THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE STUDENTS’ PREFERENCE ON TYPES OF READING TEXT AT UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG

Reading is one of the most important aspect in learning any language. However, many students have no interest in reading and have problem in comprehending reading material if the text is not appropriate with their preference. It is possible that one and other students have the different preference, because opposite gender may read the same text, it does not mean they have the same opinion about the text. In this research, there were two research problem, they are 1). what are the difference between male and female students’ preference on types of reading text? and 2). what are the factors that influence the students choices?. Those questions were asked in order to know if there were the differences between male and female students’ preference on types of reading text and what kind of text that they prefer. For the second problem, the researcher wished to know the factors that influence the students’ choices in selecting reading text. This research used qualitative design and type of descriptive research. The subjects were second semester students at University of Muhammadiyah Malang. The techniques were interview and questionnaire, and the instruments were interview guidelines and quetionnaire. There were several steps in data analysis, such as collects data, prepares data for analysis, read through data, codes the data, and reports the finding. The result of the research showed that male and female students had different preference. Male students prefer narrative text, while the female prefer procedure text. They also had different preference on topic of the text. The factors that influenced students choice are theme, topic, genre, language features, vocabulary, content, plot, and the interesting introduction