This study is intended to understand teaching quality of English student teachers when they conduct their teaching practicum. Teaching quality is conceptualized based on the principles of effective teaching resulted by teacher effectiveness studies. Thes IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 123 Extensive Reading Online while Writing Academic Articles: An Embedded Mixed Methods Study HENNY RAHMAWATY 1 AND DZULFIKRI 2 Abstract Writing an academic article is a must for scholars to fulfil their academic demands. Departed from the input hypothesis proposed by Krashen (2011) saying that input knowledge very matters in language learning and so as in writing an academic article, reading has undoubtedly been agreed to gain language inputs. The pandemic Covid-19 outbreak, recently, forces a face-to-face meeting to the fully virtual mode of learning. Hence, the lecturers are getting another challenge to find another way to cope with online learning. To fill this gap, this study, then, aimed to investigate whether the er-central, an online extensive reading platform by which the students can acquire the input knowledge, can positively contribute to writing scholarly articles in terms of the students’ attitudes towards reading per se. The participants were sophomores of a private university in Indonesia consisting of twenty-seven students taking a required writing course in eight meetings conducted fully virtually, at the end of which a scholarly article must be an outcome for each student. The method used in this study was a mixed-method, the participants were divided into two groups, experimental and control group—seventeen and ten respectively. The data gathered were then both qualitatively and quantitatively analysed to gain the most appropriate information. The result showed that the use of er-central did not significantly affect, though it’s very helpful in improving the students’ attitudes towards reading when writing academic articles. Reflecting on this study, to attain better results the lecturers and future researchers as well should focus more on how the students enjoy reading and on how to promote purposeful reading that is reading for writing an academic article. Keywords academic article, er-central, extensive reading, significant effect Article History Received 24 January 2022 Accepted 30 June 2022 How to Cite Rahmawati, H. & Dzulfikri (2022). Extensive reading online while writing academic article: an embedded mixed method study. Indonesian Research Journal in Education |IRJE|, 6(1), 123–137. https://doi.org/10.22437/irj e.v6i1.17028 1Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Islam Malang, Malang, Indonesia; Corresponding author: hennyrahma@unisma.ac.id 2 Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Islam Malang, Malang, Indonesia. mailto:hennyrahma@unisma.ac.id IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 124 Introduction The potentials of Extensive Reading approach towards language learning have been widely justified empirically. The previous empirical studies show that ER benefits to some aspects in English language learning like positively improving reading rate, reading attitude, reading comprehension, vocabulary (Nakanishi, 2015) and (Jeon & Day, 2015) improving fluency in speaking (Stoller, 2015) and (Beglar & Hunt, 2014), improving accuracy in both writing and speaking (Khansir & Dehghani, 2015), improving all-subskills in the EAP writing in particular (Park, 2016) and so forth. Recently, the world was hit by the pandemic Covid-19 which shifted the process of learning, from fully face-to-face to fully virtual learning. These fully virtual classes practically have remained a challenge to some ER practitioners in the case of how to conduct ER online and monitor the students as well so that ER can run as successfully as in a face-to-face teaching and learning process. A study conducted by Syahrin (2020) showed that ER online in a given pandemic situation can still be conducted by utilizing a website Voice of America (VoA) Learning English. Syahrin (2020) also found out that there was a positive outcome on students' post-test scores indicating the more the students read, the significantly higher the scores they got. On the other side, long before the pandemic, there were some studies conducting ER using an online platform like M-reader (Milliner & Cote, 2015; Rajabpour, 2020), XReading (Walker, 2019), Wattpad (Permatasari, Wijayanto, & Kristina, 2020), e-book application ‘Let’s Read’ (Ermerawati, 2019), etc. which resulted more on positive stories. This indicates that ER has been an approach, flexible to be implemented either in fully face-to-face, hybrid or fully virtual learning. On the other hand, writing English in an EFL context is considered a challenging activity for a single student, especially, majoring in English. This is an account for some challenges faced by all EFL students like a differing language from their mother tongue, first language interferences due to the different structures, lacking the appropriate structures and vocabulary as well and many more. Considering the above constraints, from a lecturer’s point of view, the way of teaching such materials have already been discussed among practitioners. A good