THE CORRELATION BETWEEN READING HABIT AND

VOCABULARY MASTERY ACROSS PROFICIENCY LEVEL AND

GENDER

SKRIPSI

BY
IBNATUSYUCHRIYA ALCHAMDA
21601073052

UNIVERSITY OF ISLAM MALANG

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
SEPTEMBER 2020
 CHAPTER I`

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents and introduces the background of the study, the

research problems, the purpose of the study, hypothesis, the scope of the study,

the significance of the study, and definition of the key terms

1.1 Background of study

In this Era, English becomes a crucial language learned by people around

the world. Besides that, English also plays an important function in education.

Based on 2004 curriculum in Indonesia, English is certainly taught in elementary

school up to university level, even kindergarten students learn English. There are

four English skills to be learned by the students includes listening, reading,

writing and speaking. All this skills are very important, but reading is the most

important skill that must be learned by the students. From reading activities we

can add a lot of experience (Quadri and Abomoge, 2013).

Reading is now crucial in student’s habit of life. It becomes the central

part of learning language, moreover for second language acquisition. It can help

the students in analyzing what kinds of reading text by them and the information

from the reading itself. In fact, the students’ Indonesia has low reading because

they do not like reading book when they have free time. Gaining the habit of
reading is very important in increasing the rate of reading. In increasing the habit

of reading in a society, gaining the habit of reading from a very young age is

stressed and the fact that reading habit should be supported starting from early

childhood is emphasized (Butun, 2014).

In the evolving knowledge society, reading is considered crucial for

gaining the necessary information and insights, which prepare a person to face the

diverse challenges of modern times. Considering learning about reading skill, it

wouldn’t be far from vocabulary in order to be able of understanding any kinds of

information or message from the writer. In addition to reading habit, vocabulary

mastery is also crucial because in learning second language vocabulary, reading

has been becoming the key of developing the vocabulary itself. Students who

have many times in reading, they can produce a lot of vocabulary. They can make

sentence more syntactically because they know how to structure words into good

sentence.

As habitual activity, reading is an important role to build student’s

character. Because reading to be a position to support their habit to build the

students’ character. For example, if the student great in reading habit, so they

become a great reader, but if the student poor in reading habit, they become a poor

reader. Therefore, student should have a lot of practice in reading because reading

is a long term habit starting with the very early ages. Get the habit of reading a

great deal. You may wish to begin with easy materials, with magazine, a daily

newspaper, or short stores, as you develop fluency and pleasure in reading and

accuracy. It can be assumed that student should have a good habit if reading
English, which helps them to improve their knowledge of English. Moreover, they

will read English fluently and accurately.

More importantly, reading is an aspect that can improve students’

vocabulary. Through reading, the students can enhance their vocabularies.

Krashen ( in Annamalai and Muniandy 2013: 32) claimed that through reading,

readers develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary and become

excellent spellers. Vocabulary is a significant aspect that affect reading, because

to have better in reading, student need to have strong vocabulary, insufficient

amount of vocabulary might result in reading difficulties and reading difficulties

might leads to reading anxiety that hinders the development of reading habit. The

students can have a strong vocabulary as long as reading well. Therefore,

increasing reading habit is quiet necessary in studying English especially dealing

with second language vocabulary acquisition. Without knowing the vocabulary,

students can understand the text by finding the key words. By doing this, student

can cover their vocabulary weakness since the vocabulary knowledge is one of the

major factors that influence English reading comprehension (Roehrig & Guo,

2011). Moreover, good mastery of vocabulary is important for learners to have

better reading comprehension ability. Because the students understand what they

read when they have enough vocabulary and have capacity of using it accurately.

Furqon (2013) stated that vocabulary knowledge is one of the major factors that

influence reading comprehension ability. When we are teaching reading means

that we have taught vocabulary to the learners therefore they will understand the
reading. Besides, it is not enough for students to have adequate vocabulary size,

the students should also comprehend the written text well.

Another significant aspect that might significantly affect reading habit is

English level of proficiency. According to Lee & Wong (2018) proficiency level

influence the awareness of the value of reading, thus determine reading habit.

