THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION

Abstract:The objective of this research was to find out whether there is asignificant correlation between students’ motivation and their readingcomprehension achievement.This research was conducted at second grade of SMA Negeri 1 Terbanggi Besarof academic year 2011/2012. The writer took XI IPA 1 as experimental class tomeasure validity and reliability of research instrument and the writer chose XIIPA 3 as the sample of the research. In collecting the data, the writer distributedthe questionnaire to find out the students’ motivation in learning English and gavereading comprehension test to measure students’ ability in readingcomprehension. This research design was Ex Post Facto design. Pearson ProductMoment was used to analyze the data and the hypothesis testing was computed byusing SPSS version 17.0 at the level significant of 0.05.After giving instrument to experimental class, the writer analyzed the data, it wasfound that reliability of students’ motivation was 0.861. It meant that students’motivation instrument had very high reliability. The result of reliability of readingcomprehension was 0.906. It meant that reading comprehension instrument hadvery high reliability. After calculating the data, the writer found that thecoefficient correlation was 0.483. It was classified into moderate correlation.The r value (0.483) was higher than r-table (0.388) at the level of significance0.05. It meant that Ho was rejected and the Hi was accepted.From the result of the research, it can be concluded that there was significantcorrelation between students’ motivation and their reading comprehensionachievement. The coefficient correlation was 0,483. It was classified intomoderate correlation. the researchs’ result can be interpreted that students’motivation had moderate effect to reading comprehension achievement. Thestudents who had motivation toward English affect their reading willingness toread as well as their participation and commitment to study well.Keywords:Students’ Motivation, Reading Comprehension Achievemen