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Moreover, this is the explanation of the steps taken to obtain the empirical data that were needed to answer the problems.
1 Before conducting the research, the instruments were prepared. In this
case was reading comprehension test, questionnaire, and table of students‘ grade of previously taken reading courses.
2 I chose the class for being the participants of my research. The class
which was selected was Teaching English for Young Learners class. 3
After that step, I came to the class and asked the students to fill in questionnaire and answer the reading comprehension test.
4 Next, I collected the students‘ reading comprehension answer sheets
and questionnaires. 5
Afterward, the results of the students were scored, compared, and analyzed.
3.4 Instruments for Collecting Data
Saleh 2001:31 states that ―instrument is any device which is used to collect data in a research‖. The instruments which were applied in this study were
que stionnaire, reading comprehension test, students‘ answer sheets, key answer,
table of assessment, and table of analysis. A.
Questionnaire A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions
and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from
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respondents. In this study, I used open-ended questionnaire in which require more thought and more than a simple one-word answer in order
they give opinions about the difficulties they face during reading comprehension.
The questionnaire consisted of an introduction informing students of the general purposes in collecting their data, namely to collect their opinions of
problems they encounter during reading comprehension process. In this introduction informed the students that the data of reading comprehension
test would assess their critical thinking and hopefully it could help lecturers teaching reading comprehension as a feedback to be more focus on
developing students‘ critical thinking. There were 5 questions in this questionnaire. Those were 4 open-minded
questions that required the students to write down their opinions about reading problems and critical thinking. Another question was give-a-check
question. The students were asked to give a check on the problems they encounter when they are reading a text.
B. Reading Comprehension Test
In this study, reading comprehension test was used to test students‘ ability to read and comprehend both academic and non-academic texts. There
were 8 reading passages and 40 multiple-choice questions. The reading passages and those questions were selected from standardized reading
comprehension test from SAT, TOEFL, and GRE. Time allotment of the
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test was 60 minutes. The table of detail reading comprehension test passages and items could be seen in appendix 1.
C. Reading Courses Syllabus
Reading courses syllabus was aimed to find out some contributing factors to the participants‘ critical reading profile. It consisted of 5 syllabus of 5
different level of reading courses which was taught in English Department of UNNES. Those were Intensive Reading, Elementary Reading
Comprehension, Intermediate
Reading Comprehension,
Advanced Reading, and Extensive Reading courses syllabus. Those syllabuses were
aimed to know whether critical reading skills were taught in each level of reading courses.
3.5 Method of Analyzing Data
