Page 179 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2020

enthuse students to learn and display a higher degree of motivation compared to non-PBL
students.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

General objective. The main objective of this study is to compare the effects of PBL-
online and PBL-book in reading comprehension.

Specific Objective. The first specific objective is to determine whether PBL-online or
PBL-book can enhance the students’ achievement in reading comprehension. Meanwhile, the
second specific objective is to assess whether students with PBL achieve better reading scores
in post-tests compared to the group without treatment of PBL.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The study investigated the following research questions:
1. Are there any differences between PBL-online and PBL-book in the development of reading
comprehension?
2. Are the students with PBL achieve better reading scores in post-tests compared to the non-
treatment group?

METHODOLOGY

This is an action research study using convenience sampling of my three classes. My
main intention of this study is to assist my students to do well in reading and not to hate reading.
Besides, this study provides insights into the problems faced by my students in learning process
which in turn may lead me to find remedies to overcome them in future. Therefore, the existing
samples in this study may be under-represented the population of matriculation students. This
small research project was carried out following the simple five-step for action research:
 Step 1: Identifying a problem/paradox/issue/difficulty
 Step 2: Thinking of ways to tackle the problem Step
 Step 3: Doing it
 Step 4: Evaluating it (actual research findings)
 Step 5: Modifying future practice (Norton, 2009, p. 70)

Three classes of students were assigned randomly to be ‘PBL - online’ group (19
students), ‘PBL - book’ group (17 students) and ‘PBL - non-treatment’ group (20 students).
Altogether these 56 students enrolled in One-year-programme, Session 2016/2017. These
students were homogenous in terms of age (+18 and +19 years old) and English education
background. They are L2 learners and they had at least eleven years of English learning
experience when they enrolled in Matriculation College. None of them had lived in English
speaking countries prior to entering this college. They were also homogenous in terms of
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reading proficiency as their pre-test scores show F (2, 53) =1.857, p=.166, partial η = .065
(refer Table 8)
This study used convenience sampling which is a type of nonprobability sampling. The
three classes/groups were my students and thus they were convenient sources of data. The
reading test scores were collected from the pre-test, post-test 1 and post-test 2 which were
administered in July, 2016; January, 2017 and March, 2017 (MUET reading test) respectively.
All the tests are MUET past-year papers which have been standardised to test students’ English
proficiency level. Students were given 90 minutes for each test (average of 2 minutes for each

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