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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ READING MOTIVATION,

VOCABULARY MASTERY AND WRITING ABILITY IN RECOUNT
TEXT

by
Septika Ariyanti
[email protected]
Aulia Hanifah Qomar
[email protected]
PBI FKIP Universitas Muhammadiyah Metro

Abstract:
The purposes of this research are to know the correlation between students’ reading
motivation and writing ability in recount text, the correlation between vocabulary
mastery and writing ability in recount text, the correlation between students’ reading
motivation and vocabulary mastery and the correlation between students’ reading
motivation, vocabulary mastery, and writing ability in recount text. This research is
quantitative research by using correlation method. In taking the sample, the researcher
used saturated sampling technique. The amount of the sample are 38 students at third
semester of English Study Program in Muhammadiyah University Academic Year
2015/2016. This research instrument were test and questionnaire. The finding showed
that there is correlation between students’ reading motivation and writing ability in
recount text namely rxy=0,534. Then, there is correlation between vocabulary mastery
and writing ability in recount text namely rxy=0,583. After that, there is correlation
between students’ reading motivation and vocabulary mastery namely rxy=0,488.
Lastly, there is correlation between students’ reading motivation ,vocabulary mastery
and writing ability in recount text namely rxy= 0,788.

Keyword: Correlation, Students’ Reading Motivation, Vocabulary Mastery, Writing

Recount Text

Teaching English consist of four language skills such as listening, speaking, reading
and writing. Writing is one productive skill besides speaking. By and large, in educational
side writing activity cannot be separate from school system, because by writing the students
can build their creativity. In every school, the teacher often asks student to write something
based on the material given. When students are asked to write at least they need to build a

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concept. One of skill which can increase their creativity to build a writing concept is reading
skill.

According to Gray and Rogers as cited in Supriyono (1998, p.12), there are five
benefits of reading : 1) improve self development, 2) fulfilling the demand of intellectual, 3)
fulfilling life interest, 4) to increase interest in a particular field, and 5) knowing actual
matters. When people will do reading activity, they need a motivation and it is important
because by having high motivation to read, one can get benefit from it and they can
comprehend perfectly what they have read. Therefore, reading must be accompanied by self-
motivation.
If every single person often carry out reading activity, surely they have many
vocabularies and then it can increase their list vocabularies. In addition, by having great
vocabularies people can communicate to another people well. Essentially, doing
communication can be done by some ways such as listening, speaking, writing and reading
something. Vocabulary is needed to show people’s expression in every language skill, for
instance in writing. Someone’s writing will be great when he or she has many vocabularies
variation and it can yield the reader feel amazed to the author. Usually, in English
instructional process the teacher give assignment for the students to write their own
experience. Instructional material which related with experience story is recount text.

In this case, the differences of students’ reading motivation, the low of vocabulary
mastery, and students’ difficulty in writing text especially for recount text will be a problem
which is researched in this study.
Based on the data percentage of students’ reading ability is in high level namely about
65,7 % or about 25 students and it is more than a half of amount of students in third semester.
Just a few students who get middle and low score that is 2, 65 %. Then, According to the data
of students’ vocabulary mastery is in middle level by score 68,5 – 72,4 that is 55,3 % or
about 21 students. This amount represents a half of students in third semester. Students who
get the score is up of average value namely 28,9 % or around 11 students. Lastly, Based on
the data above , percentage of students’ writing ability is still in middle category because the
amount of students who get high score or middle score is not dominate among the other. The
students who get the highest score is around 5 students or 13,15 % of students’ total and who
obtain the lowest score just 1 students or 2,65 %.
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Problem formulation in this research are:

1. Is there any correlation between students’ reading motivation and writing ability in
recount text?
2. Is there any correlation between vocabulary mastery and writing ability in recount?
3. Is there any correlation between students’ reading motivation and vocabulary mastery?
4. Is there any correlation between students’ reading motivation, vocabulary mastery,
and writing ability in recount text?

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES

1. The Concept of Reading Motivation

According to Guthrie and Wigfield as cited in Tercanlioglu (2000, p.12) who defined
reading motivation as the individual’s goals and beliefs regarding reading claimed that what
influences reading engagement is different from what influences engagement in other fields. It
must be noted that Wigfield and his associates , Reading Motivation Theory includes a
general dimension that similar motivational factor such as, values, and goals also influence
reading engagement. However, the main emphasis in their review is on the factors which are
unique to the reading domain.

