Giving Topic or Genre Familiarity in Teaching Reading

Comprehension for Male and Female Students

Anwar Hafidzi

, Sovia Rahmaniah

and Wahyudin

Department of Shariah, Universitas Islam Negeri Antasari Banjarmasin, Kalimantan Selatan

Department Tarbiyah dan Keguruan, Universitas Islam Negeri Antasari Banjarmasin

Keywords: Topic Familiarity, Genre Familiarity, Reading Comprehension, Gender.

Abstract: Some studies which are concerned with finding the reason why females and males have different reading

comprehension discover two possible factors. The factors are topic and genre familiarity. This study is

focused in finding the relationship of topic familiarity, genre familiarity, and reading comprehension across

gender. Besides to find the existence of relationship between variables, the researcher also worked to find

the strongest factor in affecting reading comprehension across gender. 157 participants were involved in this

study. They were 123 females and 34 males from English Department in State University of Malang. This

study found that the more the students familiar with the topic, the better they are reading comprehension.

However, there is no significant relationship between genre familiarity and reading comprehension. Topic

familiarity also became the strongest factor affecting reading comprehension.

1 INTRODUCTION

There is a lot of research conducted on reading

comprehension across gender. Some studies have

proved that reading comprehension between male

and female is different. Some studies showed

different result in revealing either females or males

has better reading comprehension than the opposite

gender.

There are some explanations why the results of

reading comprehension across gender varied. The

first cause is students’ familiarity towards the topic

of the text. Some research on reading

comprehension across gender use gender-oriented

text to reveal the effects of the text and gender on

reading comprehension. Gender-oriented text means

a text containing topic for specific gender.

The previous researchers classify the text into

three text orientations, or also known as gender-

oriented text. Three common gender-oriented texts

are known as male-oriented texts (Male text),

female-oriented texts (Female text), and gender-

neutral texts or neutral texts. Male text is a text that

talks about male’s matters, as such as automotive

and sports. In female text, female’s matters are the

focus of the topic, for example a text about beauty

product, hair treatment, et cetera. While gender-

neutral text does not contain any of them. The

example of gender-neutral text is the history of

human beings or disasters. Sotoudehnama and

Asadian who conducted the research in Tehran

(Jalilehvand and Samuel, 2014), used those three

gender-oriented texts on their research. In the

research they found that Males had better

performance on male-oriented texts, and females had

better performance in female-oriented texts.

This assumption is supported by

Shahmohammadi’s study on reading text materials

which have gender-oriented texts in it (Oda and

Abdul-Kadhim, 2017). In his study he said that

males would have greater comprehension

achievement if they read the text which sound

masculine, and females would have greater

comprehension achievement if they read text

about feminine topics. It is because the existence of

schemata has interfered in reading comprehension.

They have schemata for certain type of gender-

oriented text because they had exposed for such text

in their daily life, so the certain gender-oriented text

has been familiar for them.

The second factor affecting reading

comprehension between males and females is type

or genre of the text. In research conducted by Al-

Shumaimeri, informative text was used (Martínez,

2014). The result showed that male students easier to

2900

Haﬁdzi, A., Rahmaniah, S. and Wahyudin, .

Giving Topic or Genre Familiarity in Teaching Reading Comprehension for Male and Female Students.

DOI: 10.5220/0009915729002906

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 2900-2906

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

comprehend the informative text than female

students. Moreover, Keshavarz and Ashtarian

(Heyvaert et al., 2012) from Iran propose an idea

that familiarity of the text genre makes the different

reading comprehension for males and females. In

this research three genres of reading texts were used

(argumentative essay, history, and short story) to

reveal whether there was relationship between

gender and genres of text. Basically, females were

supposed to have superiority in reading skills

according to their basic reading ability. The result

showed that females comprehend better in all three

genres of text. Each gender’s mean score in reading

comprehension test showed that both males and

females could comprehend essay better than history

and short story because they had exposed to essay

more than the others. As the result, they became

more familiar to the organization and distinctive

features of academic argumentative essay than to

history and short story. The finding of the research

conducted by Keshavarz and Ashtarian showed the

effect of genre familiarity on reading comprehension

across gender exists. Another research using

different type of genre was also conducted by Salehi

et al. (2014). In their research, Salehi et al. (2014)

used labels and signs, informal letter and newspaper.

The result showed that males and females had better

reading comprehension on a text genre that familiar

to them. Finally, from this we also can conclude that

whatever the types of the text (narratives, recounts,

information reports, instruction, explanation, or

expository text), females and males can have good

comprehension if they have much knowledge to the

genre of the text. In other words, they will

comprehend better if they are familiar with the genre

of the text.

