https://jurnal.unigal.ac.id/index.php/jall/index P-ISSN: 2598-8530 September 2019, Vol. 3 No.2 English Education Program Faculty of Teacher Training and Education Galuh University 122 Received: Accepted: Published: July 2019 August 2019 September 2019 THE CORRELATION BETWEEN READING STRATEGIESAND READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OFTHE SIXTH SEMESTER IN ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OFBENGKULU UNIVERSITY Nur Olivia Siregar English Education Study Program Department of Language and Art University of Bengkulu nurolivia.siregar@gmail.com Rudi Afriazi English Education Study Program, Department of Language and Art University of Bengkulu rudiafriazi88@gmail.com Arasuli English Education Study Program, Department of Language and Art University of Bengkulu arasulimsi@gmail.com ABSTRACT This research is aimed at identifying student‟s reading strategies used and students‟s reading comprehension achievement. The research would like to find out whether or not there is any significant correlation between reading strategies and reading comprehension achievement at the sixth-semester students of English Education Study Program at Universitas BengkuluAcademic Year 2018/2019. The research was designed as a quantitative correlation method, the subject were 78 students and the instrument used for collecting the data were reading strategies questionnaire and reading test. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS 23. The result of this research revealed that there is a significant correlation between reading strategies and reading comprehension achievement because the correlation coefficient is 0.033 which is very weak correlation category. It seems that most of the students were not familiar to the strategies in reading 123 comprehension therefore more understanding of strategies is needed until a reading comprehension problem is solved. Keywords: Correlation, Reading Strategies, Reading comprehension Achievement INTRODUCTION Reading is the dimension of comprehension. It is very important to support student‟s learning. By reading student‟s get information and expand their knowledge about what they are learning and what they need to know. Reading is not only about assigning the words or sounds of written words, but also understanding the message or comprehending the written words. Patel and Jain ( 2008) argue that reading is extending someone knowledges, not only for seeeking the source of pleasure and information, but also for getting the meanings. Reading is about understanding written text. Therefore, reading cannot be separated from comprehension. Reading comprehension itself is the process of making sense of words, sentences, and connected text in order to understanding information presented in a written form. Moreover, reading comprehension is the goal of reading. It becomes a basic skill in the learning process, both in learning generally as well as learning at school. Reading is very important because it can develop the thinking process and helps the reader to discover new things and new information. Consequently, reading helps in enhancing the knowledge There are some factors contributing to good reading comprehension. One of them is reading strategies. Reading strategies are very important to help reader comprehend the text in the act of reading (Kuru- Gonen, 2015, p. 2924) and the implementation of special reading strategies enable more efficient use of time . Moreover, it is effective way to solve reading problems encountered by students while reading academic material. Research studies on second/foreign language reading have consistently confirmed the importance of reading strategies on developing language learners„ reading comprehension skills (Zare and Nooreen, 2011). On the Other hand, most readers may face comprehension problems while reading a text, but proficient readers would face the problems by consciously 124 applying effective reading strategies to solve the comprehension challenges. Students should understand the meaning of the text, critically evaluate the message, remember the content, and apply a new-found knowledge flexibly. Using reading strategies appropriately may be of great help to non-native readers because it can serve as an effective way of overcoming language deficiency and obtaining better reading achievement on language proficiency test as an EFL educator, it is essential to explore how students learn to read in English and understand more the problems they have encountered in reading strategy use, so that teachers can help them acquire better strategies. Some studies have investigated reading strategies and reading comprehension achievement Tobing (2013) studied about the relationship between reading strategies and self-efficacy with the reading comprehension of high school students in Indonesia.The categories of reading strategies (global reading strategies, problem-solving reading strategies and support reading strategies) were not significantly related to reading comprehension.The use of sufficient EFL reading strategies is considered to be one of the important factors contributing to successful language learning (Ikeda and Takeuchi, 2006). Tika Sari (2017), studied about the correlation between reading strategies and reading comprehension of the eleventh grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 6 Palembang. The categories of reading strategies are : global reading strategies , problem – solving reading strategies and support reading strategies.the purpose of this study was to find out reading strategies significantly influence reading comprehension. The result showed that students reading strategies use had significant influence to the students‟ reading comprehension (33,9%). The total contribution students reading strategies and their reading comprehension achivement showed significant correlated and influenced. Furthermore, according to Othman and Zare (2013, p. 187) nowadays some language learners do not read for the purpose of understanding the writer„s message in the text, they developed wrong concept of reading, they just consider that the purpose of reading is only to learn new vocabulary. They also argued that ―what a reader needs to focus on is not only every word in the text, but also the semantics of the text. Reading strategy is considered as one of the features of 125 cognitive psychology which are important to the success of comprehension. They also argued that the use of strategy in deferent ways is in more and less prescient readers. Anderson (2004, p. 13) also defines that reading strategy is readers„ ability in using some variety of reading strategies in order to get the purpose of reading. Good readers tend to use strategies