Based on the explanation related to the concept of reading and motivation, it can be
said that reading motivation is individual’s goals and beliefs related to reading activity.
Furthermore, there are four aspect which have important role in motivating reading namely,
materials, reading ability, attitude toward reading as second language and the environment.

2. The Concept of Vocabulary Mastery

According to Richards (2002, p.255), vocabulary is the core component of language
proficiency and provides much of the basis for how well learners speak, listen, read, and
write. Jackson and Amvela (2000, p.11) say that the terms of vocabulary, lexis, and lexicon
are synonymous. Vocabulary is one of the language components that can affect macro skills.
Some definition of vocabulary is proposed by some experts. Nunan (1999, p.101) states that
vocabulary is a list of target language words. Furthermore, Jackson and Amvela (2000, p. 11)
say that the terms vocabulary, lexis, and lexicon are synonymous. In addition, Richards and

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Schmidt (2002, p. 580) state that vocabulary is a set of lexeme, including single words,
compound words, and idioms. Vocabulary is the total number of words in a language; all the
words known to a person or used in a particular book, subject, etc; a list of words with their
meaning, especially one that accompanies a textbook (Hornby: 1995, p. 1331).

Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that vocabulary is the amount of
words in a language and it is also main component of language proficiency in four language
skills.

3. The Concept of Writing

Nunan (2003, p. 88) states that writing is the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking
about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and paragraphs that will be
clear to a reader. Another definition of writing skill is also defined by Urquhart and Mclver.
Urquhart and Mclver (2005, p. 5-6) state that writing is a recursive process, which means
students revise throughout the process, frequently moving back and forth among the stages.
Moreover, Harmer (2004, p.31) states that writing encourages students to focus on accurate
language use.

Based on all of the statements above it can be concluded that writing is a complex
process to write something by presenting some ideas and it needs practice to get a good
writing.

4. The Concept of Recount Text

Recount text is one of genre of the text which is often learnt by students in school
level. There are some definitions of recount text which are conducted by some expert such
Anderson as cited in Ningsih (2014, p.10) explain that recount is a piece of text that retells
past events, usually in order in which they happened. Another definition according to Hornby
(2000, p.958) says that recount is one kinds of story genre, recount tells somebody about
something, that you have experienced. Besides, Hyland (2003, p.20) in his book Second
Language Writing also mentioned the purpose of recount is to reconstruct past experiences by
retelling events in original sequences.

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In conclusion, the writer can summarize that recount is a kind of text which retells about
something happened in the past time orderly. Generally, the purpose recount text is to give
information and entertain the reader itself.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This research, the researcher will use quantitative method. It means that the researcher
will collect and analyze the data statistically based on students’ score from each variable to
find out the correlation between students’ reading motivation, vocabulary mastery and writing
ability in recount text of 3rd semester of English Education Study Program in Muhammadiyah
University of Metro. In this research the independent variable is students’ reading motivation
(X1) and vocabulary mastery (X2). Dependent variable is writing ability in recount text (Y).
The population of this research is the third semester of English Education Study Program in
Muhammadiyah University of Metro. In this research the researcher use non-probability
sampling namely saturated sampling. Saturated sampling is the technique to determine sample
if all of the members of population are used as sample. This mater often be done if the amount
of population is relative small. the sample here are the students of 3rd semester of English
Education Study Program in Muhammadiyah University of Metro it consists of 38 students.

RESEARCH FINDING AND ANALYSIS

1. The Result of Students’ Reading Motivation (X1)

The first instrument which is used in this research is questionnaire. The questionnaire
consists of 20 statements. The highest score for each statements is 5 and the lowest score is 1.
After getting data from the questionnaire result, the researcher found that the highest score is
90, the lowest is 44 and the average score is 67. Based on the data frequency distribution of
the resut it is obtain that from 38 students there are 3 students who got score between 44-52, 7
students got 53-61, 17 students got 62-70, 5 students got 71-78, 5 student got 79-87 and 1
student got 90.

2. The Result of Vocabulary Mastery (X2)

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The second instrument which is used in this research is vocabulary test. The researcher
found that the highest score is 75, the lowest is 20 and the average score is 53,1. Based on the
data frequency distribution of the resut it is obtain that from 38 students there are 2 students
who got score between 20-29, 5 students got 30-39, 5 students got 40-49, 12 students got 50-
59, 10 student got 60-69 and 4 student got 70-79.

