say thanks to all her friends in 2011 Academic Year for their friendship and sweet memory. May Allah SWT upholds her brotherhood with their friends forever
Medan, March 2013
The writer,
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 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. In today’s world, 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.
Learning reading comprehension, nowadays, is a complicated task to do by the students of Senior High School since Educational Unit Level Curriculum (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan: KTSP) requires them to know various text genres based on their levels.
For example, Recount, Narrative, Procedure, Descriptive, and News Item Genres are exposed to First Grade Students, Report, Exposition, Anecdote, and Spoof/ Recount genres are exposed to Second Grade students, and Explanation, Discussion, and Review genres are exposed to Third Grade Students. By knowing those genres, it is hoped that the students are being informational literate in terms of knowledge elevation in accordance with their needs in their lives as stated in Content Standard ( Standar Isi: SI, 2006) of KTSP. As the evaluation, Standard Committee of National Education (Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan: BSNP)
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will formulate genre- based questions to test students’ reading comprehension in State Examination (Ujian Nasional: UN). Those questions are dominated the questions. From 40 questions tested, only 15 questions are aimed at testing Listening skill while the rests are aimed at testing reading comprehension skill.
[image:8.595.54.547.550.709.2]Knowledge of text genres, in terms of how texts are organized, how information is signaled and how changes of content might be marked, has long been thought to be of importance in comprehending reading (Alderson, 2000). 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 State students and 64.73 % of Private students are able to reach the score above 4.0—fixed score decided by Depdikbud (2012). Further more, in SMA Negeri 1 Tanjungbalai, it is found that the major achievement of students in reading comprehension is still under Minimal Passing Grade Criteria (Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal: KKM ). The detailed data can be seen in the following table:
Table 1.1
Mean Score of the Students’ Achievement in Reading Comprehension of SMA Negeri 1 Tanjungbalai, School Year of 2011/ 2012
Class Mean KKM
X 67 70
XI 66 72
XII 67 72
The result shown by the table above 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 reading comprehension: internal and external. 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 harmonious 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.
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information. In the final phase (Learnt), students reflect on the new knowledge generated or retrieved as the plan is implemented. In KWL, the teacher functions as facilitator for this teaching strategy is student- centered (Ogle, 1986). So, it is inferred that KWL is a strategy that trains students to be active readers (Hyde, 2006).
Meanwhile, Question- Answer Relationships (QARs) is a teacher- centered strategy. It requires three levels of reading comprehension; reading the lines, by which students obtain information explicitly, reading between the lines, by which the students discover implicit meaning of text, and reading beyond the lines, whereby students interpret text in terms of their own personal values (Dale, 1966). QARs has three kinds of questions; Right There, Think and Search, and On My Own. In Right There, the answer is explicitly found in the text and it is easy to find. It means that the words used to make the question and the words that make the answer are Right There, in the same sentence. In Think and Search, the answer is in the story, but a little harder to find. The students would never find the words in the questions and words in the answer in the same sentence, but they would have to Think and Search for the answer. In on My Own, the answer would not be found in the text. The students must find the answer in their heads. In QARs, the teachers control the process of students’ reading comprehension. The students only answer the question proposed by the teachers. There is no need for them to read the passages beyond the questions given (Hyde, 2006).
and strategies (Lai, 2011). In other words, when the students are taught reading comprehension by using KWL and QARs strategies, they are regarded as self- regulated learners who set goals for extending knowledge and sustaining motivation. One of personal factors that provide motivational fuel for learning reading comprehension is curiosity.
Curiosity, undoubtedly, is a personal factor that really affects the success of teaching and learning in the classroom. When learner’s curiosity is well- provoked, they will have great wander through the tasks given by the teachers, new sensation directed towards the process of learning, positive behavior and better concentration and attention while teaching and learning processes occur. Those attitudes, of course, are considered as strong motivators to facilitate cognitive, affective, and psychomotor developments in teaching and learning any skills, including reading comprehension.
Moreover, curiosity is considered to be an information- seeking process that directs and motivates learning (Loewenstein, 1994). When the students are exposed to KWL 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 KWL and QARs can provoke curiosity in comprehending a text for the students.
In short, although KWL and QARs have numerous similarities, they have basic differences; QARs is teacher- centered, while KWL is student- centered, QARs is convergent (it focuses on the answer) while KWL is divergent (It focuses on the process of getting the answer), and QARs treats the students to be passive and dependent learners while KWL treats the students to be active and independent learners (Hyde, 2006)
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That is why in this research, KWL and QARs strategies will be associated with high and low levels of students’ curiosity.
1.2 Problems of the Study
In accordance with the background of the study above, the problem of the study can be formulated as follow:
1. Is the students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by using KWL 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 Objectives of the Study
The main objectives of this study are to answer the questions posed in the problem of the study. The objectives are:
1. to know whether the students’ achievement in reading comprehension taught by KWL is significantly higher than taught by QARs.
2. to know whether the students’ achievement in reading comprehension having high curiosity is higher than having low curiosity.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS
4.1 Conclusions
Based on data analysis, hypotheses testing, research findings, and discussion, it can be concluded that :
1. KWL has more advantages than QARs strategy in affecting students’ reading comprehension achievement because it treats the students to be active, independent, and detail information- seekers.
2. The higher curiosity had by the students, the more comprehensive they read the text. It means that when students have high curiosity, they are eager to read more and more, store the ideas, and create personal knowledge.
3. The strategy used by the teachers in teaching reading comprehension and the levels of students’ curiosity are connected to each other because suitable strategy applied by the teachers will determine the success of provoking students’
curiosity.
4.2 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 strategies, namely KWL and QARs. They are applied to students with high and low curiosity in order to know which teaching strategy is more suitable for them in improving their reading comprehension achievement.
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The first finding of this research shows that students with high curiosity have higher achievement in reading comprehension when they were taught by using KWL 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, KWL strategy also can make English teachers become easier in managing learning activity because they just function as facilitator. At the end of KWL 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 interaction between teaching strategies and curiosity on students’ achievement in 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
4.3 Suggestions
In relation to the conclusions presented in previous chapter, it is suggested that: 1. English teachers are recommended to use KWL and QARs strategy because both
strategies can improve students’ reading comprehension achievement.
2. English teachers should be very creative to stimulate students’ curiosity in order that the students have great desire in learning and completing the tasks and activities during learning
3. Other researchers can develop further study in the area of KWL and QARs strategies in order to improve students’ achievement in reading comprehension.
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