in reading, thus, they know what to do when they got difficulties in reading. The importance of strategy used is also emphasized by Rokhsari, (2012, p. 5). He states that teacher must help students to acquire the strategies in reading processes because it can improve the overall comprehension of the text. Chen (2008, p. 26) also states that high achievers tend to employ a wider variety of strategies than the low achievers. It means teacher should investigate the essential of reading strategies for academic purposes between low achievers and high achievers by observing students„ different in applying reading strategies. Based on the background above the writer is intended to do research about the correlation between reading strategies and reading comprehension achievement of thesixth semester in English education study program ofBengkulu University. This research had one research question was “Is there any significant correlation between reading strategies and reading comprehension achievement of the sixth semester in English education study program ofBengkulu University ?” the researcher hopes this research will give some influencesto the teachers, students, and further researcher. This research had two hypothesis of the research Alternative Hypothesis (HA): There is a significant correlation between students„ reading strategies and their reading comprehension achievement of the sixth semester in English education study program ofBengkulu University.Null Hypothesis (HO): There is no significant correlation between students„ reading strategies and their reading comprehension achievement of the sixth semester in English education study program ofBengkulu University. METHOD The research would be a quantitative correlation design . Creswell (2005, p. 325) states, “ a correlation is a statistical test to determine the tendency or pattern for two (or more) variables or two sets of data to vary consistently”. In this study, the researcher firstly measure the students„ reading strategies by using survey of 126 reading strategies questionnaire. Second, reading comprehension test was used to find out the students„ reading comprehension achievement. Then the correlation between variables were analyzed through Statistical package for Social Science (SPSS) 23.00 based on the results of the questionnaire and reading comprehension test. the researcher tried to find out The correlation between student‟ reading strategies and reading comprehension. The subject of this study is the sixth semester students of English Education Study Program Bengkulu University in the academic year of 2018 / 2019, which the total number are 78 students consist of two classes. They are 6 A and 6 B class. In English education study program of Bengkulu University There are two research instruments in this research. they are questionnaire and reading comprehension test. Questionnaire was used to obtain the information about students„ reading strategies, survey of reading strategies questionnaire for adolescent and adult by Mohktari and sheorey (2002) was distributed before the reading test. There would be 30 items in the questionnaire consisting of 3 items for each group of reading strategies.(1) Global reading strategies, (2) Problem- Solving reading strategies and (3) Support reading strategies.Each item of the questionnaire has 5-point likert scale to which the students respond in about 15 minutes and reading comprehension test was used to find out the students„ reading comprehension achievement. The researcher used reading test. The purpose of this test is to pinpoint strength and weaknesses students„ reading comprehension. The test will be taken from the TOEFL. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The result of reading strategies used The data statistic analysis of SORS for the participant is shown in table 1. The maximum score was 128, and the lowest score was 62. The range of SORS score in this study was 62 to 128. The mean of the reading strategies use„ scores for the participants was 103,52 and the standard deviation was 12,804. As for the subcategories, the mean of global reading strategies score was 64,77 and the standard deviation was 23,403; the mean of problem solving strategies score was 29,28 and the standard deviation 127 was 3,748; and the mean score of support reading strategies score was 28,46 and the standard deviation was 5,269. Table 1. Data Statistics of Overall Reading Strategies Use and Subcategories Reading strategies Global reading strategies Problem solving strategies Support reading strategies N Valid 78 78 78 78 Missing 0 0 0 0 Mean 103,32 64,77 29,28 28,46 Std. Deviation 12,804 23,403 3,748 5,269 Minimum 62 30 14 16 Maximum 128 103 36 39 Sum 8059 5052 2284 2220 There are 30 questionnaires which the researcher analyzed, the researcher also analyzed 50 students„ reading comprehension test.The result of data statistics of reading comprehension test can be seen below. Table 2.Data Statistics of TOEFL Reading Comprehension N Valid 78 Missing 0 Mean 54,31 Std. Deviation 11,631 Lowest 28 Highest 80 Sum 4236 Based on the data statistics, the lowest score of reading comprehension test was 28, and the highest score was 80. Meanwhile, the mean score of reading comprehension test was 54,31. This mean score indicated that the reading comprehension of The Sixth Semester in English Education Study Program ofBengkulu University was in the average category. The result score were divided 128 into scoring classification. The findings showed that there are 60 students got very poor with percentage 77%, 11 students got poor with percentage 14%, 5 students got average score with percentage 6% and 2 students got good score with percentage 3% classification. It concluded that the results of students reading comprehension test failed.The results from the Pearson„s product moment correlation coefficient between the SORS scores and the Reading comprehension achievement scores are shown in Table 10. The result of correlation analysis revealed that the correlation coefficient or the r(0,033) was lower than r-table (0,22). Then, the level of probability (p) significance (sig.2-tailed was .776. It means that p (.776) was higher than .05. Thus, there was no significant correlation between the students„ reading strategies use and their reading achievement. Table 3. Correlation Between Reading Strategies Use And Reading Comprehension Achievement Reading Comprehension Test Reading Strategies Reading Comprehension Achievement Pearson Correlation 1 ,033 Sig. (2-tailed) ,776 N 78 78 Reading Strategies Pearson Correlation ,033 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,776 N 78 78 On the table above from the 78 respondents the mean of the reading strategies use„ scores for the participants was 103,52 and the mean score of reading comprehension test was 54,31. The correlation between two variables, the score of rcount (0.033)< rtable (0.22) . This result shows that there is no significant correlation between the score of the test and the reading strategies. However, it can be seen from the table of the correlation strength level, the table show a correlation between the test scores and the reading strategies even though the 129 relationship between two variables is very weak. It means that the Null Hypoteses (H0) was accepted and The Alternative Hypoteses (Ha) was rejected. Thus, the test score and reading strategies show a very weak correlation, so there is no significant correlation between two variables. The result of the research showed that the correlation between the varriables is very weak category, therefore it is needed to have ways to strength the correlation among them and also to minimize the effect of factors to reading achivement. The researcher assumes that the teacher should introduce and train the students about reading learning strategy to the students and guide the students to choose an appropriate strategies in learning reading comprehension successfully. English teachers should cultivate and raise their awareness of language learning strategies. There are some factors which made the result did not significant. The factors are the TOEFL instrumen too high for the students test so the students could not answers the test very well, in other side based on Tika sary‟s result found there is significant because her TOEFL instrument created according students ability. So this factors which made our result are different. The result of this study was different to Tika sari (2017) the purpose of the study was to find out reading strategies significantly influence reading comprehension. The result showed that students reading strategies use had significant influence to the students‟ reading comprehension (33,9%). The total contribution students reading strategies and their reading comprehension achivement showed significant correlated and influenced. Furthermore, the factors .that make this research difference from Tika Sari have are she used Senior high school student with total 50 people and the test Tika Sari used equal with the level of her subject, the reason for this because Tika Sari already done the survey on the student beforehand and collaborate with the teacher from the school. Tika Sari take the score based on standar score of the school. The result of this study was similar to Tobing (2013). The similarity could be because she also analyzed the participans‟ used of the three reading strategiy categories. The catagories of reading strategies were :global reading strategies ,problem solving strategies and support reading strategies. The result showed that 130 the categories of reading strategies were not significantly related to reading comprehension. The used of reading strategies had a non-significant relationship with reading comprehension. It means that the usage of strategies by the students did not increase their reading comprehension significantly. This may be caused by the low understanding of students regarding the strategies in reading. This led to the usage of strategies ineffectively. It seems that most of the students were not familiar to the strategies in reading. This statement is supported by (Trabasso and Bouchard, 2002, p. 186) “More understanding of strategies is needed; becomes a strategic call to coordinate individual strategies. This coordinating involves altering, adjusting, modifying, testing, and shifting tactics as is fitting, until a reading comprehension problem is solved.” CONCLUSIONS After the research was conducted the sixth semester in English Education Study Program ofBengkulu University, the major findings are summarized as follows. According to the result of the reading strategies (SORS), the participants most frequently used Problem solving strategies (PROB) and the least frequently used reading strategies are support reading strategies and global reading strategies. Then, result of reading test indicated that their reading achievement was in very poor category since 77% of participans got score <60. Based on the result of Pearson product moment correlations, it was found that the correlation of the students„ reading strategies and their reading achievement was not significant . It means that the usage of strategies by the students did not increase their reading comprehension significantly. This may be caused by the low understanding of students regarding the strategies in reading. This led to the usage of strategies ineffectively. It seems that most of the students were not familiar to the strategies in reading. This statement is supported by (Trabasso and Bouchard, 2002, p. 186) “More understanding of strategies is needed; becomes a strategic call to coordinate individual strategies. This coordinating involves altering, adjusting, modifying, testing, and shifting tactics as is fitting, until a reading comprehension problem is solved.” 131 Based on the conclusion drawn, the following suggesstions have been made. 1. For English teacher This research is expected to giving about how importance of the reading strategies used, so that the teacher should introduce and train the students about reading strategies to the students and guide the students to choose an appropriate strategies in learning reading successfully. 2. For Students There are several recommendations for students in relation to this study. Students are suggested to read a lot and using all reading strategies, in order to improve their reading comprehension achievement. It is advised to them to practice their reading strategies more often in order to know which reading strategies they may lack and should be improved. 3. For the future researcher this study is expected to be useful as a reference for future studies with similar problems or variables. The findings of this study were difficult to generalize because of a small number of samples. Therefore, it is recommended for future researchers to examine larger samples. REFERENCES Anderson, N.J. (2004). Metacognitive reading strategy awareness of ESL and EFL learners. The CATESOL journal, pp.11-27. Chen, C. L. (2008). The relationship between foreign language anxiety and English achievement of Taiwan‘s junior high school students in school level 8 and 9 (Master thesis, Tunghai University, Taiwan). Cresswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating qualitative and quantitative research. Upper saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall. Kuru-Gonen, I. (2015). 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