Langue (Journal of Language and Education)

Vol. 1(2), 2023

https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/langue/
e-ISSN: 2988-5728

The Effect of Online Newspaper on Students' Reading

Comprehension at one Senior High School in Padang
Gatot Hadi Waluyo 1, Wawan Septiawan 2
1
Gatot Hadi Waluyo 1 Universitas Jambi. e-mail: [email protected]
2
Wawan Septiawan 2 Universitas Jambi. e-mail: [email protected]

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: One of the challenges to improving education quality is promoting
Online Newspaper, Reading reading and understanding of what is being read. Understanding
Comprehension, Senior High reading skills is still a problem that is still crucial for language
School learners, especially in senior high school. Therefore, it is necessary
to use interesting learning methods to help students improve their
DOI: reading skills. In this regard, this study aims to know the effect of
https://doi.org/10.22437/langue.v online newspapers to enhance students' reading skills. This study
1i2.24267 used an experimental design. The researchers conducted this
research at one of the senior high schools in Padang. A control class
Received: (n: 35) and an experimental class (36) were included in this study.
March 15, 2023 then researchers use online newspapers originating from "The
Jakarta Post" to teach experimental classes. At the same time, the
Reviewed: chart is used as a teaching medium in the control class. Based on the
April 20, 2023 findings. The researcher found a significant difference in the
experimental class's pretest (76.10) and post-test (85.14) results.
Accepted: These results indicated a positive effect of online newspapers as
May 12, 2023 media in reading achievement. Several recommendations and
suggestions have been proposed for further studies to get more
improvement.

1. Introduction
Reading is one of the skills in English that has to be acquired well by all English learners
who want to learn about English as a foreign language. In reading, there will interaction
process between reader and text as a process of comprehension. The reader will take some
information from the text that needs to be taken for specific purposes, like answering
questions related to the text and it is an everyday activity that happens in the process of
learning reading.
In learning reading, the simple case usually happens among students is low motivation to
learn. Although that case is simple, unfortunately, low motivation can affect students'
achievement to be low. Usually, it happens because the teaching media the teachers have used
does not positively affect students’ motivation. The media is probably not exciting or
improper with the material, so it causes low motivation.
The improper teaching media for specific material affected students’ achievement because
the teaching process determines the result in form of achievement. When the teachers only
thought that their media could be used to support their teaching without considering whether
it had a positive effect. It aims to deliver the material to students and wished for best students’
achievement could not be reached well.
 The Effect of Online Newspaper on Students' Reading Comprehension at one Senior High School in Padang

2. Literature Review
2.1 The concept of reading
Reading is an essential skill that children must possess from an early age. Through
reading, humans are able to comprehend other thoughts through text (Camsola and Notari,
2017). Through reading habits, it will be easier for someone to be in surrounding the world. In
response, Souza (2005) explains that the best time to introduce reading habits to students is
when they are at school. It is because a child reader will have more opportunities to improve
their reading skills. By understanding reading skills from an early age, an individual can more
easily succeed in the world environment (Camsola and Notari, 2017).
Furthermore, in learning reading, texts are the majority of materials that teachers in the
classroom activity will teach. According to Pardiyono (2007: 33-313), several texts are
existed in teaching reading such as Recount, Report, Discussion, Explanation, Analytical
Exposition, Hortatory Exposition, News Item, Anecdote, Narrative, Procedure, Description,
and Review. Those texts are provided in Indonesia’s Curriculum as materials that have to be
taught by teachers to students.
In response to reading habits, the school and family play a big role in helping children
improve their reading habits. These two factors strongly influence the success of reading
skills. one of the most influential is the school. Schools provide many opportunities for
students to develop and improve students reading skills. besides that, the school also provides
a place to read and develop reading for students (Wijaya, 2013).
Reading can help students learn and think about a new language. Through reading,
students can also improve their language skills and build better vocabulary (Wijaya, 2013). In
addition, according to Hamzah (2019), reading skills which are considered communicative
skills also have characteristics as skills that have a complex process. Because in the reading
activity, the reader must also understand the content. In this process, the use of cognitive
plays an essential role in understanding the context of the entire content of the reading text.
Then reading skills also have many purposes. According to Agung (2009) the purpose of
reading consists of 1) finding the main idea, 2) answering the question, 3) summarizing and
organizing the text, 4) evaluating the text critically (skimming, scanning, extensive reading).
For this reason, educators must also consider the various goals of reading skills before
teaching reading skills to students. by knowing this, educators can find it easier to find
appropriate learning methods and approaches.

