IMPROVING STUDENTSï¿½ READING COMPREHENSION IN ANALYTICAL EXPOSITION TEXT USING STUDENT TEAM ACHIEVEMENT DIVISION

Ahmad Zaki Munibi

Universitas Negeri Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract:

The problem with this research is the students found difficulties in reading comprehension, especially in finding the main idea of a text. The students also lack the motivation to read the text in English. Those difficulties made the students cannot fully understand the text they read. The research aims to improve studentsï¿½ reading comprehension in analytical exposition text using Student Team Achievement Division (STAD). The subjects of this study were 36 students in eleventh grade at SMAN 103 Jakarta. This research only consisted of one cycle that consist of two meetings. Each cycle consists of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The data collecting technique used in this research was test, observation, and questionnaire. The result showed that there are improvements in the average score of the students. The score in the pre-test was 70.5 improved to 84.2 in the post-test. Using Student Team Achievement Division (STAD) also made students motivated and teamwork improved along with their individual skills. The questionnaire also showed that the students responded positively to Student Team Achievement Division (STAD), and it showed from the questionnaire result that 58% of students gave positive feedback. The result of this research indicates that the use of the Student Team Achievement Division (STAD) can improve studentsï¿½ reading comprehension in analytical exposition text.

E-mail: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION

In Indonesia, English is a foreign language and not easy to be learned for Indonesian students. The students get some difficulties in learning English because there are many basic skills in English that should be mastered. Those basic skills are: writing, speaking, reading, and listening. The government has implemented Merdeka curriculum in all schools gradually by its slogan ï¿½Merdeka Belajarï¿½ (Sudaryanto, Widayati, & Amalia, 2020). A slogan that focuses on developing student learning outcomes holistically by realizing the Pancasila Student Profile which includes cognitive (literacy and numeracy) and non-cognitive (character) competencies that begin with superior human resources (principals and teachers) (Hasim, 2020).

To improve literacy, it is necessary to build reading habits and to comprehend reading comprehension. In reading comprehension, students should not only know the meaning of a word by word but they also should understand the context of the text in order to get the message from the writer.

Reading is an activity in order to understand a meaning or purpose that the author wants to convey through writing ((Tiana & Kumalasari, 2022). According to Harjasujana, reading is a communicative activity between readers and writers through writing. Similarly, Godman shows reading is not only a way of finding meaning in writing but also of the hidden meanings between lines, even behind the line (Supriyono, 2014). The main objective of teaching and learning English for Indonesian students is to understand, that is, fully understand written or printed information. States that academic success depends on students' skills in understanding deep language text is very important (Grabe & Stoller, 2019). Therefore, reading ability also plays a significant role often referred to as a complex cognitive process to achieve teaching and learning goals in English.

Based on the researcherï¿½s pre-observation before the research, the students often hard to find the main idea of a text or find any implicit information from the text. It means that students did not fully understand what they have read. Researchers also found more studentsï¿½ difficulties in reading comprehension: Students were lazy if they had to read a text where there were so many difficult words. It made them hard to understand the text. When students used a dictionary, they knew the meaning of the difficult words but they did not fully understand the context of the text. The students also had difficulties finding the main idea or implicit information when they did not fully understand the text. Students also said that the material and technique of teaching were boring. They just sit and read without any interaction among students besides chatting outside the context of English subject. Those difficulties they had, made the ï¿½not smartï¿½ students become more confused and lazy to learn English.

To overcome those studentsï¿½ difficulties, the researcher was interested to use cooperative learning where students need to learn and work in a heterogeneous group that has a variety background of students. So, the students will have interaction among them and the ï¿½smartï¿½ students can help their friends to understand the learning material better than before. A previous study conducted by researchers (2022) employed a quasi-experimental design at the junior high school level. It was revealed that studentsï¿½ English competence was improved by using Cooperative Learning (CL)ï¿½ (Grabe & Stoller, 2019). Students were pleased to study in a very relaxed and friendly learning environment in small groups. They enjoyed group work which provided more opportunities and freedom to explore and practice the target language. Students not only performed better in communication skills but they also improved in other English skills, as well as measured by monthly tests. Learners were more motivated to learn English in small groups than in whole-class situations. CL helped all the students grow cognitively and effectively.

Furthermore, a study conducted by researchers, used a nonequivalent pre-test-post-test control group quasi-experimental design with two groups of forty high school students (Endeshaw, 2015). The CL treatment lasted for eight weeks. Students in the CL group outperformed the students in a traditional teaching-learning scenario in reading comprehension. CL was shown to be a successful solution to meet the needs of all student levels in a mixed-ability English class. All the students improved their learning, and at the same time contributed to their teammatesï¿½ learning. The study has demonstrated that CL is equally beneficial for enhancing the reading comprehension of low, medium, and high-ability learners. In addition, students were more motivated in the CL group because they cared for each other because the classroom environment was ï¿½more enjoyable, lively, and encouragingï¿½ (Endeshaw, 2015).

