The Effectiveness of Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS) to Improve Students‟ Reading Comprehension at SMK Negeri 5 Majene

Abstract

Researcher : Nur Alisa Reg. Number : 10256121026 Title : The Effectiveness of Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS) to Improve Students‟ Reading Comprehension at SMK Negeri 5 Majene

This study was conducted due to students‟ reading comprehension skills being relatively low. This problem was caused by students‟ limited vocabulary mastery, which made it difficult for them to understand English texts. The teaching method used was also considered not yet effective because it relied on memorizing word lists, which made many students have difficulty remembering and understanding word meanings contextually. In addition, when students encountered reading texts containing many unfamiliar words, they often became confused and were unable to grasp the overall meaning of the text. Therefore, an appropriate learning strategy is needed to help students improve their vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension. Thus, this study employed the Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS) as an alternative strategy to address these problems. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of VSS in improving reading comprehension for eleventh-grade students at SMK Negeri 5 Majene. The research used a pre-experimental design with a single group involving pre-test and post-test. The participants were 24 students majoring in Automotive Light Vehicle Engineering. Data were collected through reading comprehension tests and analyzed using scoring, mean, normalized gain (N-Gain), normality test, and paired sample t-test. The results showed that students‟ reading comprehension improved after the implementation of VSS. The mean score increased from 51.25 in the pre-test to 64.58 in the post-test, with N-Gain indicating moderate improvement. The paired sample t-test revealed a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores (p < 0.05). These findings indicate that VSS effectively improved students‟ reading comprehension by enhancing vocabulary and overall text understanding. However, this study was limited by the use of a single group design without a control group, the relatively small sample size, and the short duration of the treatment, which may affect the generalizability of the findings. Keywords: Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy, reading comprehension, improvement, vocabulary mastery.