Factors affecting the reading comprehension of the

Grade 12- STEM |1-6| students

at PHINMA- Araullo University, Main Campus

An Undergraduate Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of

ARAULLO UNIVERSITY-PHINMA

Cabanatuan City

BY:

Lagdamin, Earl Josh M.

Guillermo, Precious Mae

Gomez, Gelsey Mae T.

Aquino, Jomar S.

San Pedro, Mike Angelo C.

Enriquez, Mikka Gabriel

Aquino, Rowena S.

Alberto, Jaylord Ivan A.

Villaflor, James Ryan

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION:

Reading is a cognitive process of understanding a written

linguistic message, inherent to reading is comprehension which is

the ability to understand the meaning or importance of something

(or the knowledge acquired as a result). Therefore, reading

comprehension is the ability to process a text, understand its

meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows.

The evaluation of student’s factors affecting their reading

comprehension has been a significant feature of the work of the

research community. This study is a review of current knowledge

about factors affecting the reading comprehension. The importance

of this study is to help the students to know the factors that

can affect their reading comprehension as a person that is

increasingly a matter of concern for today’s generation.

Reading comprehension in the Philippines today ranks as the

lowest among 79 countries according to a global conducted by The

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) whom

tested around 600, 000; 15-year-old students in 79 countries

through the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment

(PISA). “PISA” results showed that Philippines have an average

reading score of 340, lowest among the countries surveyed. It is

also below the OECD average of 487 (ARCILLA, 2019).

 The significance of this study is to find the factors that

affects the reading comprehension of the respondents that affects

their academic performance. Somehow, the reading comprehension

of the students affects their performance in school. Factor is a

circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to a result or

outcome.

There are different factors that affect the reading

comprehension of students including vocabulary, Reading anxiety,

and Gender/sex.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Local Literature

GENDER/SEX
 According to Salehi Lari and Rezaneja (2014), the most

important reader variable that affects the reading comprehension

is gender. Males and females have different perspective about

reading. This difference is also evident in reading

comprehension. Gender can affect the way they think. Males are

much active in extra-curricular activities that lessen their time

to practice reading. Females are less active and have ample time

to read and to make it as a habit.

Gender can affect the way they think. Males are much active in

extra-curricular activities that lessen their time to practice

reading. Females are less active and have ample time to read and

to make it as a habit.

Vocabulary

according to research conducted by the U.S. National

Institutes for Child Health and Development (2017), there is

one overriding reason above all others that is the root

cause of the unacceptably high percentage of individuals who

struggle as readers. These individuals have not been taught

scientifically-based reading instruction with a

comprehensive and systematic phonics component. According to

their findings, struggling readers have difficulty

identifying, discriminating, and isolating sounds—

foundational skills for fluent reading.

Former DepEd Sec. Abad deplored the poor performance of the

pupils’ assessment test and said that, the low scores in

English, Mathematics and Science can be attributed to

pupils’ lack of ability in basic reading and comprehension.

In addition, he said that one of the major problems in

reading is the poor reading comprehension, which leads to

poor understanding of printed symbols.

This proves that Vocabulary affects the comprehension skills

of the readers because in the research study of the previous

researchers it is stated that readers are having a hard time

who are not been taught scientifically-based reading

instruction with a comprehensive and systematic phonics

component

Reading Anxiety

According to Iszh Severino (2013), having anxiety and other

psychiatric is consider a distraction to comprehend what you

are reading.

This proves that anxiety is significantly connected to

reading comprehension. It is stated that if the reader has a

 normal level of anxiety then the performance of the students

should be good, but it also stated that the higher the

anxiety will result in low comprehension skill of the

student.

[ CITATION AsY18 \l 1033 ]

Foreign Literature

VOCABULARY

According to the result and findings of Mubashir Iqbal

(2015), Students are not able to supply the meanings (in English

language) of difficult words asked from them. Even not a single

student can give the meaning of the words in English language.

The reason behind these facts comes to know on investigating that

students are not taught word-meanings from English to English.

The way of teaching is very affective in learning vocabulary.

Nergis (2013) stated that deepness of vocabulary knowledge,

syntactic consciousness, and metacognitive recognition is some of

the important factors that can affect reading comprehension

skill.

According to Cain and Oakhill (2011), reading influences

vocabulary development; however, when students do not read

fluently or regularly, their vocabulary skills are impacted.

Additionally, Caccamise and Snyder (2005) reported that

vocabulary knowledge positively affects reading comprehension and

academic performance

Vocabulary plays a major role in comprehending text because if

the reader doesn’t understand the word, he/she is reading it they

will not know what the text is trying to convey.

READING ANXIETY

According to Vazalwar (2011), the anxiety affected he

development of reading comprehension negatively. It is inferred

that anxiety is related negatively but significantly with reading

comprehension in learners. The normal level of anxiety should

have a positive impact on reading comprehension. The higher

anxiety in girls signifying low comprehension and lower anxiety

in boys signifying high comprehension was a reason of the gender

impact that affected reading comprehension.

