A Correlational Study Between the Students’ Motivation and Translation Ability in Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This study aims at finding out whether there is a correlation between

(1)    the students’ motivation and reading comprehension; (2) translation ability and reading comprehension; and (3) the students’ motivation and translation ability in reading comprehension. The participants of the study were at the eleventh grade students of one state senior high school in Surakarta. The population of the study is all of the eleventh grade students while the sample is 36 students taken by using cluster random sampling technique. The method used in this study is descriptive research method, with category of correlational study. The instruments in collecting the data are questionnaire and test. The techniques which are used to analyze the data are Simple Correlation and Multiple Regression Correlation. The result of the data analysis shows that in the level of significance a = 0.05 (1) there is a positive correlation between the students’ motivation and reading comprehension (r_x1y = 0.576, t_o = 4.105 > t_t = 1.7) and it is about 25.45%; (2) there is a positive correlation between translation ability and reading comprehension (r_x2y = 0.542, t_o = 3.756 > t_t = 1.7) and it is about 19.86%; and (3) there is positive correlation between the students’ motivation, translation ability, and reading comprehension (R_y12 = 0.666 and F_o = 13.125 > F_t = 2.33) and it is about 45.31%.