The Correlation between Reading Habit and Reading Comprehension of the Eighth-grade Students of SMP Widya Sakti in the Academic Year 2023/2024

Being designed as a correlational ex-post facto, there were two variables investigated in the present study. The independent variable was reading habit and the dependent variable was reading comprehension. This research was intended to figure out the significant correlation between reading habit and reading comprehension of the eighth-grade students of SMP Widya Sakti in the academic year 2023/2024. The samples of the research consisted of 65 students who were chosen by utilizing a cluster random sampling method. The data were collected by administering the research instruments which were in the form of a reading habit questionnaire and short-answer task. The obtained data were statistically analysed by using the SPSS 26 version for Windows. Moreover, there were two steps in analysing the data, namely pre-requisite analysis and hypothesis testing. Based on the prerequisite analysis result, it showed that the variables were normally distributed, and had the same variant. Furthermore, the result of hypothesis testing showed that both variables were correlated with each other. Therefore, the results of the data analysis revealed the alternative hypothesis was accepted. In other words, the research findings confirmed that there is a significant correlation between reading habit and reading comprehension of the eighth-grade students of SMP Widya Sakti in the academic year 2023/2024.