2.2 Online Newspaper as Teaching Media

In teaching reading, newspaper is one of many media that can support teaching activities.
Newspaper as a teaching tool will be helpful for transferring teaching material. According to
Chang and Lin (2014) newspapers are a helpful tool in the ELT classroom for improving
reading skills and enhancing students' knowledge of current affairs. It means that by using the
newspaper as a media tool, students' spirit or motivation will be increased during learning
material, especially for reading. Besides, Camassola and Notari (2017) stated that newspapers
can be a valuable instructional tool for basic reading programs.
According to Chang and Lin (2014) the online newspapers have an outstanding
contribution to improve students' academic performance. They also prove that individuals
who have the opportunity to learn through online newspapers have a better level of
understanding in learning to read compared to those who do not have experience reading
online newspapers. It happens because in education programs, online newspapers bring the
real world experiences and integrate with students' skills (Sullivan, 1999:6). This becomes

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 The Effect of Online Newspaper on Students' Reading Comprehension at one Senior High School in Padang

effective for students, because learning that is real world experiences can be more meaningful
for them.
Besides, a study conducted by Chen (2011) explains that reading online newspapers can
help students develop their ability to become more aware of their knowledge and construct it.
In addition, Chen (2011) also explained that students' enthusiasm in learning reading skills
using online newspapers is also better than learning to read ordinary texts. Camassola and
Notari (2017) proved the increase in motivation and desire to know because the online
newspaper occurred because of the link between the learning process and real life experience.
In other words, learning materials that are real world can make it easier for students to
understand material or reading texts in English.
Online newspapers are an item that is also still popular today. This is due to practicality
and low economic value. According to Camassola and Notari (2017) online newspapers are
the most popular choice for many people to find out the latest environmental news. In
addition, they also explained that online newspapers can increase students' love of reading.
which can have an impact on improving the ability to learn to read in the target students.
Besides Satriani (2017) stated that Newspaper provides many opportunities to read
fluently and sport and entertainment pages have information of interest to all age level. In
addition, using a newspaper in the classroom improves student vocabulary skills, increases
knowledge and encourages a positive attitude toward learning. Moreover, using various kinds
of Media like newspaper in the classroom has always been a challenge, and how to bring
these Media in the classroom is more than a challenge. Students and teachers should be able
to use it in their classrooms as possible, because so many advantages can be taken from
newspaper as media.

2.3 Chart as Teaching Media

Charts are media that can be used to transfer certain information which the process is
diagrammatic by using visual code. Charts are also used to explain certain information that is
difficult to explain in written or spoken way. Some charts are usually used in teaching such as
Flip Chart, Tree Chart, Flow Chart, Time Line Chart and Stream Chart (Sadiman, 1986:37).
In addition, other charts such as Pie Chart, Column Chart, Bar Chart, and Line Chart are
commonly used in classroom agree with the certain purposes.
Based on the statements before about the chart and also kind of charts itself, it can be
concluded that each chart has different function in classroom. Although they have different
functions in classroom activity, the main function in general is as media that will help
teachers transfer information in different ways. The ability of students are different each
other, furthermore when the material itself is not easy to be received like the material is
complicated or long explanation. Using certain chart media appropriate to the material like
using tree chart to teach about family members in speaking activity will be really effective.