Mokhtari & Sheorey (1994) stated that reading behavior pattern indeed associated

with low and high English language proficiency, it is found that students with low

proficiency in English did not seem to be highly confident with English reading

skill and tried to improve their reading skills though light reading material while

students with high English proficiency level tend to read based on their interest as

daily basis. There are no significant difference in reading frequency of different

proficiency level (Lee & Wong 2018). Aside from language proficiency, gender

difference awareness has also led to more specific insights into reading habit and

gives opportunities for studies regarding gender-specific reading. According to

Garbe, Holle & Weinhold (2010) itis possible to find stable gender differences in

the following aspects of habitual reading such as reading material, reading

frequency and preference. In regards to reading frequency, girls read more

frequently and longer than boys. Boys prefer more electronic articles from internet

while girls read other books, magazines more than boys, moreover, ways and

modalities of reading girls read differently from boys. Reading enjoyment and

affection, girls like reading more and receive more satisfaction than boys (Garbe,

Holle and Weinhold, 2010, 16–17).

1.2 The Research Problem

From the background of the study discussed above, the researcher

formulated research problem to be answered and analyzed as:

a) Is there any correlation between reading habit and vocabulary mastery

across proficiency level?

b) Is there any correlation between reading habit and vocabulary mastery

across gender?

1.3 The Purposes of the Study

The purpose of the study, the relation to the research problem above can

be explained as follow:

a) To investigate the correlation between reading habit and vocabulary

mastery across proficiency level.

b) To investigate the correlation between reading habit and vocabulary

mastery across gender.

1.4 Hypothesis

In this study, the researcher points out the hypothesis of the study based on

research problems, the hypothesis are as follows:

a) There is significance correlation between students’ reading habit and

vocabulary mastery across proficiency level.

b) There is significance correlation between students’ reading habit and

vocabulary mastery across gender.

1.5 Significance of the study

There are two significances that are expected from this study. The first is

theoretical significances and the second is practical significance.

Theoretical significance refers to research result which responded to the

related theory concerning reading habit and vocabulary mastery across proficiency

level and gender. The result of this study will support the existing theory of

reading habit and vocabulary mastery across proficiency level and gender.

Practically, for reading lecturer, this research will give beneficial

information on how vocabulary mastery, gender and English proficiency level of

the students affect their reading habits, this will help the lecturer develop method

to improve students reading habit. For the students, the result of this research will

give information for students to develop suitable strategies in improving reading

habit based on their gender and proficiency. The last for future researcher, the

result of this study is useful information for them when they want to conduct

similar research with different subject of the study.

1.6 Scope and Limitation of The Study

In this study, the researcher’s intention is to present an exhaustive analysis

of the correlation between reading habit and vocabulary mastery across

proficiency level and gender. This study was done at third semester of English

department of University of Islam Malang.

Because of limited time and opportunity, the researcher would like to

narrow down the scope to the discussion of the correlation of reading habit and
vocabulary mastery development by giving non-test and test which consist of

questionnaire of reading habit and vocabulary test. However, this study only

limited for third semester students of English department students to get more

focus of the students with decent English proficiency as well as knowledge in

reading as they have undergone English reading course for three semester.

1.7 Definition of key terms

Considering does not have a misunderstanding of the definition of the term

in this study, the researcher tries to clarify in the subchapter.

1.7.1 Reading Habit

Reading habit is an activity of people who had been usual reading which

already been their need of life in order to get an update information.

1.7.2 Vocabulary Mastery

Vocabulary mastery is a process of acquiring words from reading which

makes a great knowledge about understanding a particular thing which is shown

by their score of their vocabulary.

1.7.3 Proficiency Level

Proficiency level is the personal ability to use language with a level of

accuracy that transfer meaning in production and comprehension.

1.7.4 Gender

Gender is a concept that is used to determine men and women from a

socio-cultural perspective that can change according to the times. Thus, gender is

defined as defining men and women from a non-biological perspective.

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter is devoted to review related literature covering; definition of

reading habit, the importance of reading, reading skills, vocabulary and kinds of

vocabulary.

