The Contributions of Reading Strategies and Reading Frequencies Toward Students’ Reading Comprehension Skill in Higher Education

Abstract

This study was conducted because of the low level of students’ reading skill. The reading strategies and the reading frequencies were assumed as the factors affecting students’ reading skill. The aim of this study was to describe and to analyze the contribution of reading strategies and reading frequencies toward students’ reading comprehension skill. This study used the quantitative method with the descriptive correlational design. The population was 3000 students who attended Bahasa Indonesia subject in Universitas Negeri Padang, and 353 students were taken as samples by using proportional stratified random sampling. The instruments of this study were reading strategies scale, reading frequencies scale and a reading comprehension test which has been valid and reliable. Based on research findings and discussion, the following can be concluded: (1) reading strategies contributed significance and positively to the students' comprehension reading skill which is 19.6% (R = 0.443 R2 = 0.196 and p = 0.000), i.e. reading strategies contributed directly toward the skills of reading comprehension. Therefore, the higher the reading strategies, the better the reading comprehension skills of the students; (2) reading strategies contributed significance toward the students' reading comprehension skills of 33.1% (R = 0.575 R2 = 0.331 and p = 0.000), i.e. reading frequencies contributed directly to reading comprehension skills. Therefore, the better the reading frequencies, the better the reading comprehension skills of the students; (3) reading strategies and the reading frequencies together contributed significance toward the students' reading comprehension skills of 33.2% (R = 0.575, R2 = 0.332 and p = 0.000), i.e. reading strategies and reading frequencies together contributed directly to the comprehension reading skill. Therefore, the higher the reading strategies and reading frequencies will be the better the reading comprehension skill of the students.