The Effectiveness of Herringbone Technique to teach Students’ Reading

Comprehension to the Eighth Grade Students of SMPN 13 Pontianak

( A Pre-Experimental Study to the Second Grade Students’ of SMPN 13

Pontianak in the Academic of Years 2019/2020)

Outline Penelitian

Oleh :
Muhammad Yasin Bin Latia
Nim : 321510009

Program Studi : Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris

FAKULTAS PENDIDIKAN BAHASA DAN SENI

INSTITUT KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN
PERSATUAN GURU REPUBLIK INDONESIA
PONTIANAK
2019
A. Research Background
As one of the four skills, reading plays an important role in
learning process because it gives knowledge, information, and idea to be
applied in the speaking and writing. Through reading, students can learn
ideas, concepts, and attitudes. Then, by reading, students can get many
vocabularies that they need to be applied in speaking and writing.
Additionally, reading skill is used in the final examination because almost
75% student will face with comprehension task. So the students must have
a good reading comprehension if they want to pass the exams and graduate
from the school. Reading is a great source of language learning: language
can be acquired from reading as opposed to studied directly. If overt study
is preferred, structures and vocabulary can be seen in context and
paragraph construction can be analyzed. There are many reasons why
getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teacher‟s
job. In the first place, many students want to be able to read texts in
English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure.
Anything we can do to make it easier for them to do these things must be a
good idea. Deboer (1964: 17) says that reading is a much more complex
process. Reading is an activity which involves comprehension and
interpretation of ideas symbolized by written or printed language.Some
think of reading as a sounding out of printed words, either with or without
a comprehension of meaning. It was absolutely not true. Reading is not
only how we sounding out the written text but also construct a meaning so
we can apply knowledge from the text in real life.
Based on the researcher’s experience when the reseacher do the
intership 3, the students’ reading comprehension at SMPN 13 Pontianak is
low. It can be seen from more than 50% students get marks in reading
comprehension below KKM, that is stated by the school, is 80. It meant
that the students have a problem in reading comprehension the text. The
problem is caused by some causes. They are lack of students’ background
knowledge, lack of students’ vocabulary, and the technique used in
teaching reading comprehension.
Nowaday, there are many strategies are used in the learning
process and one of those strategies is Cooperative learning.
Richards(1997:56) says that cooperative learning is group learning activity
organized so that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange
of information between learners in groups and in which each learner is
held accountable for his or her own learning and is motivated to increase
the learning of others. Cooperative learning is not just putting students into
groups but they should learn social skills. The Cooperative learning
requires the students to be active in the group and achieve the main goals
of every member in the group. The students can share their ideas and
decide the best answer in handling the task. It also will make students
easier to find the way out in finishing the problems they faced.
So it can be said that group is a number of people when it consist
of more than two people interacting with each other. When the researcher
observes teaching learning process with this technique, the class is very
noisy. Not all of students really comprehend the materials, only a few
students. Because in small group technique many students who depend
with their peers in a group. Beside that the student also still confused to
determine the topic of the text, although they had read for many times they
still did not got it. This thing make student lazy to read the text because
they get nothing. In this case the researcher tries to apply Herringbone
Technique. Herringbone is a kind of technique used in teaching reading
process. It is a reading technique that can be applied to improve reading
comprehension. The herringbone technique is a structured outlining
procedure designed to help student organize important information in a
text. According to Deegan (2006:102) Herringbone Technique is a
technique that develops comprehension of the main idea by plotting who,
what, when, where, why, and how question on a visual diagram of a fish
skeleton. Using the answer to the WH questions, the students write the
 main idea across the backbone of the fish diagram. “This technique is
particularly well suited for expository text but can also be used with
narrative text”, said Bouchard (2005: 54). This technique is made to
improve students‟ reading comprehension by organizing important
information in a text.
Based on K-13 curriculum there are several type of texts that
should be mastered by student. Considering the genre of text the
researcher chooses narrative text because narrative text is a piece of text
which tell a story and entertain the students. The reseacher then is
interested to conduct a research entitled

B. Research Problems
1. Is effective Herringbone Technique in teaching reading
comprehension to the eight grade students of SMPN 13 Pontianak in
academic years 2019/2020 ?
2. How significant is the effectiveness of using Herringbone Technique
in teaching reading comprehension to the eight grade students of
SMPN 13 Pontianak in academic years 2019/2020
C. Research Purpose
1. To find out wheter effective or not using Herringbone Technique to
Improve Students’ Reading Comprehension at Eighth Grade Students
of SMPN 13 Pontianak in academic years 2019/2020
2. To find out how significant is the effectiveness of using Herringbone
Technique in teaching reading comprehension to the eight grade students
of SMPN 13 Pontianak in academic years 2019/2020

D. Significances of Study
There are two significances of this writing might expected from
this study, they are as follow:
1. The Theoritical Significance
a. The result of this study expected could be a reference for the
English students to do similar research or another research.
 b. The result of this study expected could use additional
information for English Departement and as knowledge in
improving English education.