strategy and approach as well resulted in good output. In looking for a way out, we are concerned one fundamental underpinning which is famously known as good writing goes hand in hand with good reading. To build a good reading habit, ER approach is a promising answer (Asraf, 2003; Porkaew & Fongpaiboon, 2018; Rodrigo, Greenberg, & Segal, 2014). The successful stories of ER towards the process of writing performance have been of heightened interest amid practitioners. Hadiyanto (2019), in this case, underlined that ER can promote students’ creativity and imagination in writing. Besides (Yılmaz, Atay, & Mustafa, 2020) pointed out that ER can positively affect the students’ writing and reading performance as well as their Foreign Language Self Concept (FLSC). Furthermore, a study conducted by (Aida & Widiyati, 2020) proposed that ER had significantly improved the eleventh graders' ability to write an explanation text. The above previous studies positively justified the benefits of ER towards reading performance. However, talking about ER towards scholarly article writing has, let’s say, inadequately been discussed though few research studies had arrived at that point (Macalister, 2008) within which he found that the students in the English for Academic Purpose(EAP) program IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 125 responded positively in a 12-week immersion class with ER (Macalister, 2008). In addition, (Savaş, 2009) justified the successful story in the implementation of ER towards the academic literacy of the tertiary level students. Another cornerstone of this recent study pictured how ER can be an input for academic vocabulary across multiple secondary school subjects including English language learning (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Green, 2020). As in the above elaboration saying that on account of the pandemic situation recently hit Indonesia, the government have mandated that all academia in all educational levels in this country must work and learn as well from home (Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2020). In teaching ER from home, an application named er-central can be a way out. This platform consists of plenty of online materials both fiction and non-fiction materials. This was preferably chosen since besides the numerous of readings in it, it can also be accessed freely by both instructors and students as long as they connect to the internet. The students can choose themselves the books they are interested in to promote ER in a virtual learning mode. In this recent study, therefore, we tried to figure out the implementation of er-central and its impact on the students' reading attitudes when writing an academic article. We tried to find out the connecting line between the ER online using er-central when writing an academic article toward the students’ attitude; this is supposed to be the gap of this recent research. Therefore, some emerging research problems, then, were formulated like ‘How er-central can be implemented during the process of scholarly article writing?' and 'Is there any significant impact of ER online towards the students' reading attitudes when writing academic articles?' Based on the above problems revealed, some issues that will be unearthed in this study were 1) the implementation of er-central within the process of scholarly article writing, and 2) the effect of ER online on the students' reading attitudes when writing academic articles. The results of this study are addressed to both practical and theoretical significances. Those are respectively nourishing the previous studies with another perspective of the impact of er-central towards students’ reading attitudes and giving some implication to the nature of teaching academic writing through reading as another practical solution to solve the problems faced by the students. Methodology Research design, site, and participants Considering the research problems revealed in the above statement, the mixed method was the appropriate method for this study in explaining the ‘how-to’ phenomenon and finding the connecting line between variables (Creswell, 2022). Using this method, mixing between qualitative and quantitative, enables the researchers to figure out the step-by-step implementation of er-central while writing academic articles and see how far the effectiveness of this approach towards the students' reading attitude respectively. This particular method is specifically identified as the embedded mixed method design (See Figure 1 and Figure 2). In this study, first we divided the participants into two groups, experimental and control group. The former received a treatment, er-central, while the latter did not. The populations was all students, the sophomores, taking a required writing course in a private IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 126 university in Indonesia and the sample were twenty-seven students, randomly divided into seventeen in experimental and the others in the control group. The participants were chosen, for in this class they are taught to make an academic article as an output submitted at the end of the semester. Due to the study of the pandemic era hit by Covid-19, we conducted this study in a