Motivating Senior High School Students on English Reading through Peer-Assisted Learning Strategy
This study explores the difference in students’ motivation in learning English reading through the Peer Assisted Learning Strategy (PALS) and the regular method. There are 60 students in grade eleven at a senior high school in Baubau, Indonesia, involved as the sample of this research selected using cluster sampling, in which 30 students are determined as the control class and 30 students are arranged as the experimental class. The PALS is applied in the experimental class, and the regular method is used in the control class. The Motivation Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) is utilized as the research instrument in pretreatment and posttreatment. The result indicates that the reading motivation in the control class increased by 0.01 after the treatment, with the motivation level still low. Meanwhile, the reading motivation in the experimental class increased from moderate level in pretreatment to high level after the treatment by increasing by 1.01 points. The hypothesis testing reveals a significant difference in English reading motivation between students taught using PALS and the regular method. More specifically, the student’s English reading motivation increases higher in the PALS instruction than in the conventional method.
KEYWORDS: reading, motivation, peer-assisted learning strategy