2. The Practical Significance

a. Fot the students
The result of this study is expected can make students increase
the knowledge of English especially in reading comprehension.
b. For the Teacher
The research can be reference for the teacher in teaching
reading comprehension.
c. For the Researcher
The research can be a good reference for other researcher that
the planning to have research in the same areas
d. For the school
The result of this research can be used as a point in teaching
and learning activity in classroom.

E. Scope of The Research

In order to carry out the research systematically, the scope of the research
is needed. It consists of research variable and terminology.
1. Research Variable
Arikunto (2010: 161) states that “variable is an object of the
research or that becomes point of the research.” There are two kinds of
variable. First, independent variables are those that (probably) cause,
influence, or affect outcomes. They are also called treatment,
manipulated, antecedent, or predictor variables. Second, dependent
variables are those that depend on the independent variables; they are
 the outcomes or results of the influence of the independent variables.
Other names for dependent variables are criterion, outcomes, and
effect variables.
In this study, herringbone technique as independent variable. And
students’ reading comprehension as dependent variable.

2. Terminology
To ovoid any misconception or misinterpretation of term in this
reesarch, some of terms will be explained roastbelow:
a. Reading Comprehension the students’ ability to determine the

reading aspects, main idea, factual information, understanding the

meaning of vocabulary, making inference, and identifying the

reference of Narrative text.

b. Herringbone Technique is defined as the technique reading

comprehension. This technique develops comprehension of the main
idea through the use of visual diagram of fish skeleton.

c. Narative text is a kind of text to retell the story that past tense.

d. SMPN 13 Pontianak located in Jalan Tebus, Kecamatan Pontianak

Barat, Kota Pontianak in the academic year of 2019/2020.

F. Research Hypothesis
In order to find the answers to the research question, the researcher
needs to create the research hypotheses. A hypothesis is often described as
an attempt by the researcher to explain the phenomenon of interest.
According to Lodico et al (2010: 10), state that hypothesis is a tentative
explanation that can be tested by collecting data. Thus a null hypothesis
represents all other possibilities. According to Creswell (2012: 624) defined
null hypothesis as follows “make predictions that there will be no
statistically significant difference between the independent variable and the
 dependent variable.” The null hypothesis is generally symbolized as H0 and
the alternative hypothesis as Ha. The hypothesis of this research can be
stated as follow:
1. Alternative Hypothesis (Ha)

Herringbone Technique is effective towards students’ reading

comprehension on Narrative text to the eighth grade students of SMPN 13
pontianak in the academic year of 2019/2020.
2. Null Hypothesis (H0)

Herringbone Technique is not effective towards students’ reading

comprehension on Narrative text to the eight grade students of SMPN 13
Pontianak in the academic year of 2019/2020.

G. Research Methodology
1. Research design

This study uses pre-experimental with one group pretest-posttest

design that consist of pre-test, treatment and post-test. This study is
classified as pre-experimental design because of no control of
extraneous variable. In the One-Group pretest-posttest design, a single
group was measured or observed not only after being exposed by a
treatment, but also before. The pre-test and post-test were given to take
the score of the student’s achievement before and after being taught by
using herringbone technique. Then both of the score were computed by
using t-test to find out if there is significant influence of teaching
reading comprehension by using herringbone technique. The design of
this research can be seen at the table below:
This is the procedures of pre-experimental research with one group
pre-test post-test design:

1. Administering a pre-test before applying a strategy with a purpose

of measuring students’ reading narrative text comprehension
ability at eighth grade students at SMPN 13 Pontianak.