3. The Result of Writing Ability in Recount Text (Y)

The third instrument which is used in this research is writing. The highest score of this
test is 100. The score is gotten by using the scoring rubric of writing test. Scoring the writer
test the researcher uses two rater. First rater is the researcher itself and the second rater is
Defy Gustianing who is the student of English Study Program. After getting data from the
result of writing test, the researcher found that the highest score is 83,5, the lowest is 47,5 and
the average score is 65,73. Based on the data frequency distribution of the resut it is obtain
that from 38 students there are 3 students who got score between 47-52, 6 students got 53-58,
7 students got 59-64, 11 students got 65-70, 7 students got 71-76 , 2 student got 77-82 and 1
student get 83,5.

4. The Correlation between Students’ Reading Motivation (X1) and Writing Ability
in Recount Text (Y)

From the data calculation, it is gotten rxy = 0,534. This value is consulted by

rtable(38;0,05 ) =0,320 and the result is 0,534 > 0,320, therefore there is positive correlation

between X1 variable and Y variable. For the significant tes is gotten t = 3,791, this value is
compared with t table for the degree of error 5% by two tail test and dk= n-2 = 36, so it is

obtained t table = 2.02809. because of  ≠0 it can be said that between X1 variable and Y
variable has significant correlation. At the conclusion, there is any positive and significant
correlation between students’ reading motivation and students’ writing ability in recount text.
Therefore, Ha is accepted.

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5. The Correlation between Vocabulary Mastery (X2) and Writing Ability in

Recount Text (Y)

From the data calculation, it is gotten rxy = 0,583. This value is consulted by

rtable(38;0,05 ) =0,320 and the result is 0,583 > 0,320, therefore there is positive correlation

between X2 variable and Y variable. For the significant tes is gotten t = 4,301, this value is
compared with t table for the degree of error 5% by two tail test and dk= n-2 = 36, so it is

obtained t table = 2.02809. because of  ≠0 it can be said that between X2 variable and Y
variable has significant correlation. At the conclusion, there is any positive and significant
correlation between vocabulary mastery and students’ writing ability in recount text.
Therefore, Ha is accepted.
6. The Correlation between Students’ Reading Motivation (X1) and Vocabulary
Mastery (X2)

From the data calculation, it is gotten rxy = 0,488. This value is consulted by

rtable(38;0,05 ) =0,320 and the result is 0,488>0,320, therefore there is positive correlation between

X1 variable and X2 variable. For the significant tes is gotten t = 3,839, this value is compared
with t table for the degree of error 5% by two tail test and dk= n-2 = 36, so it is obtained t table =

2.02809. because of  ≠0 it can be said that between X1 variable and X2 variable has
significant correlation. At the conclusion, there is any positive and significant correlation
between students’ reading motivation and vocabulary mastery. Therefore, Ha is accepted.

7. The Correlation between Students’ Reading Motivation (X1), and Vocabulary

Mastery (X2) and Writing Ability in Recount Text (Y)

From the data calculation, it is gotten R yx1x 2 = 0,788. This value is consulted by

rtable(38;0,05 ) =0,320 and the result is 0,788 > 0,320, therefore there is positive correlation

between X1,X2 and Y variable. For the significant tes is gotten f count = 28,67, this value is

cosulted by f table for the degree of error 5% by dk numerator=k and dk denumerator=(n-k-1)

so it is obtained f table = 3,27 and the result is 28,67 > 3,27 it can be said that between X1,X2

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,and Y variable has significant correlation. At the conclusion, there is any positive and
significant correlation between students’ reading motivation , vocabulary mastery and
students’ writing ability in recount text. Therefore, Ha is accepted.

DISCUSSION

After doing the correlation test and significant test to test the hypothesis, so the
discussion of the result from this research as follows:

Based on the result of the first hypothesis there is positive and significant correlation
between students’ reading motivation and students’ writing ability in recount text at third
semester in Muhammadiyah University of Metro. This shows that the higher students’ reading
motivation, the better of their ability in writing recount text and vice versa. Unfortunately, not
many students which get highest score in either reading motivation or writing test. Looked at
data frequency distribution of students’ reading motivation, just one student who gets the
highest score. Besides, there are two students who get the highest score of writing test.
Therefore, the students must increase their motivation to read in order to can build their
writing ability.

