THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING ENGLISH AND THEIR READING COMPREHENSION AT SMA MUHAMMADIYAH 1 PEKANBARU

This research was aimed to know whether there is significant correlation between students’ interest in learning English and their reading comprehension at Senior High School Muhammadiyah 1 Pekanbaru. The researcher formulated the problem into three research questions which was answered by using quantitative method. This research had two variables, students’ interest in learning Englishas an independent variable and students’ reading comprehension as a dependent variable.The design of this research is correlational research by using explanatory design. There are 117 students of eleven grade as population that are divided into 4 classes, the researcher took 32 students as samples that are taken randomly from each class. In collecting the data, the researcher used questionnaire and test. The questionnaire consisted of 18 statements and the test consists of 25 multiple choice questions as its instrument. In analyzing the data, the researcher used descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Correlation formula. The data was analyzed by using SPSS version 23.0 program. Based on the research finding, it was found that students’ interest in learning English was categorized into interested level and students’ reading comprehension was categorized into good level. The result of Pearson Correlation showed that the probability level is 0.000. It can be stated that 0.000< 0.05. which means Ho was rejected and Ha was accepted. Then, r value of Pearson Correlation was 0.732 which was categorized into large level of correlation. Thus, it can be concluded that there is significant correlation between students’ interest in learning English and their reading comprehension at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Pekanbaru. Keywords: Correlation, Interest, Reading Comprehension