2. Applying the experimental treatment in teaching reading

comprehension by using herringbone technique.
 3. Administering a post-test after applying the strategy with a
purpose of measuring students’ reading narrative text
comprehension ability at eighth grade students at MTs Al Huda
Kedungwaru.
In this study, the hypothesis were tested by comparing the
pretest and posttest scores to know the effectiveness of using
herringbone technique on students’ reading comprehension
narrative text.
2. Population and Sample
a. Population
Population is the collection of all individuals or items under
consideration in a statistical study. It is aset or collection of the
subject in the research. (Weiss, 2012:4). The population of this
research is the entire students of SMPN 13 Pontianak in academic
2018/2019. The current total number of the student is 90 students.
It comprises of: (1) Grade 7 with one class; (2) Grade 8
with one class; and (3) Grade 9 with one class.
b. Sample
A sample is part of the population which is researched
(Arikunto, 2010:174). The sample of the research was VIII B class
of MTs Al Huda Kedungwaru. The students supporting in this
research will be 30 students.

c. Sampling

The reseacher will use Cluster Random Sampling. Fraenkel

and Wallen (2009) explain, cluster random sampling can be used if
selecting random sample of individual is difficult to be done.
Besides, cluster random sampling is easier to apply in school and
less time-consuming. The group or the class is taken randomly
because each class has the same probility choosen as sample. As
Fraenkel and Wallen (2009) also claim that “just as simple random
 sampling is more effective with larger number of individuals,
cluster random sampling is more effective with larger number of
clusters.” For those reasons, the researcher decided to choose
cluster random sampling in conducting this reasearch study. In this
study, the class which is choosen as the sample is Class VIII B
which consists of 30 students. It is already fulfil the standard
minimum acceptable sample size for correlational study.

According to Fraenkel and Wallen (2009), the minimum

acceptable sample size for correlational study is no less than 30.
They also add that if the data which is obtained from a sample is
smaller than 30, it may give inacurate result of the degree of
correlation. Therefore, a sample larger than 30 will give
meaningful results.

H. Technique and Tools of Data Collecting

1. Technique of Collecting data
In this research, the researcher will use measurement data
collection technique. Measurement is a process of mapping aspects of
a domain into other aspects of a range according to some rule of
correspondence (Kothari, 2004:69). At the same concern, Creswell
(2012:623) states that measurement means that the researcher observes
and records the score on an instrument. This measurement technique
intended to measure the change students’ reading comprehension
before and after PORPE treatment.

2. Tools and Collecting Data

Tool of data collection is a device which is used by the researcher
for collecting the data Ary et al (2010:201) states that test is a set of
stimuli presented to an individual in order to elicit responses on the
basis of which a numerical score can be assigned. The researcher will
use multiple choice test as the tool of data collecting that will be given
in the pre-test and post-test to collect the students’ score. As stated by
Thornbury (2002: 132), multiple choice test is a popular way of testing
in that they are easy to score (a computer can do it) and they are easy
to design. The test will consist of 25 items with four possible answers
(A, B, C, and D). The questions are about identifying the main idea,
identifying the factual information, making inference, identifying the
reference and interpreting the meaning of vocabulary in form of
 reading text. The student will answer the questions based on the work
sheet prepare by researcher.
Being valid test as the tool of data collecting, the researcher will
check the test items by asking a validator to check the content of the
test to determine the test whether it is valid or not. The validator who
checks the test items is the lecture of English Study Program IKIP
PGRI Pontianak.

I. Technique of Data Analysis

This research used statistical analysis in order to find out of the
answer of research questions and to test the hypotheses of the research
procedures of data analysis were required. The numerical data will be
analysed using windows-based program, Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS) statistic 20. The technique of data analysis in this
research as follow:

1. Students’ Individual Scores of Pre-Test and Post- Test.

In order to analyse the students’ individual scores, the researcher will

use the formula below:

A1 A2
X1 = × 100 X2 = × 100
N N

Where:
X1 = Student’s score pre-test
X2 = Student’s score post-test
A1 = Number of correct items pre-test
A2 = Number of correct items post-test
N = Total number of scoring item pre-test and post-test

Adopted from (Cohen et al, 2007:423)

To calculate the students’ individual score, from a test result, the

number of students’ correct answer is multiplied by 100 and then divided
by the total number of test items. After finding the individual score the
researcher will continue to analyse the means score.
A2
2. Students’ Mean Score of Pre-Test and Post-Test. X2 = × 100
N

Where:

X2 = Student’s score post-test

A2 = Number of correct items post-test

 A mean is an average score that the students get from the test. In order
to analyse the students’ mean scores, the researcher use the formula below:
̅̅̅̅ = ∑ X1
X1 ̅̅̅̅ = ∑ X2
X2
N N
Where:
̅̅̅̅= the students’ mean score pre-test
X1
̅̅̅̅
X2 = the students’ mean score post-test
∑ = the sums over a range of values pre-test and post-test
X 1= the value of X pre-test