2.1 Reading Habit

Reading habit is an activity that important and should be done by every

student; especially comprehend the text to get information from books. Books are
one of the best learning. A good book has a salutary effect on the mind of reader.

It will elevate spirit and thoughts. It is possible that reading the book might have a

deeper impact on the minds of the readers than the other sources of acquiring

knowledge. Students are expected to practice a lot of reading to understand the

content and information of the book. He habit of reading is the best past time. The

people who are in the habit of reading, they are not only makes the best use of

their spare time but they will keep their minds away from the worries that might

chase them if they sit brooding and doing nothing.

Reading habit of the student or people who have good reading, they have

more change in academic world. Both of reading and academic achievements are

correlate and dependent on each other. By reading, they are easier to face the

academic world because many sources to get information about education or

subject. On the other hand, many people have process during reading text because

they must understand what they read in order to get information from the text.

This shows that reading is not easy to be mastered. They should try harder to get

information from the text. It is like Desita, Khairul, and Septy (2012) stated that

reading is one of process to get information from the text.

The habit of reading is defined as practicing the act of the reading

throughout life, constantly and critically as a result of perceiving reading as a need

and a source of pleasure (Arican & Yilmaz, 2010; Arslan & celik,2009; Balci.,

Uyar., & Buyukikiz, 2012; Dreher, 2020). Therefore, building and creating the

habit of reading should be supported by a good and interest book to read.

2.2 The Importance of Reading

 Reading is one of the four in English skill, those are listening, speaking,

and writing that have really essential English language. Bandu and Marzuki

(2014) explained that reading is one of the language skills, those are listening,

writing, speaking, and reading. Reading is one of important in English skill

because the reader should be mastery in reading. It help the learners to get or

share idea and information with people around the world. Abdullah, Rahim, Setia,

Muhammad, Ghazali, Sabapathy, Nair, Moniandy, Threerthappan, and Hassan

(2012) stated that reading is the most important skill to master. Reading is core of

knowledge which can help people to deal information with other people over the

world. However, when people read many texts or sources, they know more about

many thing or information than other people who do not like reading. In other

words, a student who is a good reader is more likely to do well in school and pass

exams than a student who is weak reader. Student must have good will to read.

Through reading, student begins to better understand the world. Reading

helps student to have the better understanding on an interested topics; for

example: how to build self-confidence, how to make plan better before taking

action and how to memorize things better and more. Through reading, student will

have many words even terms in his or her memory that help him or her to improve

their reading comprehension. Moreover, learning English without reading is

useless. Reading is also good activity that plays a role in achieving their success in

learning. According to Widianto in Tursijah (2006) there are important points that

explain reading as the source of learning, Reading is the most complete, cheapest,

easiest and fastest learning resources.

 As students who learning English, reading is very important in learning

English language as a target for building student vocabulary. It is realized that

reading skill or reading activities will open up knowledge broader and get more

vocabulary and information.

2.3 Reading Skills

Reading skills is a combination of multiple skills and processes. To be

successful, readers use many complex strategies. The focus on reading activity is

on the reading ability than theory of the reading itself. Reading activity involves

some components as follows ( Tarigan, 2008)

2.3.1 Moving Element

In this part, the reading activity includes the letters identification of the

text, the language identification, the identification of the relation between

intonation, letter, and also the silent reading speed.

2.3.2 Comprehension Element

In this section, the reading activity includes the ability to comprehend the

simple language, to understand the implicit that means of the text and to adjust the

punctuation or intonation with the reading speed.

2.3.3 Other Elements

1) Awareness of phoneme

2) Phonetics
3) Fluent in reading

4) Vocabulary

5) Reading comprehension

Based on the statement above, when students read the text, they have a

certain purpose. To achieve their purpose, they need a certain skill. Reader can

scan, skim, and read intensively and extensively. Readers are expected to select

the appropriate skills to construct meaning within what their read.

2.4 Vocabulary

Vocabulary is an important role in learning English. Having good

vocabulary allows students to express their idea and feelings in a way that others

will understand. It can also support much in comprehending text. Readers cannot

understand what they are reading without knowing what most of the words mean

(Beatrice & Linda, 2007). The result indicated that people who had stronger depth

of vocabulary knowledge used certain types of strategies more efficiently than

people who had weaker depth of vocabulary knowledge. Learning vocabulary is

an important part of all content in learning, but it is so often ignored.