From the above research we can conclude that

there are two factors proposed based on previous

research affecting reading comprehension across

gender. The previous research on reading

comprehension across gender have shown that males

and females may have different reading

comprehension, and certain factors also affect

reading comprehension across gender. Yet, there is

still no research in investigating how each factor on

reading comprehension across gender can correlate

to reading comprehension. Even if topic and genre

can affect reading comprehension for males and

females, we are still not sure which one between

topic and genre is more influential in affecting

reading comprehension across gender. Finally, by

investigating the stronger relationship among genre

familiarity, topic familiarity and reading

comprehension across gender this present study

attempts to reveal the factor that needs more

consideration if they are really correlated with

reading comprehension.

It is important to find the correlation between

topic familiarity and genre familiarity towards

reading comprehension across gender. Most

previous research has already been concerned with

the differences between males and females in

reading comprehension, but still not researching

their assumptions whether those factors really

correlated with reading comprehension. By knowing

the relation between genre familiarity and topic

familiarity toward reading comprehension of female

and male students, we can discover the existence of

the relationship and what factors between genre

familiarity or topic familiarity which has stronger

relationship on reading comprehension and need to

get more attentions for each gender.

2 METHOD

This research used ex post facto because it

wanted to reveal the effect without using treatment.

This study employed ex post facto research to

examine the existence of relationship and strongest

relationship between topic familiarity and genre

familiarity towards reading comprehension across

gender. Quantitative approach was used for this

research because it dealt with numeric data and

statistical analysis. There were three variables used

in the present research: two predictor variables and

one criterion variable. Topic familiarity and genre

familiarity were predictor variables, and reading

comprehension was criterion variable which was

divided into reading comprehension of males,

reading comprehension of females, and reading

comprehension in general. The research used

multiple linear regression analysis to reveal causal

relationship of two factors: topic familiarity and

genre familiarity towards reading comprehension of

females and males to discover the strongest

relationship on reading comprehension across

gender.

The target population of the study was English

Department students at university level. Then the

accessible population called as samples were State

University of Malang students in English

Department who had passed or taken last intensive

reading course, that is advanced reading course. The

consideration of taking State University of Malang

students in English Department strata 1was that the

department has got A based on accreditation by

Badan Akreditasi Nasional Perguruan Tinggi

Giving Topic or Genre Familiarity in Teaching Reading Comprehension for Male and Female Students

2901

(2009). The samples of the research should not have

problem with reading English text, because it was

not expected to get interference from vocabulary

difficulty or the samples’ incapability in reading

English text. In order to accomplish that need, it was

necessary to have population and samples from

English department who have taken advanced

reading course. Advanced reading course is the

highest level of reading course in strata 1 English

Department of State University of Malang. The

samples from English Department who had already

taken advanced reading course were assumed they

did not have problem in vocabulary, so they could

read a wide range of genres and longer texts. The

samples of the research were divided into female

students and male students. The minimum number

of students who participated in this research was

intended to be at least 30 females and 30 males as

suggested by Borg and Gall (Naomi and Githua,

2013). This research had 157 participants, which

were divided into 123 female students and 34 male

students. The samples were chosen randomly using

random sampling technique according to their

availability.

2.1 Instruments

To measure the correlation of predictor variables

(topic familiarity and genre familiarity) and criterion

variable (reading comprehension across gender), this

study uses three instruments. They are topic

familiarity test, genre familiarity test, and reading

comprehension test.

Topic familiarity test was administered to find

how far the participants knew and had knowledge

about the topic of the text. It was intended to reveal

whatever they already know and understand about

the topic. The students needed to explore their

previous knowledge about certain topic for this

familiarity test. The topic was limited to social,

natural, and humanity topics. The students needed to

show their understanding and knowledge of the topic

by identifying the most appropriate topic based on

the clues given. There were totally 30 items for

participants to identify. Those 30 items were then

divided into five levels (1) word level has 6 items,

(2) phrase level has 6 items, (3) sentence level has 6

items, (4) paragraph level has 9 items, and (5)

passage or text level has 3 items. The scoring of the

test was in the form of ratio scale and dichotomous.

The score of each item was 0 for wrong answer and

3 for right answer.

The purpose of genre familiarity test is to reveal

how familiar a student with certain genre of text.

