THE CORRELATION BETWEEN READING INTEREST AND STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO FIND THE MAIN IDEA IN A SHORT TEXT: A STUDY OF SECOND - YEAR STUDENTS AT SMU NEGERI 4 MALANG

This thesis was conducted to find out the level of reading interest and significant correlation between the students reading interest and their ability to find main idea in a short text. The target population of this study is the second year students of SMUN 4 Malang, which cover 40 students. The instrument that is used by the writer is questionnaire that consists of 20 items; each of items has four choices. It is used to measure the students reading interest. Besides, used questionnaire, the writer also used a test score. It has been made by the writer such as a short of text that consists of four paragraphs. The students should find out the main idea of each of the paragraph. Each paragraph is scored for 20 points. The obtains data were analyzed by using Pearson Product Moment Formula. The writer finds out that r- value of reading interest and their ability to find main idea is 0.314. The r- value of the table is 0.312 at 0.05 level. It means that r- value of students reading interest and their ability to find the main idea is higher than the r- value of the table. The alternative hypothesis of this study is accepted and the null hypothesis is rejected. It means the variables have positive correlation