2.4 Conceptual Framework

In connection with the previous explanation, in this study, the researcher wanted to
determine the effect of newspapers as media on students' reading achievement. The
conceptual framework could be created while the newspaper was used. See figure 1 below:

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 The Effect of Online Newspaper on Students' Reading Comprehension at one Senior High School in Padang

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

Hypothesis
Regarding research objectives, researchers also prepare several hypotheses. It consists of
Null Hypothesis (HO) and Alternative Hypothesis (H1). It presents in the following section:

Hypothesis Null (H0) : The use of online English Newspapers is not significantly
improved students’ reading comprehension

Alternative Hypothesis (H1) : The use of online English newspapers significantly improves
students’ reading comprehension.

3. Research Methodology
3.1 Research Design
The researcher used experimental research, especially quasi-experimental pretest and
post-test control group design. As Gay and Airasian (2000:367) states “experimental research
is the only type of research that can test hypotheses to establish cause – and – effect
relationship.” There are two groups in this research; one group for experimental class was
taught by online newspaper media and other group for control class was taught by chart
media.

3.2 Population and Sample

In this research, the population is the first year of one of Senior High School in Padang.
The researchers chose this school because the school is a public school with regulations in
education based on government policy. Meanwhile, to select the sample of this research, the

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 The Effect of Online Newspaper on Students' Reading Comprehension at one Senior High School in Padang

researchers did the population test to know whether the population normal distributes or not.
The population was normally distributed, homogeneous and had the same average of the
sample, the researcher lottery ticket to decide the sample.

3.3 Instruments
In this research, the researchers used reading passage test which type was achievement
test. Achievement test is designed to provide information about how well the student learned
what have been taught . in this case, the researchers used “TheJakartaPost” as the online
newspaper for students. therefore, the title of news used in this research is “Ciliwung river
normalization to resume in 2023, and Ten people including children killed in Bekasi in truck
crash outside school”.
The test took from TheJakartaPost that were modified by researchers and helped by the
teacher and advisor. The researchers constructed the test in the form of Multiple Choice with
two passages and consisted of 20 following questions for each passage.
Furthermore, for each item the researchers gave 5 points for each correct item and 0 point
for incorrect item. Therefore, total score was one hundred to the highest and zero to the
lowest. The test consisted of some indicators that ask student to answer questions based on the
information in the passage. Before using the instrument in post-test, the test was tried out to
the students in another relevancy class and the researchers considered with some
characteristic of test such as validity, item difficulties and reliability.

3.4 Data Collection Techniques

To collect the data, the researchers did some procedures. First, teacher gave pretest to
student before giving treatment. Then, the researchers taught reading by using newspaper as
media in experimental class and by using chart in control class for six meetings. Next, the
researchers gave post test for both of classes. Furthermore, the results of students’ scores in
experimental and control classes were computed using T-test to know the students’ reading
achievement. Finally, the score of the given test was used as data of the result.
In this research, the researcher only took 4 classes because the researcher could only take
two. They are X.8 and X. 9. Each class consists of 35 and 36 students. For experiment class,
the researcher taught them by using newspaper as media and in control class by using chart.
The sample of this study can be seen in this table:
Table 1: The sample of the research
Class Pretest Post test
Experimental X X
Control Y Y

3.5 Data Analysis Procedures

To collect the data there were several phases that the researchers did. First, teacher gave a
pre-test to student before giving treatment. Then, the researcher taught reading by using
newspaper as media in the experimental class and by using the chart in the control class for
six meetings. Next, the researcher gave a post-test for both classes. Furthermore, the results of
students’ scores in experimental and control classes were computed using T-test to know the
students’ reading achievement.
Meanwhile, the data analysis technique was used for comparing the result of using
newspapers as media in reading material between the experimental class and control class by
using T-test. Before the researcher did T-test, the researcher did the normality and
homogeneity test first.