According to Çeliktürk & Yamaç, (2015), reading anxiety also

affects cognitive processes and causes distraction and prevents

to be focused on the material being read. This causes the

interruption of understanding process and thus the reading

activity is avoided.

Mohammadpur and Ghafournia (2015), students who had higher scores

in reading comprehension tests tended to have lower levels of

reading anxiety, and vice versa.

Reading anxiety has a big impact on comprehending text, the

study’s states that a high reading anxiety causes low

comprehension skill.

Gender/sex

school achievement studies consistently demonstrate higher levels

of reading achievement and intrinsic reading motivation in female

students than males. Because reading is a fundamental

prerequisite for academic success and participation in society

(Connor et al., 2011.

(Haladyna & Rodriguez, 2013 ). Because girls are more likely to

possess the productive language skills necessary to cope with CR

items, this specific requirement is assumed to impede boys from

fully demonstrating their reading competence.

National Center for Education Statistics, (2011)—have revealed

significant reading achievement gaps between boys and girls,

demonstrating a slight advantage for younger girls.

Gender/sex has a major effect on reading, this study's shows that

Gender/sex affects the comprehension of the person , it is

stating that girls are better at comprehending text or decoding

text than bots

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The factors that researchers found can affect the students’

comprehension while reading. This study seeks to know what the

different factors that affect the student comprehension. In this

study, it includes students’ profile: age and gender, which will

be used in assessing the reading comprehension of the students.

The following factors affecting the reading comprehension of the

students: vocabulary, reading anxiety and background

knowledge.The respondents of this study are the Grade 12- STEM |

1-6| students of PHINMA- Araullo University Main Campus.

Figure 1

Research Paradigm

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE DEPENDENT

VARIABLE

1. Profile of the
respondents:

1.1 Age
1.2 Sex
1.3 Reading Materials available
at home
1.4Parents educational Level of reading
attainment
1.4.1 Father's educational
comprehension
attainment
1.4.2 Mother's educational
attainment
2. The following factors
affecting the reading
comprehension of the
 students:

2.1 Reading anxiety

2.2 Gender/sex

2.3 Vocabulary

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The following terms are defined operationally:

Comprehension- is an ability that the respondents use to

understand what they are decoding.

Factors affecting comprehension – factors affecting comprehension

refers to the bad and good factors that might affect the

respondents’ comprehension skills.

Respondents - Grade 12-STEM students of PHINMA-Araullo University

Main Campus.

Age – the age of the respondents

Sex – The gender/sex of the respondent

Reading materials available at home - the learning/reading

materials that the respondent can use/read at home

Parents educational attainment – the educational attainment of

the parents of the respondents

Reading anxiety – a factor that affects the reading comprehension

of the respondents

Sex (as a factor)– is also a factor that affects the

comprehension ability of the respondents

Vocabulary – also a factor that affects the reading comprehension

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study seeks to find the factors affecting the reading

comprehension of the respondents which affects their
academic performance. Specifically, it seeks to answer the
following questions:
1)How may the profile of the respondents be described in
terms of:
1.1 Age
1.2 Sex
1.3 Reading Materials available at home
1.4Parents educational attainment
1.4.1 Father's educational attainment
1.4.2 Mother's educational attainment
2) What is the level of Reading comprehension of the
respondent?
3)How may the factors of the reading comprehension of the
students be describe in terms of:
3.1 Vocabulary
3.2 Reading anxiety
3.3 gender/sex
4) Is there a significant relationship between the profile
of the respondents and the level of reading comprehension of
the respondents
5)Is there a significant relationship between the profile of
the respondents and the factors of reading comprehension
6)Is there a significant relationship between the level of
 reading comprehension of the respondent and the factors of
reading comprehension

Hypotheses of the study

1. There is no significant relationship between the profile of the

respondents and the level of reading comprehension of the respondents.

2. There is no significant relationship between the profile of the

respondents and the level of reading comprehension of the respondents.

3. There is a significant relationship between the level of reading

comprehension of the respondents and the factors of reading

comprehension.

Significance of the Study

This study will help to address the factors that affect

their reading comprehension ability and its effect on their

academic performance. The result of the study will be relevant to

the following:

Researchers- this study will help the researchers also to

improve their comprehension ability when the factors are found.

Parents- this study will help them know and understand the

factors affecting the reading comprehension of the students and

its effect on their academic performance.

Teachers- it may help the teacher to create new method or

strategies in teaching that will help the students in improving

their reading comprehension.

 School administrator- it will help the school administrator

as a basis they can use to take action of this problem.

Future Researchers- it will serve as the guide to future

researcher to improve this study or to create new study out of

this research.

Students- This study will help them know the factors that

can affect their comprehension ability.

Scope and Delimitation

This study focuses on the reading comprehension of the Grade

12-STEM |1 to 6| students of PHINMA–Araullo University Main

Campus in Mahalika Highway, Brgy. Bitas, 3100 Cabanatuan City,

Nueva Ecija this year SY: 2020-2021. The respondents of this

study were all students of PHINMA- Araullo University Main

Campus. The descriptive method of research was employed using

questionnaire as the major source data.