The indicators of genre familiarity are shown in their

ability to identify the text purpose, text organization,

and the name of text types. The test was in the form

of close-ended question. Close-ended was chosen to

avoid the students to guess the answer if it was

presented with multiple choice. It was suitable to use

close-ended for this type of test which purposely to

see students previous understanding or their

previous knowledge about certain genre which

revealed how familiar they were with the genre in

the text. There were 9 questions related to genre

familiarity. The data of genre familiarity test were in

ratio scale which were carried non-dichotomously.

There were holistic scoring rubrics for guiding in

making score.

The main purpose of using reading

comprehension test is to reveal how much the

students can comprehend a text. It measures the

macroskills of reading comprehension. Based on

Brown’s (2004).

In regard to its criterion variables known as topic

familiarity and genre familiarity, so the text used for

reading comprehension was the same text for genre

test. There were three texts with various genres and

various topics. One genre was represented in one

text. it has a total of 30 reading comprehension

question items constructed for all texts. The reading

comprehension test used in the recent study contains

10 items of multiple-choice questions on everyone

text.

3 RESULTS

The multiple linear regressions were applied in

revealing the relationship between variables: two

predictor variables called topic familiarity and genre

familiarity, and one criterion variable named reading

comprehension. Besides each correlation on each

variable, this chapter reveals which one from topic

familiarity and genre familiarity has stronger

correlation on reading comprehension of each

gender.

3.1 Relationship of Topic Familiarity

and Reading Comprehension

The correlation of topic familiarity and reading

comprehension for all groups was 0.396. The degree

of freedom was 5%, the value of t-calculate was

5.290, and the value of t-Table was 1.975. Because

of t-calculate was higher than t-table (t-calculate > t-

table) or significant value was lower than degree of

freedom, it could be concluded that there is

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significant relationship of topic familiarity and

reading comprehension. The research hypothesis

was accepted. The positive value on the standardized

coefficient showed that the more familiar all

students with the topic of reading passage, the higher

the score of reading comprehension obtained.

Then, the correlation of topic familiarity and

reading comprehension on females’ group was

0.354. The correlation was positively significant

because 4.109 as t-calculate was higher than its t-

table (1.983) or significant value was lower than

degree of freedom. It could be concluded that the

research hypothesis was accepted which showed that

there is significant relationship between topic

familiarity and reading comprehension on female

group. The standardized coefficient meant the more

familiar female students with the topic of reading

passage, the higher the score of reading

comprehension obtained.

The result of the correlation of topic familiarity

and reading comprehension in males’ group was

0.529. It is significant since t-calculate (3.537) was

higher than t-table (2.040), and also the significance

was lower than 0.005 as degree of freedom. The

research hypothesis was accepted which showed that

there is significant relationship between topic

familiarity and reading comprehension in males

group. The standardized coefficient showed that the

more familiar male students with the topic of

reading passage, the higher the score of reading

comprehension obtained

3.2 The Relationship of Genre

Familiarity and Reading

Comprehension

The standardized coefficient of genre familiarity

and reading comprehension in all groups of

participants was 0.005. It showed 0.943 as

significant value and 0.071 as t-calculate. With 5%

as the degree of freedom, then the value of t-table

was 1.975. Because of t-calculate was lower than t-

table (t-calculate < t-table) or significant value was

higher than degree of freedom, it could be concluded

that the null hypothesis was accepted which showed

that There is no significant relationship on genre

familiarity and reading comprehension for all

subjects. Because of the insignificance correlation of

genre familiarity and reading comprehension, the

more familiar all students with the genre of reading

passage the score of reading comprehension

obtained is not always higher.

The standardized coefficient of genre familiarity

and reading comprehension in females’ group was -

0.112. It showed 0.197 as significant value and -

1.298 as t-calculate. With 5% as the degree of

freedom, then the value of t-table was 1.983.

Because of t-calculate was lower than t-table (t-

calculate < t-table) or significant value was higher

than degree of freedom, it could be concluded that

the null hypothesis was accepted which meant there

is no significant relationship on genre familiarity and

reading comprehension for female group. The

negative result on the standardized coefficient

showed that the more familiar female students with

the genre of reading passage the lower the reading

comprehension is achieved.

The standardized coefficient of genre familiarity and

reading comprehension in males group was 0.142. It

showed 0.349 as significant value and 0.951 as t-

calculate. With 5% as the degree of freedom, then

the value of t-table was 2.040. Because of t-calculate

was lower than t-table (t-calculate < t-table) or

significant value was higher than degree of freedom,

it could be concluded that the null hypothesis was

accepted which meant there is no significant

relationship on genre familiarity and reading

comprehension. The standardized coefficient

showed that the more familiar male students with the

genre of reading passage, the higher the score of

reading comprehension can be.