fully virtual class for the entire semester via a Learning Management System (LMS) namely e-learning through which the students can access both asynchronously all materials given by the lecturers. While all consultation sessions in which students consulted their manuscript were done synchronously via Zoom Meeting Application. One of the instruments used in this study was a reading attitude questionnaire consisting of twenty-six questions adopted from Yamashita (2013) asking about the students’ attitude towards reading. This instrument did not need to be validated since it has been taken from the previous study which was believed as a valid and a reliable instrument as well. This questionnaire was given for both groups at the beginning and at the end of the course to see whether there are some changes of attitudes. Besides the usual class activities, we gave a treatment, er-central, for the experimental group for about eight meetings. While the control group did the usual class activities without any specific treatment. The ER online platform, the so-called er-central, can be accessed online via er-central.com, through which the participants can read extensively and can test their comprehension of the materials read as well. In this platform, the students can choose themselves the books they are interested in within their difficulty level. All activities done by students in this platform were recorded in detail including when, how many books, and how long they read. This detailed information was used to control the reading activities during the treatment. Furthermore, the lecturers were at the same time as researchers, the other instrument of this certain study. Data collection and analysis The procedures of data compilation are depicted clearly as 1) distributing an online questionnaire as a pre-test via an online platform, forms.google.com consisting of twenty-six questions about reading attitude to both classes—experimental and control group; 2) giving a treatment—the er-central—to the experimental group; 4) distributing the same questionnaire at the end of the class period as a post-test; 5) compiling the data during the study; 6) describing the phenomenon and identifying the step-by-step implementation for qualitative data; 7) analysing the data using SPSS v.21 for quantitative analysis; 8) drawing some conclusions and stating some suggestions for the future researchers. The data were analysed both descriptively and quantitatively as well. In the descriptive analysis, we described the phenomenon during the learning process and identified the implementation of er-central while writing academic articles. Then, it was followed by a quantitative analysis using SPSS v.21 in determining whether the effect of one variable towards the other is significant. The former data analysis or the so-called supplementary data enriching the primary data analysis. After analysing the data, we interpreted the data gathered, drew some conclusions and determined some practical ways which can be done to improve the learning process. The figure below depicts clearly the method conducted in this recent study. IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 127 Figure 1. The embedded mixed method design (Creswell, 2013) The above figure can be broken down into some steps stated in Figure 2. In the following, we clearly mentioned some steps to which those belong to and led the two data analyses to the final step, which is interpretation. Table 1. The procedure of data analyses adopted from Creswell (2022) Quantitative data analysis Qualitative data analysis - Dividing class into experimental and control group - Giving pretest to both groups with the same instrument - Giving treatment to the experimental group for eight meetings and no treatment for the control group - Giving posttest to both groups - Analyzing the data gathered using SPSS v.21 - Determining the efficiency of the approach - Interpreting the data gathered in the form of descriptive data - Identifying the ‘how-to’ phenomenon - Figuring out the potential biases of the study Ethical consideration To protect the participants' safety, privacy and confidentiality, we did not mention any specific names of the participants, the class and the higher education, in which the participants were pursuing their study. Qualitative data collection & analysis Quantitative data collection & analysis (before, during, or after) Interpretation The data got from both data analyses were interpreted—compared and contrasted—to draw some conclusion. IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 128 Findings In these findings, the data gathered can be classified into experimental and control group, within which they were pre-, whilst- and post-activities. The data-compiled respectively showed the result of the questionnaire for both groups before conducting the study and the preparedness as well, the implementation of the er-central in addition to usual activities for experimental and the usual virtual classroom activities for the control group, and the result of the questionnaire from both groups after the study. To ease the readers, we classified the above data into two categories, the control and the experimental group. Furthermore, the result of the questionnaire distributed before and after the treatment was put in one table, a more easily readable and analysed data as well. Control group In pre-activities, the control group filled out a questionnaire functioning as a pre-test asking about reading attitudes. There were ten participants filling out the questionnaire. The same questionnaire was distributed to the students after eight meetings to those ten students as a post-test. The result of the questionnaire was stated in the following table. Table 2. The result of questionnaire for control group adapted from Yamashita (2013) No. Statements A1 (10 students) B1 (10 students) 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 I can become more sophisticated if I read English. 