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 The Effect of Online Newspaper on Students' Reading Comprehension at one Senior High School in Padang

4. Finding
The finding of this research is related to the results of the students' pretest and post-test
tests. As for this discussion, the researcher will discuss more deeply related to the findings of
the students' pretest and post-test, T-test results, and hypothesis testing results. For this
reason, the following is a further explanation of these findings:

4.1 T-test value

After the researcher got mean score and standard deviation of the experimental and
control class, the researcher found the result by using T-test was 2, 90. In finding the result of
T-test, the researcher needed mean score of experimental class (85, 14) and mean score of
control class (79, 43. After that, the researcher needed standard deviation of experimental and
control class (8, 22). Based on the data finding, there were different mean scores in
experimental and control classes. it explained on the table below:
Table 2. T-test value
Class Mean score of Mean score of Std.Dev
Pretest Post-test
Experimental (X) 76,10 85, 14 10, 13
Control (Y) 79,00 79, 43 8, 22

After the researcher got mean score and standard deviation of the experimental and
control class, the researcher found the result by using T-test was 2, 90. In finding the result of
T-test, the researcher needed mean score of post-test among experimental class (85, 14) and
control class (79, 43). After that, the researcher needed standard deviation of experimental
and control class (8, 22), and also the total number of participants of both class (n5= 36) and
(n4= 35). To find out the mean score, the researcher used this formula:
x5 − x 4
1 1
5 +
n3 n2
t =
85,14 − 79,43
1 1
5 +
= 36 35
= 2, 90
Based on the data analysis, the researcher found different mean scores in experimental and
control classes. For experimental class, the mean score was 85, 14, and for control class was
79, 43. After calculating the data by using T- test, the data analysis showed that the result of
T-test was 2, 90.

4.2 Hypothesis testing

As stated before, if the value of T-obtained is less than the value of T-table, the null
hypothesis (H0) is rejected and the H1 is accepted. Inversely, if the T-obtained value is bigger
than the T-table's critical value, it means that the null hypothesis is accepted H1 is rejected.
The result of the T-test value was (2, 90), and it is bigger than value of T-table (1, 645) at the
degree of freedom (36+35-2) and the level of significant (0, 05). Therefore, based on the

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 The Effect of Online Newspaper on Students' Reading Comprehension at one Senior High School in Padang

finding it is known that H1 is accepted. Additionally, it can be concluded if online newspaper

as media positively affected reading achievement.

5. Discussion
Based on the findings in this study, the researchers found that the mean score of the
experimental class was 85.14 with a standard deviation of 5.79. The mean score of control
class was 79, 43 with standard deviation was 10, 13. Thus, the researcher found that the
means score for both experimental and control classes were taken from the total score divided
by the number of participants. In which the standard deviation both of the classes were taken
from gain the result of total participant number, the quadrate of total score of students. The
researcher found the standard deviation for both classes was 8, 22 and the result of T-test 2,
90.
According to the data T-calculated (2, 90) was bigger that T-table (1,645). Based on the
results, there was a positive effect of newspapers as media in reading achievement. In other
words, the results of this study accept the alternative hypothesis (H1) which stated that "the
use of online newspapers is significantly improve students' reading comprehension". The
results of this study are related to the findings of The Penn State University Division of
Student Affairs (2008) which explains that newspapers in the classroom improve students'
learning engagement and bridge between the course content and the "real" world. In addition,
the results of this study also accept and are related to the findings in research conducted by
(Chang and Lin, 2014; Satriani, 2017). They explained that the online newspapers have a very
good contribution to improving students' academic performance and provide many
opportunities to read fluently and sport and entertainment pages have information of interest
to all age levels.

6. Conclusion
Based on the finding of the present study, the researchers found some findings as follow:
First, the researchers found that T-calculated (2, 90). Second, it was bigger than T-table (1,
645) at the degree of freedom (36+35-2) and the level of significant (0, 05). Therefore,
newspapers as media in teaching reading positively affected students’ achievement.

7. Recommendation
Based on the study's results, the researchers suggest that English teachers consider using
online newspapers to teach reading skills. This happens because it has been proven that online
newspapers can positively affect students' achievement. The researchers also recommend that
some further researchers find other techniques to teach reading skills. So by doing that there
will be other findings related to more effective teaching techniques for teaching reading skills.

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