3.3 Stronger Factor Affecting Reading

Comprehension

In order to determined which stronger factor

between topic and genre familiarity for reading

comprehension, the value of beta or also called as

standardized coefficient was needed. The

standardized coefficient of topic familiarity was

0.396, whereas genre familiarity was only 0.005.

Topic familiarity had higher standardized coefficient

than genre familiarity. As the conclusion, topic

familiarity had stronger correlation on reading

comprehension than genre familiarity for all

students. For Females, the standardized coefficient

of topic familiarity was 0.354, whereas genre

familiarity was only 0.112. Topic familiarity had

higher standardized coefficient than genre

familiarity in females’ group. As the conclusion,

topic familiarity had stronger correlation on reading

comprehension than genre familiarity for female

students. For males, the standardized coefficient of

topic familiarity was 0.529, whereas genre

familiarity was only 0.142. Topic familiarity had

higher standardized coefficient than genre

familiarity. As the conclusion, topic familiarity had

Giving Topic or Genre Familiarity in Teaching Reading Comprehension for Male and Female Students

2903

stronger correlation on reading comprehension than

genre familiarity for male students.

4 DISCUSSION

This section presents the discussion of the

results. The explanation is focused in solving the

research problems. It compares the research results

with previous research and gives reasonable

explanation from the relevant theories. The

discussion of research results is divided into three

sections. The first section is about topic familiarity’s

relationship on reading comprehension. The second

section is about genre familiarity’s relationship on

reading comprehension. Last section is the stronger

factor in affecting reading comprehension. Each

relationship is explained through reading

comprehension in general, females, and males.

4.1 Relationship of Topic Familiarity

and Reading Comprehension

Without looking at the gender, topic familiarity

has correlation in reading comprehension. It has

significant relationship on reading comprehension,

which means its existence really affects reading

comprehension. This research supports previous

research conducted by Al-Shumaimeri (2005),

Sotoudehnama & Asadian (2011), and

Shahmohammadi (2011). Those previous research

showed topic familiarity’s effect on reading

comprehension, which is supported by recent

research with 0.356 as the coefficient of correlation.

The relationship of topic familiarity on reading

comprehension exists and significant.

Female group and male group showed significant

relationship between topic familiarity and reading

comprehension with coefficient of correlation for

females is +0.306 and for males is +0.522. The more

the female or male familiar with a certain topic in

reading the better the comprehension they get. It is

because when the readers are familiar with topic of

reading, they will be easier in reading

comprehension as the result of the efficiency and

effortlessly in reading. It is in line with (Alexander

et al.’s1988:9) theory about the role of topic

familiarity in reading comprehension.

The recent research confirms the previous

research (Al-Shumaimeri, 2005; Shahmohammadi,

2011; Sotoudehnama & Asadian, 2011) that used

different text with different gender orientation as one

technique in finding the role of topic in reading

comprehension. This research also can answer the

dissimilarity of Al-Shumaimeri’s (2005) and

Sotoudehnama & Asadian’s (2011) on the use of

neutral text whether females and males have the

same performance in reading comprehension or not.

The use of neutral text can be not beneficial for one

of two genders, because they have the different topic

familiarity. The gender that gets higher reading

comprehension can be assumed has more topic

familiarity for the text. It is in line with Al-

Shumaimeri’s (2005) belief that said male students

in his research have more reading comprehension

because they had exposed in more various range of

topics than female students, so they have more topic

familiarity when faced with reading.

4.2 The Relationship of Genre

Familiarity and Reading

Comprehension

The results for all group of gender showed that

genre familiarity did not have significant

relationship to reading comprehension. The

correlation of genre familiarity to reading

comprehension was solely +0.004. Genre familiarity

exists, but it does not significantly affect reading

comprehension. It againsts Harmer’s (2001: 27)

theory about the role of genre familiarity that helps

students to have better reading comprehend than

without genre familarity.

The research conducted by Keshavarz &

Ashtarian and Salehi, Lari, & Rejanezad (2014),

who concluded that the familiarity of certain genre

can affect the females and males’ reading

comprehension is contradicted to the recent research.

Their research concluded that the reason behind

reading comprehension between males and females

is genre familiarity. However, recent research

showed that there was no significant relationship

between genre familiarity and reading

comprehension.

