Review of Related Studies

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C. Conceptual Framework

Reading is one of the most important language skills that must be mastered by language learners. Then, reading involves more than just word recognition, but the most important thing is to comprehend the meanings and the message on the text. There are some aspects that contribute to reading comprehension. One of those aspects is vocabulary mastery. Vocabulary is an important factor in reading comprehension. It is also considered as a problem that may seriously impede reading comprehension in second language learning. When a second language reader with an insufficient vocabulary is trying to interpret a text or at least, he will get some difficulties to comprehend the text well. Therefore, it is predicted that vocabulary mastery gives contribution on reading comprehension. Based on the explanation above, the writer assumes that the students who master vocabulary well will be able to achieve better achievement in reading comprehension. Therefore, it can be predicted that there is a positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension.

C. Hypothesis

Based on the literature review and the conceptual framework presented above, the hypothesis of this study is: There is a positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 4 Wates in the academic year of 20132014. 41

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

A. Research Type

There are two types of research, experimental and non-experimental research. The experimental research covers the pre-experimental, the quasi- experimental and the true experimental research. The non-experimental research involves the factorial design, ex-post facto, observation, and survey. This research can be classified into the non-experimental research since there is no treatment towards the sample. It could be ex-post facto research as well for it tries to find the correlation between the independent variable and the dependent variable. There are three possible results of correlational study: a positive correlation, a negative correlation, and no correlation. The correlational coefficient is a measure of correlation strength and can range from -1.00 to 1.00. Perfect positive correlation would result in a score of 1. Perfect negative correlation would result in -1 Nunan, 1992:39. 1. Positive correlations: both variables improve or decrease at the same time. A correlation coefficient close to 1.00 indicates a strong positive correlation. 2. Negative correlations: indicate that as the amount of one variable improves and the other decreases. A correlation coefficient close to -1.00 indicates a strong negative correlation. 42 3. No correlation: indicates no relationship between the two variables. A correlation coefficient of 0 indicates no correlation. In this research, the researcher examines the relationship between two variables; one independent variable X and one dependent variable Y. 1 The independent variable predictor variable The vocabulary mastery of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 4 Wates. 2 The dependent variable criterion variable Reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 4 Wates Y. The relationship of the two variables can be shown as follows: Figure.2.D iagram of the relationship between students’ vocabulary mastery X and reading comprehension Y In which: X : Students’ vocabulary mastery Y : Students’ reading comprehension : Correlates X Y