From several techniques in cooperative learning, the researcher chose Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD). STAD is of cooperative learning method that divided students into several groups with homogeneity backgrounds of sex, race, and talent. States STAD system is one of the simplest and most flexible of the cooperative learning technique, having will be used in second grade up to twelve grades and in such diverse subject areas as math, language art, social studies, and science (Barkley, Cross, & Major, 2014). STAD type of cooperative learning process is able to make students feel happy and motivated in participating in class learning (Kristin, 2016). The STAD-type cooperative learning process involves heterogeneous small groups and conditions for each student so that they are able to discuss and work together to achieve goals and academic tasks while helping each other master the material learning through question and answer (Anisensia, Bito, & Wali, 2020).

Previous researchers suggested that education in primary schools is reading comprehension for all students because reading comprehension provides the basis for a large amount of learning in secondary schools (Bjï¿½rn, Aunola, & Nurmi, 2016). Whereas other studies reveal that reading comprehension is to identify effective reading strategies that enhance children's comprehension (Abdelhalim, 2017). But like other researchers point out, the main evidence lies in instructional research where a single cognitive strategy is taught in controlled experiments (Mitchell & Sutherland, 2020). Relatively little is known about the issue of how various strategies can, and should, be combined in teaching comprehension.

Many studies using various models and methods and learning strategies have been carried out related to learning English related to reading comprehension, but in general, it is concluded that the effectiveness of learning depends on several factors including the studentï¿½s own intellectual situation. Therefore it is necessary to do classroom action research in an effort to solve student behavior problems in learning and improve student growth and development itself on achieving maximum learning outcomes (Meesuk, Sramoon, & Wongrugsa, 2020). This research was conducted with the aim of knowing and analyzing how much impact the application of the STAD-type cooperative learning model had on grade 11 students at SMA especially at SMAN 103 Jakarta as an effort to improve students' reading skills in Analytical Exposition Text material. The benefits of this study are to provide knowledge of the importance of reading and understanding English texts, as well as providing input for teachers to use the Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD) method.

RESEARCH METHODSï¿½

This research used Class Action Research as a method of research. The research was conducted at SMAN 103 Jakarta in the first semester of the year 2022/2023. The researcher chose this because this is the school where the researcher did the teaching practice. The subject of this study was class XI IPS 3 of SMAN 103 Jakarta. The researcher took class XI IPS 3 which consists of 36 students to implement Student Team Achievement Development. In collecting the data, the researcher used quantitative and qualitative research. The researcher used a test as the quantitative data, an observation sheet, and a questionnaire as the qualitative data.

Quantitative Data

The researcher used a test to know the studentsï¿½ improvement in reading comprehension of analytical exposition text using Student Team Achievement Division (STAD). There were two tests that the researcher gave, pre-test and post-test. The pre-test was done before students got treatment using Student Team Achievement Division (STAD), while the post-test was done after students got treatment using Student Team Achievement Division (STAD).

Qualitative Data

The researcher divided the data analysis technique of this Classroom Action Research into two, those are:

a. Quantitative Data

Descriptive statistic was used to describe the result of the pre-test and post-tests of the students. The researcher found out the mean of both tests using the formula as follows:

m=mean

∑x=Sum of students^' score in pre-test or post-test

n=total number of the students

b. Qualitative Data

a) Data collecting technique using observation and questionnaire Data reduction.

b) The researcher chose, simplified, and transform data into written form.

c) The researcher displayed data in texts, diagrams, charts, and tables.

RESULT OF THE RESEARCH

1. Pre-cycle

Pre-cycle is an activity carried out before the research enters the stages of cycles I and II (Wijaya, Darmawan, Setiana, Helaluddin, & Weismann, 2021). The aim is to collect initial information in the field such as the condition of students, educators, classrooms, and other components contained in the learning process. The score of this pre-cycle was the score before students got the treatment using the Students Team Achievement Division (STAD). The studentï¿½s scores can be seen in the table below:

Table 1 Studentsï¿½ Pre-Test Score

Score	No	Score
80	19	55
87,5	20	45
57,5	21	85
80	22	57,5
70	23	62,5
45	24	42,5
82,5	25	82,5
92,5	26	52,5
80	27	87,5
35	28	90
50	29	92,5
92,5	30	85
87,5	31	85
87,5	32	57,5
47,5	33	82,5
82,5	34	82,5
40	35	55
52,5	36	87,5

ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½After that, the researcher calculates the pre-test mean score using the formula as follow:

The score from the pre-test showed that the average score for this class was 70.5. The minimum score from the school was 78 for all subjects in the eleventh grade, so the average score for this class was still under the minimum score. From 36 students, there were 16 students or 44.4% of all students who got a score under the minimum score. Most of the students who got a score under the minimum score were too lazy to read or did not fully understand the text so they did not answer all of the questions or answered the questions incorrectly.

2. Cycle 1

In this cycle, the researcher started to give the material to Student Team Achievement Division. Based on the observation, the activity that the researcher gave was not optimal. The researcher was already done the steps of STAD cooperative learning. Group that did not work together, lack of studentsï¿½ attention, and lack of studentï¿½s participation in the process of learning made the STAD not optimal enough.

ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ The score and average score of the post-test in cycle 1 can be seen as follow:

Table 2 Studentsï¿½ Post-Test Score

Score	No	Score
90	19	92,5
95	20	75
90	21	82,5
90	22	65
82,5	23	65
75	24	65
90	25	85
97,5	26	67,5
87,5	27	92,5
87,5	28	92,5
77,5	29	92,5
92,5	30	95
90	31	92,5
87,5	32	87,5
77,5	33	87,5
90	34	87,5
70	35	65
92,5	36	80

After that, the researcher calculates the post-test mean score using the formula as follow:

The score from the post-test showed that the average score for this class was 84.2. From 36 students, there were 9 students, or 25% of students who got a score under the minimum score.

3. Observation Result

Based on the observation by the researcher and collaborator at the first meeting and the second meeting of the first cycle, there is an improvement in studentsï¿½ attention (Zuhriyah, 2017). At the first meeting, there are only 15 students who paid attention or took a note about what the researcher had explained. In the second meeting, this number was improving to 21 students who paid attention to the teacher or took a note about what the researcher had explained.

The number of active students when the learning process was also improving from 5 students on the first meeting, to 10 students on the second meeting. The number of students who interested in the STAD technique was also improved from 16 to 24. The teamwork of each group was also improved from 11 students to 22 students. The result of the observation can be seen in the following table:

Table 3 Observation Result

Observation Objective	First Meeting	Second Meeting
The studentï¿½s attention to the teacherï¿½s explanation (focus, take notes)	42%	58%
The studentï¿½s active participation during the lesson (asking and answering questions, giving an opinion, etc)	14%	28%
The studentsï¿½ response toward the STAD technique (happy, interested)	44%	67%
The studentsï¿½ teamwork (work together, help the teammate)	31%	61%

From the observation result, the researcher concluded that the teaching and learning process using the STAD technique had a positive result.

4. Questionnaire Result

Questionnaire is a method of collecting data by giving respondents a set of questions or written statements to answer (Aini, Zaharuddin, & Yuliana, 2018). The researcher gave the questionnaire to the students to get the response of using Students Team Achievement Division in reading comprehension. The result can be seen as follow:

Table 4 Questionnaire Result

Question	Yes	No
Saya menyukai pelajaran Bahasa Inggris	57%	43%
Menurut saya, Bahasa Inggris adalah pelajaran yang penting	78%	21%
Saya merasa puas dengan nilai Bahasa Inggris saya selama ini	46%	54%
Menurut saya, pelajaran Bahasa Inggris adalah pelajaran yang mudah dipahami	58%	42%
Menurut saya reading itu mudah	50%	50%
Saya sudah mengetahui penggunaan teknik STAD sebelumnya	27%	73%
Penggunaan STAD membuat pelajaran Bahasa Inggris menjadi lebih menyenangkan	68%	32%
Penggunaan STAD cocok untuk pelajaran Bahasa Inggris	81%	19%
Penggunaan STAD membantu saya dalam reading	72%	28
Saya merasakan peningkatan dalam memahami teks setelah diberikan	89%	11%
Average	58%	42%

DISCUSSION

Cooperative learning using the Students Team Achievement Division (STAD) technique required students to be active in the classroom (Takko et al., 2020). The academic game made the students became more enthusiast. They compete with each other to get the highest score in order to be the best group in the classroom.

The average score from the pre-test was 70.5, and the post-test was 84.2. There were improvements in the studentï¿½s scores from the pre-test to the post-test. The average score in the pre-test was 70.5 and slightly improved to 84.2 in the post-test. The improvement was 13.8 points. The improvement in studentï¿½s scores can be seen in the chart below:

Chart 1

Students Score Improvement

ï¿½ï¿½

In the learning process, it can be seen that students became more active and developed their teamwork with their group. The response from the students was also positive. 58% of students gave positive feedback through the questionnaire. It was proved that using fun learning like cooperative learning using the Students Team Achievement Division (STAD) technique can improve studentsï¿½ reading comprehension. Students became actively helped their teammates while improving individual skills.

The researcher should do one more cycle to improve further, but the lack of time made the second cycle impossible (Bailey et al., 2018). So, cycle 1 is an early effort for future researchers, the further cycle will be done by future researchers.

CONCLUSION

From 36 students, there were 16 students or 44.4% of all students who got a score under the minimum score. From 36 students, there were 9 students, or 25% of students who got a score under the minimum score. The number of active students when the learning process was also improving from 5 students on the first meeting, to 10 students on the second meeting. The teamwork of each group was also improved from 11 students to 22 students. The improvement in studentï¿½s scores can be seen in the chart below In the learning process, it can be seen that students became more active and developed their teamwork with their group. It was proved that using fun learning like cooperative learning using the Students Team Achievement Division (STAD) technique can improve studentsï¿½ reading comprehension.

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