0 0 9 1 0 2 8 0 2. I can get various forms of information if I read English. 0 0 9 1 0 0 8 2 3. Reading English is troublesome. 0 6 4 0 1 4 3 2 4. Reading English is useful for my future career. 0 0 7 3 0 0 5 5 5. I feel anxious if I don’t know all the words. 0 2 6 2 0 2 6 2 6. I can acquire vocabulary if I read English. 0 0 4 6 0 0 5 5 7. Reading English is useful to get a good grade in class. 0 1 7 2 0 1 5 4 8. I can acquire broad knowledge if I read English. 0 1 6 3 0 0 6 4 9. I feel relaxed if I read English. 0 2 8 0 0 2 6 2 10. When I read English, I sometimes feel anxious that I may not understand it. 0 0 8 2 0 3 5 2 11. I can develop my reading ability if I read English. 0 0 7 3 0 0 7 3 IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 129 Table 2. Continued… 12. Reading English is useful to get credit for class. 0 3 7 0 0 1 7 2 13. When I read English, it satisfies my intellectual curiosity. 0 2 5 3 0 1 8 1 14. I feel pressure when I read English. 0 6 4 0 1 7 2 0 15. Reading English is dull. 1 6 3 0 2 6 2 0 16. I get to know about new ways of thinking if I read English. 0 0 10 0 0 0 8 2 17. I can improve my sensitivity to the English language if I read English. 0 1 8 1 0 1 8 1 18. I feel tired if I read English. 1 5 3 1 8 1 1 0 19. I feel anxious when I’m not sure whether I understood the book content. 0 1 7 2 0 2 7 1 20. I feel refreshed and rested if I read English. 1 0 8 1 1 3 6 0 21. Reading English is useful for getting a job. 0 0 8 2 0 0 7 3 22. I can learn to express myself better when I read English. 0 2 6 2 0 1 7 2 23. I don’t mind even if I Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education the book content entirely. 0 5 3 2 0 7 2 1 24. Encountering unfamiliar expressions in English improves my English. 0 0 9 1 0 0 7 3 25. Reading English is enjoyable. 0 0 8 2 0 2 8 0 26. I get to know about different value if I read English 0 0 10 0 0 0 8 2 Notes: A1: The result of questionnaire given in the first meeting B1: The result of the questionnaire given in the last meeting 1: Strongly disagree 2: Disagree 3: Agree 4: Strongly Agree IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 130 Based on the above table, we all can see that for control group in which there was no treatment given, the result shows that there are some responses changes from the result found in the first meeting to that in the last meeting; from this point forward, we call those as A1 and B1 respectively. For each point of the questionnaire, the responses either increasingly, decreasingly change or both. Increasing responses means the more participants chose the higher rate of the Likert scale. For the decreasing responses, within one question some participants changed from higher scale to the lower. Both means in one question some participants changed from the higher scale to the lower and some others the other way around. In same numbers, however, the responses tended to be unmoving, the same responses between A1 and B1. Those with increasing responses are 1) getting various forms of information; 2) useful for future careers; 3) useful to get a good grade in class; 4) acquiring broad knowledge; 5) feeling relaxed; 6) satisfying intellectual curiosity; 7) a dull activity; 8) knowing new ways of thinking; 9) useful for getting a job; 10) learning to express better; 11) improving English; 12) enjoyable activity; and 13) knowing different value. While those with decreasing responses are 1) becoming more sophisticated; 2) acquiring vocabulary; 3) sometimes feeling anxious; 4) feeling tired; 5) feeling anxious when not understanding the book content; and 6) feeling refreshed and rested. In addition, those with both increasing and decreasing rate of changes are 1) troublesome activity; 2) useful to get credit for class; 3) feeling pressure; and 4) feeling okay when not understanding the book content entirely. At last, those with stagnant responses are 1) feeling anxious when not knowing the all the words with the highest portion in scale 'Agree'; 2) developing reading ability with the highest rate in 'Agree'; and 3) improving sensitivity to the English language with the highest percentage in scale ‘Agree.’ The detailed changes can be scrutinized in the above table. During this research study, the control group did a usual class activities including reading academic articles weekly published by accredited journals, varied from one to four articles in each week, doing a presentation, watching video explanations explaining the materials shared by the facilitator, writing their own articles, doing article consultation and revision, now and then. No special treatment was given to this group. The materials and assignments as well were given mostly asynchronously using an LMS named e-learning through which they can learn independently. In each meeting, they must read some academic articles; it can be only one to four articles per week. After reading they wrote the detail of the article read and a summary in a reading log; such log has empirically been proven beneficial for students in scholarly article writing (Rahmawati, 2019). Table 3. Reading log for scholarly article writing adapted from Rahmawati (2019) No. Date Title/Author/ URLs Problem(s) Method Conclusion Suggestion A Brief Summary 1. 2. In reading academic articles, the students can choose themselves the topic they are interested in by which they develop their own articles; the topic must be the same during the semester. Besides they also got some materials and activities talking about what scholarly articles are IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 131 and how to make those articles. All activities including reading the materials shared, online discussion, writing draft etc. done by the students in each meeting were showcased in e-learning. After eight meetings, they were asked to fill a questionnaire, the same as previous, as in the above mentioned to see the differences between before and after eight-week class activities. Experimental group In the first meeting, the facilitator distributed an online questionnaire to all participants in this group asking about their attitude towards reading. Twelve students were participating in online questionnaire distributed before treatment. While the students participating in filling a questionnaire distributed after treatment were seventeen. The results of the questionnaire before and after treatment are concisely put in Table 4. During the treatment, the experimental group did an additional activity, which was an online ER activity featured by er-central, in addition to the usual class activities like those in the control group. They read some, from one to four e-books they are interested in er-central, in each week based on their difficulty level they were themselves rated by which in the very beginning they exposed to the platform and did the exercises accordingly. All their activities and the students’ scores as well were clearly written-recorded in the platform that can be accessed by the facilitator to control their reading activities. In er-central, all the students' activities recorded finely include text level, date in which they are reading, the words length and read, time-allotment, word per minute (WPM), the scores and even whether they cheated when doing the quiz, from which we can learn how they are reading during the implementation of ER online and can monitor the students' reading activities. After getting treatment for eight meetings, the students were asked to fill a questionnaire, the same as distributed before treatment, to see whether we could see some changes in terms of their attitudes towards reading. Table 4. Reading attitude questionnaire for experimental group adapted from Yamashita (2013) No. Statements A2 (12 students) B2 (17 students) 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1. I can become more sophisticated if I read English. 0 2 7 3 0 1 12 4 2. I can get various forms of information if I read English. 0 1 8 3 0 3 10 4 3. Reading English is troublesome. 0 7 4 1 0 11 5 1 4. Reading English is useful for my future career. 0 0 9 3 0 0 11 6 5. I feel anxious if I don’t know all the words. 0 2 8 2 0 1 13 3 6. I can acquire vocabulary if I read English. 2 0 7 5 0 0 10 7 7. Reading English is useful to get a good grade in class. 0 1 7 4 0 1 11 5 8. I can acquire broad knowledge if I read English. 0 3 4 5 0 1 14 2 9. I feel relaxed if I read English. 1 5 6 0 0 5 12 0 10. When I read English, I sometimes feel anxious that I may not understand it. 0 0 10 2 0 2 15 0 11. I can develop my reading ability if I read English. 0 0 9 3 0 1 15 1 IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 132 Table 4. Continued… 12. Reading English is useful to get credit for class. 0 1 9 2 0 1 11 5 13. When I read English, it satisfies my intellectual curiosity. 0 1 10 1 0 3 12 2 14. I feel pressure when I read English. 0 8 4 0 0 7 9 1 15. Reading English is dull. 0 5 5 2 0 13 4 0 16. I get to know about new ways of thinking if I read English. 0 0 8 4 0 2 14 1 17. I can improve my sensitivity to the English language if I read English. 0 0 11 1 0 1 15 2 18. I feel tired if I read English. 0 7 5 0 0 6 11 0 19. I feel anxious when I’m not sure whether I understood the book content. 0 0 11 1 0 4 12 1 20. I feel refreshed and rested if I read English. 0 6 6 0 0 8 9 0 21. Reading English is useful for getting a job. 0 1 6 5 0 1 15 1 22. I can learn to express myself better when I read English. 0 3 9 0 0 4 11 2 23. I don’t mind even if I cannot understand the book content entirely. 0 5 6 1 0 8 9 0 24. Encountering unfamiliar expressions in English improves my English. 0 0 10 2 0 3 11 3 25. Reading English is enjoyable. 