Page 204 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2020

In Stæhr’s (2008) study, 68 participants did not master 2000 word families in VB while
only 20 participants managed to obtain more than 2000 word families in VB. These 88 Danish
students, aged between 15 and 16 years, have learnt English as a foreign language for seven
years, i.e. a total of 570 hours of formal English lessons. Therefore, they are gauged to have
lower levels of receptive vocabulary knowledge. The results showed that about half of the
participants (i.e. 46) managed to obtain scores above average in reading comprehension. Out
of 68 participants who did not master 2000 word families, only 26 participants scored 14 marks
or more (above average) while the rest (i.e. 42 participants) obtained below average scores
(below 14) in reading comprehension. Participants who managed to master beyond 2000 word
levels, obtained above average scores in reading comprehension. Stæhr (2008) found the
difference in the means of the two groups to be statistically significant for reading skills. Thus,
he concludes that knowing the first 2000 word families leads to a significantly better
performance in reading comprehension.
With regard to Stæhr’s (2008) conclusive statement, a current study by Engku Haliza
Engku Ibrahim, Isarji Sarudin, & Ainon Jariah Muhamad (2016) has lent credence to the
findings because they have found that the highest correlation between reading comprehension
and vocabulary mastery was at 2000 words (r=.637; p<0.01). Somehow, 10000 words had a
weak correlation with the reading test (r=.291; p<0.01)
Different types of reading comprehension tests will have different vocabulary
thresholds (e.g. Chujo and Oghigian, 2009) based on the level of difficulty in the texts. In the
Chujo and Oghigian's (2009) study, the text coverage was set at 95%. TOEIC requires a learner
to have at least 3000-4000 word families whereas TOEFL needs higher word families that is
around 3500–4500.

RESEARCH QUEESTIONS

1. Is there a relationship between VB and depth and the MUET reading comprehension
component?
2. To what extent do scores on VB and depth contribute to predicting the MUET reading
comprehension performance?
3. Is it possible to determine a VB threshold where learners are likely to perform above
average in the MUET reading comprehension?

METHODOLOGY

The study employed non-interventional and correlational design because it assessed the
relationship between independent variables or predictors (i.e. VB and VD) and the outcome of
variable (i.e. MUET reading comprehension).

Participants

The study was conducted at a Matriculation college in Peninsular Malaysia. Altogether
2026 students (N) were enrolled in the one-year-program. According to Israel (1992), the
number of participants required for performing multiple linear regression is 200 or more. In
order to control for attrition which is considered a threat to the internal validity of a study, an
additional 10% of the 200 participants were added. A total of 230 participants were randomly
selected. Attrition might occur when a study loses participants for a variety of reasons
(Creswell, 2014). Eventually, 5 cases of incomplete answers and 4 cases of outliers were
excluded from the study.

195