Vocabulary is one of the language components that must be learned and

taught (Vossoughi, 2009:1). According to Napa (in Badingatussalamah, 2013;2)

vocabulary is a language component and there is no language without words.

Meanwhile, Hornby (in Wakidah, 2013:1) states that vocabulary is the number of
words in a language. Vocabulary need to learn for language acquisition because

language vocabulary has a significant role in language skill.

According to Cahyono and Widiati (2011:107), good vocabulary mastery

supports mastery of other language skills, each receptive (listening and reading),

and productive (speaking and writing). It will be known that it is very important to

learn vocabulary for mastering language skill as well. Teachers is increasingly

aware of the importance of reading in the development of L2 proficiency and the

role reading plays in expending vocabulary knowledge. According to Nina (2014),

it also shows that apart from vocabulary size, other factors such as learner’s

background knowledge, the type of text, the context, etc, may also play have an

important role.

2.5 Kind of Vocabulary

Vocabulary is divided into two types. They are active vocabulary and

passive vocabulary.

2.5.1 Active vocabulary

Active vocabulary is words that we use when we speak or write the words

we use in our own speech and writing. In the other words is active vocabulary is

words which student understands, can pronoun correctly and uses constructively

in speaking and writing. According to Harmer (1991) as cited in Mohfareh

(2015:25) said that active vocabulary refers to one that has been taught to students

and which they are expected to use.

 In active vocabulary, students must have grammatical accuracy, correct

tense, fluency and the ability to reproduce correct sounds in speech, pronunciation

and intonation. That mean, vocabulary can be said to active if it is used for

speaking and writing every day.

2.5.2 Passive vocabulary

Passive vocabulary is word that cannot be produced correctly but

understood trough reading and listening activities and this requires the reader to

associate labels in reading or listening. Students usually find the meaning of these

words in listening and reading material. They will find out the meaning of the

unknown words in the test. The teacher can help student to find out the meaning

of these new word by explaining their meaning. According to Harmer (1991) as

cited in Mohfareh (2015:25) said that passive vocabulary refers to the word will

be understood by student when they meet, but they will get difficulty in

pronouncing.

2.6 Gender and reading habit

The reading habit of the individual is governed and determined by the ‘pre-

disposition’ constituting his personal traits derived from the facets of personality

that generally includes an individual trait such as sex, age, education, occupation

and income towards a particular condition (Hussain, 2017). Bas (2012) stated that

there are significant points where gender marks the differences in reading habit

such as consistency, frequency and preference. It is identified that the majority of

girls reading habit are more positive than boys in terms of frequency and
consistency. However, in young school age, boys read more seriously for their

better future while girls read for pleasure and enjoyment. Reading abilities of

students are being affected by gender difference and background. Reading habit is

vital and beneficial for society (Clark & Foster, 2005). Dilshad, Adnan & Akram

(2013) proved in their study that male and female students are somewhat different

in their reading habits. Their study was on gender differences in reading habits of

university students showing that female students are proven to have more positive

attitudes.

2.7 Reading and English Proficiency Level

Language proficiency is considered as one important external factors that

affect reading skills in general (Devarajan, 2002). This is in line with the

statement of Hussain (2017) that education and prior knowledge determine many

aspects of reading including consistency, accuracy and comprehension that will

further determine reading material and preference. Acheaw and Larson (2014)

found that the proficiency and education level affects how people choses reading

material, it is also found that people with low reading proficiency tend to chose

easier reading material. However, as their educational level as well as their

reading proficiency developed it will also develop their reading behavior as they

become more aware about the value of reading. Annamali and Muniandy (2013)

conducted a study about the reading habit among university level students at

Polytechnics at Malaysia and found that 68.9% of the respondents read books

daily for at least a few times and 57.1% read other source such as magazines and

newspaper but they did not show much reading interest and most of their reading
material are based on the technology based activity that are closely related to their

study. Croston (2005) also conducted study on high school students, and found

that students are interested in reading famous, books containing scary stories,

mysterious and other popular stories outside school environments. This indicates

that as proficiency and education develops so that reading habit and preferences.