0 3 9 0 0 3 14 0 26. I get to know about different values if I read English 0 1 9 2 0 0 14 3 Notes: A2: The result of questionnaire given in the first meeting as pre-test B2: The result of the questionnaire given in the last meeting as post-test 1: Strongly disagree 2: Disagree 3: Agree 4: Strongly agree Based on the above table, there were some changes in attitudes after the eight-week treatment. For the statement ‘I become more sophisticated If I read English,’ the first, the second and the third highest percentage are still the same between two groups, Agree, Strongly Agree and Disagree respectively; some respondents in the experimental groups tended to move to the higher level. Responding to a statement ‘I feel relaxed If I read English,’ the more respondents chose ‘Agree’ and none of those chose either ‘Disagree’ or ‘Strongly Agree.’ Some students responded ‘Disagree’ in the post-test while in the pre-test none of those responded the same towards a statement ‘When I read English, I sometimes feel anxious that I may not understand it.’ To a statement ‘When I read English, it satisfies my intellectual curiosity,’ the winner is likely the same. In terms of pressure, more participants answered ‘Agree’ after the treatment. To a statement ‘Reading is Dull,’ no one responded ‘Extremely Agree’ after treatment. Some respondents moved to ‘Disagree,’ but the highest percentage is still the same ‘Agree’ towards a statement ‘I get to know about new ways of thinking if I read English.’ For a statement ‘I can improve my sensitivity to the IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 133 English language if I read English,’ a responded moved to ‘Disagree’ after treatment. The responses ‘Agree’ becomes the first winner after the treatment which was in the runner-up position before treatment towards a statement ‘I feel tired If I read English.’ After the treatment, more respondents move to the higher level in responding to a statement ‘I can learn to express myself better when I read English.’ After the eight-meeting treatment applying er-central, another online questionnaire was distributed to the students containing about their perceptions towards the use of er-central, in the form of a binary question some subjective questions. There were only fifteen students from the experimental group who participated in this questionnaire. A binary question asking about whether er-central benefitted to them when writing academic article. Seventy three percent of the participants responded, ‘Yes’ and the remaining twenty seven percent responded differently, ‘No.’ There are two subjective questions, respectively asking about the benefits and the weaknesses of er-central towards the process of writing academic article. Responding to these objective questions, more than one answer was appreciated. Almost all the participants confirmed the benefits of er-central in writing academic article; two participants said, ‘No help.’ The benefits, on the other hand, lied on some aspects classified into three categories 1) increasing vocabularies and ability to write in the correct structures (60%); 2) improving knowledge about context-based writing (46%), and 3) becoming a better autonomous reader (three percent). Towards the second subjective questions regarded the weaknesses of er-central, the participants responded 1) no weakness (33%); 2) er-central is not related to academic realm (13%); 3) the bad signal when accessing the platform (27%); 4) the platform is not yet familiar to them (13%); 5) the readings are not interesting, old-fashioned ones (7%); and 5) no time reading (7%). Besides the above description, we also quantitatively analysed the data gathered using SPSS v.21. The following table clearly depicts the data analysis of SPSS v.21; the calculation is firstly talking descriptive statistics then followed by normality test and independent t-test using Mann-Whitney test as well. In descriptive statistics, the data got from questionnaire was put in a such a way that we can get the mean of each score that was then used to determine whether the data were normally distributed. After knowing that the data were not normally distributed for the results showed that the Sig. in the test was mostly <0.05 in the test of normality. Because the data did not normally distribute, we use Mann-Whitney test with the following result. Table 5. Mann-Whitney test Result Mann-Whitney U 1261.000 Wilcoxon W 2639.000 Z -.593 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .553 a. Grouping Variable: Class Based on the above table, the Asymp. Sig (2-tailed) is more than .05 which means that the hypothesis, the er-central affects greatly the students’ attitudes toward reading when writing academic article, is rejected. Referring to the research questions stated in the very IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 134 beginning, the findings gathered from the study can partly answer those problems though it still need some discussion regarding the biases might disturb while the study was conducted. The findings were summed up as 1) the implementation of er-central in this study was while writing their manuscripts, the students are asked to read some articles in the er-central platform in which they can choose the book they are interested in as a stimulus for them to write their articles; 