CRITICAL READING STRATEGY IN TERMS OF GENDER USED BY THE FOUR GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE ELT PROGRAM AT UNIVERSITAS NEGERI

Research studies on critical reading strategies have revealed that students used those strategies in different ways and those are used depend on their needs. Relating to the gender scope, it is still unpredictable whether the types of critical reading strategy used by male are different from those which are used by female students. In reading academic sources, graduate students as critical readers are expected to analyze synthesize, review, criticize, and evaluate what they read. It is necessary to explore what the types of critical reading strategy used by graduate students and compare between the types of critical reading strategies used by graduate male students and those used by graduate female students.

The purposes of the research are to identify the types of critical reading strategy used by graduate students of ELT program of State University of Malang and compare the types of critical reading strategy used by male students and those used by females. It is comparative qualitative research where the four graduate students in academic year 2014/2015, two males and two females, have been taken involved as the subjects of this research. In analyzing the critical reading strategy used, reading comprehension test will be used as the instrument of this research. The test is used with two purposes; 1) to clarify whether the subjects are categorized as good critical readers or not, and 2) to identify the types of critical reading strategy used by conducting retrospective think aloud. Retrospective think aloud through written report is used in this research as a method of data collection and it is done after the subjects completing the reading comprehension test.

The results show that there are eight types of critical reading strategies used by graduate students. Those are previewing, contextualizing, questioning to understand and remember, reflecting on challenges to beliefs and values, outlining and summarizing, evaluating the text, comparing and contrasting related reading, and solving vocabulary problem strategy. Secondly, the types of critical reading strategy use by graduate male students found based on the retrospective think aloud are previewing, contextualizing, questioning to understand and remember, reflecting on challenges to beliefs and values, outlining and summarizing, evaluating the text, and solving vocabulary problem strategy. It is different from the types of critical reading strategy used by female students. They use previewing, contextualizing, questioning to understand and remember, reflecting on challenges to beliefs and values, outlining and summarizing, evaluating the text, and comparing and contrasting related reading. So, there are seven types of crtical reading strategy used by each gender. However, the male students do not use comparing and contrasting related reading strategy, while the females use the strategy. In addition, the female students do not use solving vocabulary problem strategy while the male students use the strategy.

The frequency of applying the types of critical reading strategy between males (42 times) and females (42 times) is same. However, considering about the most effective type of critical reading strategy used, they are different. The most effective type of critical reading strategy which is used by females is the evaluating the text strategy while males is questioning to understand and remember strategy. Furthermore, the most ineffective type of the strategy used by females and males is also same as the most effective one, evaluating the text strategy and questioning to understand and remember strategy. It can be caused by the overuse of the types of critical reading strategy and lack of creativity to combine with the other types of critical reading strategy.

Besides, the difference between both females and males is located on the process of their reading comprehension. Based on the activities related to the types of critical reading strategy, it was found that females tend to use their cognitive process whereas males tend to process their metacognitive more than females. Besides, both females and males also use the top down processing while reading. The factor that may influence it is because they are demanded to read a lot of sources in the graduate program. Reading articles more can train their top down processing and easy to solve the difficult words. As a result, when they faced the problems related to the difficult words, they have a lot of knowledge in their minds which is used to encounter them.

Regarding to the research findings and discussions for teachers particularly in teaching reading, it is suggested to teachers as instructors to push their students to use critical reading strategy which can influence reading comprehension achievement. In other words, those who employ critical reading strategy appropriately while reading would show higher success in reading comprehension and become good critical readers.

BOARD OF EXAMINERS

1. Suharmanto, M.Pd
2. Enny Irawati, M.Pd
3. Dr. Gunadi Harry Sulistyo, M.A
4. Imanuel Hitipeuw, M.A