THE EFFECT OF USING COMPOSITE PICTURES ON THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT SMPN 2 BANYUWANGI

Abstract

This research was an experimental research which was intended to know whether the use of composite pictures on the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement at SMPN 2 Banyuwangi was significant or not. The area of this research was SMPN 2 Banyuwangi which was chosen purposively because the use of composite pictures to teach reading has never been conducted by the English teacher of the eighth grade. Another reason was that the researcher got the permission to conduct a research in this school. The respondents of this research were determined by choosing two classes that had the closest mean difference obtained from the homogeneity test, since the research population was not homogeneous. The total number of the respondents was 77 students of the eighth grade students as the sample class, VIII A as the experimental group consisted of 39 students who were taught reading by using composite pictures, while class VIII B as the control group consisted of 38 students who were taught reading by using text only. The primary data of this research was collected by using reading comprehension test that was administered as the posttest. The supporting data were gained from the interview with the English teacher and documentation. The primary data collected from the posttest were to know the comparison between the two groups after the treatment. The result of post test were analyzed statistically by using independent sample t-test formula to know whether the mean difference between the experimental group and the control group was significant or not. Based on the calculation, the mean score of the experimental group was higher than the mean score of the control group (76,2>71.1). The statistical value of the test was 2.54 while the value of t-table at significant level of 5% with df (75) was 2.34. It means that statistical value of t-test was higher than t-table. Consequently, the null hypothesis (H0) which was formulated as: “There is no significant effect of using Composite Pictures on reading comprehension achievement of the eighth grade students at SMPN 2 Banyuwangi” was rejected. Thus the alternate hypothesis: “There is a significant effect of using Composite Pictures on reading comprehension achievement of the eighth grade students at SMPN 2 Banyuwangi” was accepted. Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of composite pictures significantly affected grade eighth students’ reading comprehension achievement of descriptive text at SMPN 2 Banyuwangi. Based on the result of the research, the English teacher is suggested to use composite pictures in reading comprehension beacuse it was proved that the use of composite pictures has significant effect on students’ reading comprehension. Furthermore, it is suggested that the result of this research can be used by the future researchers as reference or information in conducting further research dealing with the similar problem by using another research design such as improving students reading comprehension by using composite pictures.