2) the use of er-central while writing academic was very helpful though based on the result of the questionnaire it is not significant. Discussion Based on the above findings, some issues need to discuss. The result put in the above explanation shows that there were some changes after treatment within both control and experimental groups. Extensive reading as famously known as the ‘one-fits-all’ solution to English language deficiency including writing (Renandya, 2020). In the case of writing, the more reading the better writing skill will be. However, not all the results of the ER implementation gave us happy ending story, for many biases might hinder the supreme achievement. As researchers, these biases must be our concern to conduct the next study for attaining the better result. In this study, for both the control and the experimental group, there are some ups and down attitudes like for example many respondents were still getting tired and feeling pressured in reading and they did not enjoy the reading activities etc. though they in some cases got lots of benefits in these activities like getting new ways of thinking, improving English, learning to express better etc. Those up and downs attitudes after using er-central compared to the students in the control class in which no additional activities given did not significantly change. This implies that the use of er-central to build the students’ attitudes towards reading when writing academic article may give a little help but not a lot. This is in line with a study done by (Rahmawati & Mazhabi, 2020); in her study she investigated the students’ literacy with and without ER by which she found that the students’ literacy improves though in some cases not a great deal for the same constraints within its implementation. The reasons may lay on some constraints faced by both the instructors and the students for the virtual ER using er-central was still the first experience needing more practices in the field. This confirmed a postulate proposed by (Clandinin, 2016) in which the experiences really matter in language learning. Besides the type of texts read really matters (Webb & Macalister, 2013); when the students only read the fictions, but not the non-fictions, they still cannot enjoy the reading activities for the output of the activities must be in the form of academic writing passages. These rationales, however, still need to prove empirically by the future researchers to investigate. From the implementation of er-central, some biases might happen during the study. Because of the virtual learning activities, the instructions coming from the facilitator to use the er-central platform may not as clearly as when those were announced in a face-to-face class. Also, the role of the facilitator as a model in reading cannot be adequately visualised in virtual learning so that the motivation to read cannot be easily transferred to the students. The pile of assignment coming from virtual learning can demotivate the students to read for IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 6| No. 1|June|Year 2022| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 135 they have very limited leisure time. Again, these biases were addressed to the future researchers to minimise in order to gain the better results. Besides the er-central might be one solution for the stakeholder to provide a stimulus for reading when writing academic article to build reading habit and to set some policies which can ease the students during virtual learning. As a proverb said, ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ this ER online using er-central has some weaknesses as the other side of the coin. The weaknesses can presumably be minimized by maximizing the teachers’ role in guiding the students in choosing materials in er-central, in giving feedback and in challenging them with fun activities after reading and in concerning the biases during the study (Yung, 2020). Conclusion and Recommendations/Implications Related to the first research question, in conducting ER using er-central the students are asked to read in er-central platform at least two articles per week and answering the comprehension question while they are doing usual class activities, writing a manuscript and then consulting it to the facilitator. Besides we can know that the use of er-central within the process of writing academic article was helpful though not in significant way in shaping some positive attitudes when writing academic article like 1) increasing vocabularies and ability to write in the correct structures (60%); 2) improving knowledge about context-based writing (46%), and 3) becoming a better autonomous reader (three percent). However, in some cases based on the result of the questionnaire given to the participants, some attitudes like feeling pressure and tired when reading English were higher than those before treatment. This is account for the activities of reading are not merely based on the participants’ will. For the future researchers, we suggest concerning more on how the students enjoy reading so that the benefits will greater than they are forced to read though the materials are interesting. 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