The Effectiveness of Question-Generation Strategy on Improving the Undergraduate Students’ Reading Ability

Abstract

This study was aimed at examining the effectiveness of Question-Generation (QG) Strategy in improving the reading ability of the undergraduate students and at finding out the students' perceptions of the use of QG strategy in reading. To these ends, this study adopted a mixed method which employs the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Forty-five students at the fourth semester at the English department of Mataram University were involved in this study. To collect the data needed, the pre-and post-test were given to the students and the questionnaire was distributed. The data gotten from the tests were analyzed quantitatively with the help of SPSS and those data gotten from the questionnaire were analyzed qualitatively by following three general steps: reducing, displaying, and drawing conclusion. The findings from the t-test (-19.097) indicated that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the students in the pretest (67.69) and posttest (77.27), and thus, the use of QG strategy was effective in improving the students' reading ability. Further, the questionnaire results indicate that most of the students stated that QG strategy could improve their reading comprehension and it encouraged them to read critically and creatively.