36
a. Flesch Reading Ease FRE Formula
where: ASL = Average sentence length the number of words divided by the number of sentences
ASW = Average number syllables per word the number of syllables divided by number of sentences
The result of computations using this formula was allocated using the score interpretation table depicted in the previous chapter.
b. Flesch-Kincaid Grade FKG Level Formula
where: ASL = average sentence length the number of words divided by the
number of sentences ASW = average number of syllables per word the number of syllables
divided by the number of words
The second formula rates text on a U.S. school grade level. For example, if a computation results of score of 8.0, then it means that an eighth grader can
understand the document. Nevertheless, the writer was also fully aware that there are differences between U.S school grade levels and Indonesian grade.
Therefore, it would not be appropriate to rely only on the result of the computations. That is also why the writer employed the second stage in this
206.835 – 1.015 x ASL – 84.6 x ASW
.39 x ASL + 11.8 x ASW – 15.59
37 study, to take into account other factors affecting reading comprehension ability
in reading the selected article. The writer utilized those formulas because they were already built-in on
Microsoft Word 2007. These instruments then were utilized to calculate the level of readability of articles taken from The Jakarta Post.
2. Instruments used in the Descriptive Qualitative Research
To gather data which also answers the research question, in the descriptive qualitative study the writer utilized three instruments: word association technique,
cloze procedure, and questionnaire.
a. Word Association Technique
The writer employed this technique as suggested by Zakaluk, Samuels, and Taylor 1986 in Zakaluk and Samuels 1988. The tester in this case, the writer
must choose a ‘word or phrase that embodies the main of the topic as stimulus’ Zakaluk and Samuels, 1988. The test takers or the students must write as many
as words or ideas they can think of in association with the key words any words or phrase which serve as stimulus.
The writer also followed their suggestion by employing lined papers in which the stimulus words were printed at the beginning of each line. This kind of
stimulus functioned as cue words for students. By writing the cue words on the beginning of each line, the writer assumed that it had ensured students not to use
the newly produced words for cue words, although it was still possible that they were still influenced by the newly produced words.
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