USING LITERATURE BASED INSTRUCTION TO DEVELOP STUDENTS CRITICAL THINKING AND READING HABITS

Abstract

This study was investigating the use of literature based instruction to develop students’ critical thinking and reading habits. Some strategies were incorporated into the procedure of teaching and students were emphasized to think critically using questioning strategy. Sixty students of the fourth semester of English Education Study Program were involved and thirty of them were selected by using purposive sampling technique. This research was conducted for 30 meetings in three months. Non equivalent groups’ pretest- posttest-control group design was used in this research. Students took the pretest and posttest in the form of critical thinking test and reading habit questionnaire. The result showed that: 1) there was a significant improvement in critical thinking and reading, 2) there was also a significant mean difference between the experimental and control groups, 3) literature contributed about 98.9 % towards the students’ critical thinking and 97.2 % towards the reading habit. Thus, literature helps students to think more critically. However, students need more time and facilities to form better reading habit.

Keywords: Literature, Reading Habit, and Critical Thinking.