The Effect of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) on Reading Comprehension Skill of Students Across Different Learning Styles

Abstract

Reading is one of the basic English skills which should be mastered by the students. Without comprehension, reading is nothing more than tracking symbols on a page with the eyes and sounding them out. People read for many reasons but understanding is always an important part of their purpose. Since conventional teaching strategy does not seem promising in helping the student to develop their ability in using reading strategies, the pedagogical implication requires teachers to implement an appropriate teaching strategy which facilitates student with reading strategy instruction. One of the suitable teaching strategies for such a purpose was Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR). This research was to measure the effect of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) on students‟ reading comprehension skill. There were two variables in this research; the independent variable was Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) strategy, the moderating variable was students‟ different learning styles, namely active and reflective learning styles, and the dependent variable was students‟ reading comprehension skill. This research was a quantitative research, and researcher used a quasiexperimental research design. The subjects of this research were the eighth grade students of SMP PGRI 01 BATU that consisted of five classes. The researcher took two classes as the samples that consisted of 60 students. The research instruments used were the reading comprehension test and a questionnaire to identify students‟ learning styles. The research took place for three weeks, from 02nd March-19th March 2020. The obtained data from the test were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA. The result showed that there was a significant difference in the reading comprehension skill between students taught using CSR and those taught using the conventional teaching strategy. The students taught using CSR had better reading comprehension skill progress than those taught using the conventional teaching strategy. Result of the One-Way ANOVA showed in a p-value of .001. The p-value was lower than .05 level of significant (p-value < sig.05), which indicated that the p-value of .001 was statistically significant. The second conclusion is that there was no significant difference between students with an active learning style and those with reflective learning style in reading comprehension. Students with active learning styles and those with reflective learning styles got benefits from the teaching strategies in different ways. From the data above, it can be concluded that the implementation of CSR at SMP PGRI 01 BATU could improve students‟ reading comprehension skill. Therefore, the researcher suggested the English teachers use CSR in teaching reading comprehension in the EFL context. For the future researcher, it is highly suggested to use the result of this research as an alternative reference to conduct further research.