X2 = the value of X post-test

N = the number of participant pre-test and post-test

Adopted from Khotari (2007:132)
To find the mean score, the researcher has to sum all the students’
individual score and divide it with the number of participants of the study.
The mean score is used to find the difference score of students in pre-test
and post-test.
Table 1.3
Mean Score Classifications
Test Score Classification
80.0-100.0 Excellent
70.0-79.0 Good
60.0-69.0 Average
50.0-59.0 Poor
0.0-40.0 Very Poor

Adopted from Cohen et al (2005:338)

3. Analysis of the Students’ Interval Score of Pre-Test and PostTest

After calculating students’ mean score of pre-test and post-test, the

researcher will calculate students’ interval score of pre-test and posttest by

using formula bellow:

̅ = 𝑋̅2 - 𝑋̅1
𝐷

Wherer:
̅
𝐷 : Students’ interval score of pre-test and post-test

𝑋̅2 : Students’ mean score of post-test

𝑋̅1 : Students’ mean score of pre-test

Adopted from Cohen, et al (2007:423)

4. Standard Deviation.

Standard deviation is a measure of variability indicating the average

amount that scores vary from the mean. In order to analyse the students’
standard deviation, the researcher will use the formula below:
2
∑𝘋 2 (∑ 𝐷)
𝑆𝐷 = √ 𝑁−1𝑁

Where :
S = Standard deviation
∑ 𝐷2 = Sum of the squares of each score
(∑ 𝐷 2 ) = Sum of the scores squared
𝑁 = The number of elements in a sample

(Ary et al, 2010: 177)

5. T-test

To analyse whether the result of treatment is effective or not, the

researcher will use computer software SPSS Ver. 16.0. T-test for
dependent sample is a test used to compare sample’s means before and
after treatment. Ary, et al (2010:176) said in t-test for dependent sample
“The measure to be analysed by the dependent t test is the mean difference
between the paired scores. Pre-test and post-test scores of the same
individuals are an example of paired scores”. The formula of t-test for
dependent sample is:

̅
𝐷
𝑡=
2
∑ 𝐷 2 − (∑ 𝐷)
√ 𝑁
𝑁(𝑁 − 1)
 Where:
t = t ratio

̅
𝐷 = average difference

∑ 𝐷2 = different scores squared, then summed

(∑ 𝐷)2 = different scores summed, then square

N = the number of elements in a sample

Adapted from Ary et al (2010:177)

6. Testing Hypotheses

The result of data computation would be the conclusion for

deciding the hypothesis. To answer the first question, whether PORPE

strategy effective or not, the researcher would use the p-value of t-test. If

the value of (p) < α (0,05) it means that PORPE strategy is effective and

Ho is rejected. If the value of (p) > α (0,05) it means that PORPE strtegy is

not effective and Ho is fail to be rejected.

In simply way:

a) If p – value ˂ α, the Ha accepted

b) If p – value ≥ α, the Ho accepted

7. The Effect size

The second research question related to the strength of the effect of

PORPE strategy toward students’ reading comprehension. The formula to
find effect size is as follow:

X̅ 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡 −X
̅ 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡
ES = 𝑆𝐷𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑑
 Where:

ES = Effect size

X̅ post-test = the students’ mean score of post-test

X̅ pre-test = the students’ mean score of pre-test

SD weighted = the average standard deviation of both test

Adapted from Creswell (2012:195)

Table 1.4

Effect Size

A Cohen’s d Effect Size could be lie between 0 to1 as followed:

Effect Size Qualification

0 – 0.20 weak effect
0.21 – 0.50 modest effect
0.51 – 1.00 moderate effect
>1.00 strong effect
Adapted from Cohen et al (2007:521)

8. The Implementation of Research

There were some procedure that researcher did while conducting

this research. The procedure can be explained as bellow:

1. Administration

At this stage the researcher firstly ask permission to Headmaster

of SMPN 5 Sungai Kakap to conduct the research. After gaining the
permission, the researcher select the sample from the VIII grade of
A,B,C and D classes and contacting the teacher in charge of the class.
2. Pre-test
 The second stage the researcher give pre-test where the researcher
try to find out the samples real condition before implementing the
treatment of PORPE strategy.
3. Giving Treatment

Next stage is implementing the treatment to the sample class by

using PORPE strategy. The treatment of PORPE strategy was
conducted twice.
4. Post- Test

The researcher will conduct a post-test to know the result of

implementing of PORPE strategy toward the samples’ reading
comprehension.
5. Analysing the Test Result

Last stage of the research is analysing the data collected from both
pre-test and post-test using formulas in this chapter.

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