Looked at the result of the second hypothesis there is positive and significant
correlation between vocabulary and students’ writing ability in recount text at third semester
in Muhammadiyah University of Metro. This shows that the more students can be master of
vocabulary, the better of their ability in writing recount text and vice versa. Based on the data
frequency distribution of vocabulary mastery, there are some students who have not gotten
good score for vocabulary mastery and it influences their writing score.

Based on the result of the third hypothesis there is positive and significant correlation
between students’ reading motivation and vocabulary mastery in recount text at third semester
Muhammadiyah University of Metro. Although there is correlation both of the variable, the
coefficient correlation shows that it has medium correlation because the result just 0,488. It is
difference from the result of first and second hypothesis which has high correlation between
the variable.
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Looked at the result of the fourth hypothesis there is positive and significant
correlation between students’ reading motivation, vocabulary mastery and students’ writing
ability in recount text at third semester Muhammadiyah University of Metro. It shows that
between the variable can correlate each other

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusion

After the researcher finished the research and analyzed the data, the conclusion of this
research is as follows :
1. There is positive and significant correlation between students’ reading motivation and
writing ability in recount text at third semester in Muhammadiyah University of Metro
academic year 2015/2016, with coefficient correlation 0,534 and the degree of significant
is 3,791
2. There is positive and significant correlation between vocabulary mastery and students’
writing ability in recount text at third semester in Muhammadiyah University of Metro
academic year 2015/2016, with coefficient correlation 0,583 and the degree of significant
is 4,301
3. There is positive and significant correlation between students’ reading motivation and
vocabulary mastery at third semester in Muhammadiyah University of Metro academic
year 2015/2016, with coefficient correlation 0,488 and the degree of significant is 3,839
4. There is positive and significant correlation between students’ reading motivation
,vocabulary mastery and students’ writing ability in recount text at third semester in
Muhammadiyah University of Metro academic year 2015/2016, with coefficient
correlation 0,788 and the degree of significant is 28,67

B. Suggestion

After the researcher makes the conclusion of correlation between students’ reading
motivation ,vocabulary mastery and students’ writing ability in recount text at third semester
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in Muhammadiyah University of Metro academic year 2015/2016. The researcher would give
some suggestion, to the teachers or lecturers, students and for the other researchers.
1. For Lecturers
By knowing the result of the research, the English lecturer is hoped can give
motivation to the students in order to can build their interest in reading, in mastering
vocabulary and also in their writing ability. In addition, the lecturer can apply suitable
strategy to develop students’ capability.

2. For the Students

As language learner, the students must increase their reading motivation because it can
influence their vocabulary mastery and writing ability. All of these aspects correlate each
other, so the students are expected to apply them well and make them as one of things which
can support their English well.

3. For the Other Researchers

This research is expected can contribute to the research education specially to find out
the correlation between three variables, in this case students’ reading motivation, vocabulary
mastery and students’ writing ability in recount text. This research is hoped to be an adequate
previous study which can be used by the other researchers to conduct a further research
relating to the correlation between cognitive domain and affective domain

REFERENCES

Harmer, Jeremy.(2004). How to Teach Writing.England : Pearson

Hornby, A,S.(1995). Oxford Advenced Learner’s Dictionary. New York: Oxford University
Press
Hyland, Ken. (2003).Second Language Writing, Cambridge : Cambridge University Presss
Jackson,H and Amvela,E. (2000). Words, meaning and Vocabulary (An Introduction to
Modern English
Lexicology), London : Continuum
Ningsih, Putri Aisah. (2015). The Effectiveness of Teaching Writing Recount Text by Using

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Facebook. Jakarta : Undergraduate Program UIN Syarif Hidayatullah

Nunan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching and Learning. Boston, Massachusetts: Heinle
& Heinle
Publishers.
Richards, Jack C. (2002). Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. United
Kingdom :
Cambridge University Press
Tercanlioglu,Leyla. (2001).The Nature of Turkish Students’ Motivation for Reading and Its
Relation to Their
Reading Frequency, The Reading Matrix.1.
Urquhart, Vicki and McIver,Monette. (2005). Teaching Writing in the Content Areas,
Alexandria : Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

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