A STUDY OF CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’

VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE AND THEIR READING

COMPREHENSION

Yoga Indra Nugroho

S1 – English Education, Teaching and Education Sciences Faculty, Swadaya Gunung

Jati University, Cirebon

indray50@ymail.com

Abstract

Reading is one of language skill besides another three skills (listening, reading, and
speaking) that learners should acquire in their language learning process if they want to
be well-mastered of the target language. If learners read a text and do not understand the
text talks about, it means they do not really read because reading require an activity to
understand the text’s idea, context and information. This research is conducted to find out
the correlation between students’ vocabulary knowledge and their reading
comprehension. The research was carried out at SMA Negeri 3 Kota Cirebon, 12th grade
of MIPA 4. The method which is used for this research is correlation study (descriptive
quantitative). The sample was 40 students taken by cluster random sampling technique.
The instruments for collecting the data were test (multiple choice and essay test). The
multiple-choice test was used to collect the data of reading comprehension, while the
essay test was used to collect the data of vocabulary knowledge. Technique which was
used to analyze the data was Pearson’s Correlation Product by using SPSS. The results of
the study show that there is a correlation between students’ vocabulary knowledge and
their reading comprehension in 0.524 which implies the correlation between those
variables is strong. In addition, the results show the relative contribution of students’
vocabulary toward their reading comprehension is 27.4%. Therefore, students’
vocabulary knowledge is a vital part to understand the reading comprehension of a text.
Keywords: Correlation, Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension

INTRODUCTION process if they want to be well-mastered

of the target language (Salah, 2008). If
Reading is one of language skill
learners read a text and do not
besides another three skills (listening,
understand the text talks about, it means
reading, and speaking) that learners
they do not really read because reading
should acquire in their language learning
require an activity to understand the
text’s idea, context and information. This
activity also known as reading
comprehension. According to Serravallo
(as cited in English for Thesis, 2012)
defined reading comprehension as an
activity to find out by thinking,
understanding, and getting the meaning
behind a text. It implies reading
comprehension is essential in reading
skill. Even though reading
comprehension is necessary to master
reading skill, learns still lack of interest
in reading as UNESCO did survey and
mentioned Indonesia only has 0,001%
interest to read either Indonesian article
or English article. The problems are
mentioned that less motivation, less
interest, less confident, and less grammar
and vocabulary. In the same line, a
reseach “Most Littered Nation in the
World” has been done by Central
Connecticut State University on March
2016, showed Indonesia is in rank 60
from 61 countries which is interest to
read english article (Fithrorozi, 2017).
Vocabulary is collection of
words that an individual knows (Linse,
2005, p.121). Vocabulary itself can be
acquired from reading activity. All of
collection words that learners have and
use known as vocabulary knowledge.
Vocabulary knowledge is an ability to
know how well learners understand a
given word in various context (Webster
Dictionary, 2017). Vocabulary
knowledge is important because it
embraces all the words the learners must
know to access their background
knowledge, express their ideas, and
communicate effectively and learn about
new concepts (Sedita, 2005). Both
vocabulary knowledge and reading
comprehension are closely related, and
this relationship is not one-directional,
since vocabulary knowledge can help the
learner to comprehend written texts and
reading can contribute to vocabulary
growth (Chall, 1987; Nation, 2001;
Stahl, 1990 as cited in Salah, 2008).
METHOD
In this study, the writer used
correlational method which is necessary
in a research to decide the result of a
study. The writer used this kind of
method because it was fit with the paper
which analyze the correlation between
vocabulary knowledge and students’
reading comprehension by described the
result. The writer wanted to know a) Is
there any correlation between students’
vocabulary knowledge and their reading
comprehension? b) How significant the
correlation between students’
vocabulary knowledge and their reading
comprehension? To answer all of that
questions, the writer analyzed the well-
constructed of vocabulary test and
reading passage test of twelfth grade
students in SMA N 3 Kota Cirebon.
The school has 8 classes of
twelfth grade which consists of 4 MIPA
and 4 IPS Classes. It is around 360
students as a population and the writer
only used one class as the representative
by using random sampling. The sample
is 45 students of 12th MIPA 4 class but
the 5 students was absence when the
writer did the research. The writer used a
well-constructed of reading
comprehension and vocabulary test. The
reading passage itself is taken from
Pakar Toefl Tembus Skor 600+ by Penny
Larasati, Tim ELC International page
378-383 which has 30 items of multiple
choice that requires of main idea,
supporting details, pronoun, synonym
and summarization. Furthermore, the
essay test was adapted from Bank Soal &
Strategi TOEFL Edisi Lengkap, page
407 by Tim Master Eduka. The topic of
the essay test was “Do you prefer to
spend your time alone or with friends?
Use specific reasons to support your
answer!” to find out how many
vocabularies that students’ have.
RESULTS
The students had various score
which the highest and the lowest score of
reading comprehension are 86 and 53.
Because of the various score that the
sample had, the writer classified the
score into three categories to clarify the
data and the data frequency distribution
of the sample also is drawn.
Table. 1 Score Categorization of
Reading Comprehension
Score Number of Category
Sample
86 – 100 1 Good
66 – 83 32 Average
50 – 63 7 Poor
From the table above, the sample
of the research showed the average
category is 32 students. Furthermore,
there is only one student who reaches
good category and 7 students are
categorized as poor in reading
comprehension. And the result revealed
that the highest score and the lowest
score of vocabulary test are 100 and 30.
There are 33 students who are Table 3. The Correlation of
categorized as poor vocabulary Vocabulary Knowledge and Reading
knowledge, six samples who categorized Comprehension
as average and there is only one sample
Correlations
who has good vocabulary knowledge.
Vocabulary Reading
The distribution is drawn in the table 2. Vocabulary Pearson Correlation 1 .524**

