Indonesian English Department Students’ Reading Habits and Attitude Toward Literature in English

Abstract

This study reports the results of a survey on the reading habits of English Department Students at Universitas Negeri Padang, Indonesia, and their attitude towards literature in English. Reading Habit questionnaire developed by Pandian (1997) and an adaptation of Students' Attitude and Perception towards literature in English questionnaire developed by Tina Abdullah (2007) were employed. Both instruments were translated to Indonesian before being distributed to the respondents. The total number of respondents involved in this study was 125 comprising of 79 third year students and 46 fourth year students. These students were chosen as respondents because they had taken more than two compulsory literature subjects. First year students and second year students were not included because the former had not taken any compulsory literature subjects, while the latter had not completed their first compulsory literature subjects yet. A demography survey was also conducted to see their perception on their English proficiency and motivation to choose English as their major. Results showed that (i) the majority of the students believed that their English falls under the category of good and very good; (ii) students enrolled to English Department to learn English and/or to learn more about the English language; (iii) they have poor reading habits; (iv) they enjoy other technology related activities more compared to reading; (v) they believed that literature subjects are instrumental in improving their English; (vi) half of the respondents have negative attitude towards poetry in English; (vii) attitude towards longer literature work like novel and drama varied. Finally, pedagogical implications related to the instructional model to teach literature in English is discussed.

Reading Habits of Indonesian English Department Polytechnic Students

“…The possible explanation for these results may be the interference of technology that degrades the desire for the students to read. This is supported by [11], [1], [6], [13]. In addition, the situation of online learning during this pandemic seems to support this premise where the students are more engage in gadgets and other information technology.…”