Name : Putri Fadiyah

NPM : 1913042022

Class : B

Title : An analysis of students' reading interest of English Texts

1. Introduction :

Background

Nowadays, the developments of science and technology can enable human to gain information

quickly and easily. These developments demand people to make themselves stay up to date with

information. Therefore, Reading is the most important activity that gives big impact to each

person.

Through reading, we can gain new information, acquiring new knowledge and find new ideas. It

is in line with Gray and Groger (1995) as cited in Supriyono (1998) reading is the great way to

increase the knowledge and make the people more intellectual. Reading purpose defined as the

reasons behind the process of reading any written texts (Thomas, 2001). In other words, reading

is a basic skill for a writer to find sources of their written texts.

Hidi, Renninger, & Krapp (2004) stated that interest is a motivational variable that involves not

only the emotions but also the intellect, making it a powerful energizer indeed. Reading interest

has a significant correlation with the English language study, and also reading interest has

beneficial for students. Reading texts also provides opportunities to study language, vocabulary,

grammar, punctuation, and the way that construct sentence, paragraphs, and texts. In the end,
good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, and excite imaginative

responses (Harmer, 2001: 68).

Reading interest should be main focus for the students, especially students in high school.

Interest plays a role in decision to read, in the level of engagement with the text during reading,

and thus also in the product the reader creates in terms of comprehension of the text and learning

forms the text (Snow, 2002). Sinambela (1993) defines reading interest as a positive attitude and

a sense of individual’ self-interest is in the activities of reading and interested in reading books.

Based on data from the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) in 2012 (Kompas, 2017), shows that the index of reading interest in Indonesia only

reaches 0,001. It means that out of every 1,000 Indonesian people, there is only one person who

has interest in reading.

English is a foreign language for students however they have to learn it in school. Reading is one

of four language skills to be mastered by students who learn languages. The students must read

an English Text for learning the language, and also they must have interest in reading to attach

with English.

It is important to realize that reading interest is very crucial because quality of a country itself

can be seen from it's people reading interest. By reading, students can obtain knowledge quickly

and easily. However, the latest statistic published by National Library Studies in 2015 shows that

the public reading interest in Indonesia is still low with 25.1% (Bisnis, 2016).

According to (Khairuddin, 2013) Reading interest is important in developing students’ success in

school and life out of it. Although reading is important, students have relatively low interest in

reading English materials. According to the study conducted by Khairuddin (2013), he studied
students’ reading interest of 86 students in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. It is found that only

three out of 86 students like to read English reading materials every day. Additionally, there are

seven students who read English reading materials for 5 – 6 times a week. The rest of it, 45

students read English reading materials less than four times a week and 31 students have never

read English reading materials.

Research Question(s)

1. How is the students' reading interest of English Texts?

2. What factors influence students' reading interest of English Texts?

Research Objective(s)

1. To find out the students' reading interest of English Texts

2. To analyze factors that make students interest in reading of English Texts

2. Literature Review: 7 sources of related topics to your title.

 Reading is a complex process to build an understanding (Longman Dictionary, 1978).

 Gray and Groger (1995) as cited in Supriyono (1998) reading is the great way to increase
the knowledge and make the people more intellectual.
 Reading interest can be viewed a how a person being excited and engaged in reading
activities (Thomas, 2001).
 Becker, McElvany and Kortenbruck (2010) found that reading interest has so many
positive impact on students' reading achievement.
 Reading interest has an important role in text comprehension because it acts as the basis
for students to move towards their reading goals (Wigfield et al., 2015).
 The research (Shnayer, 1968), (Cooc, Kim, & Kim, 2016), (Haroun, 2018), (Ardasheva,
Wang, Roo, Adesope, & Morrison, 2018) stated that “reading interest is recognized as a
multidimensional construct, incorporating one’s affective, cognitive and behavioral
tendencies towards an object, event or tasks related to reading”.
 Hurlock (1978: 114) presents three types of activities represent the students’ reading
interest. The first one is student’s observation on his or her interest on reading for
example dragging the students’ attention. The second one is questions describe the
students’ interest on a preferred activity. The third is topic of the texts which can show
the students’ interests.
3. Methodology: Research Design, Procedure of Data Collection, Participants

Quantitative method is the methodology of the research.

This research conducts to the high school students. To measure the students' interest, there will
be using questionnaire. In the questionnaire, several answers provide by the researcher. There
will be 20 statements in the questionnaire.

- Research design

Descriptive Qualitative Design

This research applied Descriptive Qualitative Design. The writer used the Descriptive Qualitative
Design in order to know the factors what make them interested in reading or not by conducting
interview to the students.

Based om Tewksbury (2009: 52-53) Qualitative research relies on the process of analytic
descriptions for “identification of recurrect patterns or themes and attempting to construct
a cohensive representative of the data.

- Participant

The participant of this research conducts on third-grade of high school at SMAN 5 Bandar
Lampung.

- Instrument

In this research, the writer were collected the data by using one instrument; interview. The
instrument used to collect the data from the students as the sample in this research.

Interviews are certainly useful for getting the story behind a participant’s experiences, finding
out their mind, getting to know what they think or what they feel. Through the interview, the
interviewer (researcher) can pursue in-depth information around the topic.

Interviews may be useful as follow-up to certain respondents to questionnaires in order to further

investigate their responses (McNamara, 1999).

- Data collecting technique

In collecting the data, there are some steps taken by the writer. There is as follow:
1. The interviewers set their own issues and questions to ask and allow the researcher to
ask more questions that related to the topic.

2. The questions would be asked to 6 participants consisted of 6 questions

3. Then, The writer would do the interview orally (face to face) with the participants.
4. The whole Interview will be recorded for later analysis.

The questions would be asked to 6 participants consisted of 6 questions which were recorded for
later analysis.

- Data Analysis Plans

The research used the semi-structured interview in which participant were asked the same
questions. The questions contributed 6 questions.

Once the data collected from the interview, it will be transcribed. The findings of the interview
would be presented in narrative explanation.

References

Floris & Divina (2009). A Study on the Reading Skills Of EFL University Students. TEFLIN
Journal, Volume 20, Number 1

Käsper, Uibu & Mikk. (2018). Language Teaching Strategies’ Impact on Third-Grade Students’
Reading Outcomes and Reading Interest. International Electronic Journal of Elementary
Education Volume 10, Issue 5

Rachmawati, Umi. (2018). Reading Interest of Senior High School Students: A Case Study.
Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1

Hanah, D., Lisniyanti, K., & Yulianto, S. W. (2020). Investigating students’ reading interest on
English reading materials through their reading habits during a pandemic. ELT in Focus, 3(2),
14-23, doi: 10.35706/eltinfc.v3i2.4585