2.8 Previous Studies

A Survey of EFL Student’s Reading Habit: A case study by Primandita

Rahmaningtias, Dyah Kusumastuti. From interview result of EFL student’s

reading habit, some of them agree that by reading they can improve their English

skill. They also can improve their knowledge about vocabulary, grammar, and

spelling. From questionnaire result of EFL student’s reading habit is 98% of the

students’ purpose to read is all to improve their skill.

Another study with the title “Influence of Gender Difference on Reading

Habit and Academic Achievement of Undergraduate Medical Student in

University of Ibadan, Nigeria” by Sunday Olusola LAPIDO and Sunmade Ajibola

GBOTOSHO. The conclusion of this exercise is that gender disparity in the

academic achievement of undergraduate medical students while there is no gender

disparity in the reading habits of undergraduate medical students in University of

Ibadan. A positive relationships were established between reading habits and

academic achievement undergraduate medical students as well as between gender

and academic achievement of undergraduate medical students in University of

Ibadan.
 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

In this chapter, the researcher elaborated research design,

population and sample, data collection and data analysis procedure

3.1 Research Design

This study used quantitative research that is a research design that

approaches empirical studies to collect, analyze and display data in numerical

form and trying to make accurate measurements of something (Cooper and

Schindler, 2006: 229). Research design is research plants and procedure that cover

decision making from broad assumptions of detailed data collection and analysis

method (Creswell, 2009:3).

The method of this study used correlation design which concerned on four

variables: they were reading habit, vocabulary mastery, proficiency level, and

gender. The data of the study analyzed descriptively to answer the research

question.

This study, aimed to find the correlation between student’s reading habit

and vocabulary mastery across proficiency level and gender at 3rd semester in

English Department of University of Islam Malang.

3.2 Population and Sample

3.2.1 Population
 Population is all the subject of the research. The target population of this

research was the students in a reading 3 class of the third semester in English

Department of University of Islam Malang who has passed reading course in

second semester.

3.3 Research Instrument

In this part, the researcher explains about the instrument to collect the data

which is used to find the results of the study. The researcher collected the data

using questionnaire to collect the demographic data and reading habit as well as

vocabulary and proficiency test items. The questionnaire are distributed through

google form as an online medium that focuses on survey and questionnaires. The

researcher uses this medium because google form is easy to access. In this study,

he researcher use the Adult Survey of Reading Attitude (ASRA) as the main

instrument based on Smith (1991) and later adapted the questionnaire about

reading habits and anxiety and difficulty by Anugrah (2019). The questionnaire

are consisted of three sections, the first is demography section to get students’

data and gender. The second section consisted of 6 items mainly close-ended

questions related to the participants various reading habits and preferences. The

third are consisted of 28 items using a 5-1 Likert scale (11 items on the activity of

reading, 9 items on the enjoyment of reading, and 9 items on anxiety and

difficulty in reading) to measure out the students’ attitudes and preferences

towards reading.

3.3.2 Vocabulary Test

 The test of vocabulary gave to students to know the students’ mastery of

vocabulary and to know whether the answer is matched with their reading habit

questionnaire. The test was in the form of multiple choices from vocabulary test.

The question consists of 25 questions, which measure the students’ understanding

about vocabulary test. Each true answered scored 4. So the total score would be

100.

3.4 Data Collection

The researcher had two steps to collect the data of this research. The first,

the researcher distributed the questionnaire to students. It aimed to measure the

students’ reading habit of the second semester of the second semester of

University of Islam Malang. The second, the researcher gave the vocabulary test

to students measure students’ vocabulary mastery.

3.5 Data Analysis

The analysis of the data was done based on the data obtained from the two

instruments in the form of score through the steps. There were reading habit and

students’ vocabulary mastery. The researcher used quantitative approach to

analyze the data. There was one step that researcher carried out to analyze the

data, that was computing achievement test result of person product moment

correlation by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)