Sig. (2-tailed) .001

Table 2. The Score Categorization of
N 40 40
Vocabulary Knowledge
Reading Pearson Correlation .524** 1
Score Number of Category Sig. (2-tailed) .001
Sample
N 40 40
80 – 100 1 Good
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
50 – 70 6 Average The results above can be
30 – 40 33 Poor considered that in table 4.8 shows the
The writer tested the null significance level is 0.001. It means the
hypothesis (H0) against the alternative null hypothesis is rejected. Therefore,
hypothesis (H1). The null hypothesis the alternative hypothesis is accepted
stated that there is no correlation because of the significance level is less
between students’ vocabulary than 0.05 (𝛼). It can be concluded that
knowledge and their reading there is a correlation between students’
comprehension. Meanwhile, the vocabulary knowledge and their reading
alternative hypothesis stated that there is comprehension. The second research
a correlation between students’ question is how strength the correlation
vocabulary knowledge and their reading happens between both variables which
comprehension. To verify the can be seen in the table 3 that the r value
hypothesis, the writer used SPSS in of the result shows 0.524 which is
Pearson Correlation product. The considered as strong correlation based on
alternative hypothesis will be granted if Sarwono (2006).
significance level less than α (0.05). The
calculation can be seen in table 3.
DISCUSSION context and did not mind about some
The writer also found some new vocabulary in the text that’s why
findings that almost all of the students they can answer the reading
who got bad score in vocabulary comprehension test better. Meanwhile
knowledge test surprisingly did well in even though the findings of the research
reading comprehension test. The result showed the interesting things, the further
that phenomenon can be seen in the 4. as study should be examined to find out the
the example of the students. fact and reason how that phenomenon
Table 4. Reading Comprehension happens.
Score Higher than Vocabulary
The outcomes of the research
Knowledge
show that there is a correlation between
Subject Vocabulary Reading
students’ vocabulary knowledge and
Knowledge Comprehension
their reading comprehension which can
S-2 40 73
be witnessed from the circumstances that
S-9 50 70
the significance level is lower than α
S-15 30 76
(0.05). With the r value is categorized as
S-20 30 66
strong correlation as Sarwono (2006)
S-23 40 70
stated that 0.50 to 0.75 has strong
S-33 50 83
correlation between vocabulary
S-39 30 70
knowledge and reading comprehension.
Table 4. shows that the score of
As Davis (1944, as cited in Baumann,
vocabulary knowledge is less than the
2005, p. 323) stated that it is clear that
reading comprehension score. It is
word knowledge plays a very important
probably the students think too much for
part in reading comprehension. Because
suitable vocabulary in the given context.
if the students have less vocabulary
Besides that, they did not have
knowledge, they cannot understand the
inspiration or motivation to increase
main purpose of the reading optimally or
their vocabulary knowledge and also,
even fail to convey the meaning of the
they only have limited vocabulary. For
writers’ point of view. This relationship
the reading comprehension itself they
between vocabulary and reading
have good understanding about the
comprehension caused a good number of
researchers to believe that a reader’s CONCLUSION
vocabulary knowledge can be the best
Through the results of the study
predictor of his understanding of text
that have been examined and analyzed,
(Anderson & Freebody, 1981, p.77 as
the writer found there is a correlation
cited in Baumman, p.324). Moreover,
between students’ vocabulary
Graves (in Baumann, 2005, p. 326) one
knowledge and their reading
way to build students’ vocabulary is to
comprehension of the 12th MIPA 4 of
immerse them in a rich array of language
SMA Negeri 3 Kota Cirebon with the
experiences through listening, reading,
correlation significance of the data is in
speaking, and writing. Vocabulary
strong category with r value is 0.524.
knowledge strongly affect the
comprehension of written text in reading The research findings also show

activity. Learner who has much an interesting result which establish the

vocabulary will be easier to understand number of students who got low score in

about the text. Meanwhile, the one with vocabulary knowledge test but got high

limited vocabulary will be quite difficult score in reading comprehension test. On

to understand the text. From those the other word, students’ vocabulary

evidences, it can be concluded that knowledge still gives an effect to their

reading and vocabulary has correlation reading comprehension. Students with

that cannot be separated because in order good vocabulary knowledge will have

to know the message of a whole text, the good reading comprehension.

reader needs vocabulary knowledge to

support it.

REFERENCES

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