On top of that, genre familiarity showed

negative correlation on females. This negative

correlation showed the way of females in thinking is

someway affect their reading comprehension. It is in

line with Ahmadi & Mansoordehghan’s (2012) and

Al-Shumaimeri’s (2005) assumptions that females

tend to look seriously for detailed in specific

organization of the text. When they are familiar with

genre of the text, the will seriously look up into their

knowledge about genre when try to understand a text

and cannot use their previous knowledge on genre

flexibly. It can be when females are drilled much on

genre, they will be harder to comprehend a text.

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4.3 Stronger Factor Affecting Reading

Comprehension

According to this research, the stronger factor

affecting reading comprehension is topic familiarity.

Even if the participants are females or males, topic

familiarity is always the stronger factor affecting

reading comprehension. It is in line with the theory

and research by Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011: 144)

who said that topic familiarity is the most important

schema for reading comprehension. Topic

familiarity as part of content familiarity is said to be

more factors in affecting reading comprehension

than genre familiarity as formal schemata.

From the research, researcher found that topic

familiarity had stronger correlation than genre

familiarity in affecting reading comprehension for

female group. It can give the contradiction to two

previous research conducted by Al-Shumaimeri

(2005) and Keshavarz and Ashtarian (2008).

Keshavarz and Ashtarian’s (2008) research

concluded that the females are superior in

argumentative essay, history and short story than

males. And among those three genres, essay was the

highest score gotten by females because according to

Keshavarz & Ashtarian (2008) females are more

familiar with that genre. However, since recent

research showed no significant relationship between

genre familiarity and reading comprehension, it can

be assumed that the superiority of females in essay is

not because of their familiarity in genre. It can be

one of factors affecting reading comprehension is

topic familiarity since it is more strongerly affecting

reading comprehension than genre familiarity.

As same as with female group, topic familiarity

also has more influence on reading comprehension

than genre familiarity in male group. Al-Shumaimeri

(2005) assumed that the male students’ superiority in

reading comprehension for their research is because

of the genre of the text used was informative text.

However, based on the result from recent result, the

superiority of male students can be because the male

students more familiar with the topic of the

informative text than female students.

5 CONCLUSIONS

According to the analysis and discussion, three

conclusions can be drawn for answering the research

problems.

First, topic familiarity has significant relationship

to reading comprehension, whether it is for females

or males group. It can help the students to

comprehend the text better if they are exposed to the

topic they are familiar with. The more the students

are familiar with the topic of the text, the better the

students comprehend the text.

However, genre familiarity does not have

significant relationship to reading comprehension.

Its effect to reading comprehension is too small.

Both genders obtain small coefficient correlation

which only 0.101 for females, and 0.103 for males.

Females group got negative correlation in genre

familiarity. It means that the more the females

familiar with text genre, the less they can

comprehend the text.

Finally, topic familiarity has higher coefficient

correlation than genre familiarity. It means the

familiarity with topic is stronger in affecting reading

comprehension than genre familiarity. It is no matter

which gender the readers are, topic familiarity is still

stronger in affecting reading comprehension. In this

case, topic familiarity won over genre familiarity in

affecting reading comprehension in general or for

specifically female group and male group.

The best effort has been made for this research;

however, the researcher still can meet weaknesses in

the process. The first weakness is because of the

imbalance number of females and males

participants. Even if the participants are 157

participants, the male participants is still too much

less than female participants. The male participants

are only 34 males, but female participants are 123

females. The number of male participants needs to

be increased for the future research to improve the

validity of recent research.

The second limitation employs in this research is

its instruments. There is still no standardized

instrument for measuring topic familiarity and genre

familiarity, so the researcher developed the

instruments which are validated by the expert

validator and trying out process. However, it cannot

be avoided that the instruments are still questioned

because of its standardization. The instruments are

also questioned for their interference in each other.

The instruments are still not strong enough to avoid

the interference. The instrument to find topic

familiarity still contains texts that have genre in it,

and the instrument to find genre familiarity still

contains texts that have topic in. As the solution for

this problem, the developmental study is needed for

creating the standardized instrument to measure

topic familiarity and genre familiarity.

As the topic familiarity is stronger than genre

familiarity in affecting reading comprehension on

both genders, the teacher should use the strategy for

pre-reading activity by brainstorming the topic of the

Giving Topic or Genre Familiarity in Teaching Reading Comprehension for Male and Female Students

2905

text to help the students comprehend the texts. The

teacher should be careful in choosing the topic for

reading assessment, make sure the topic should be

familiar to all students and the topic should not be

dominated by merely one gender. So, it is better to

use neutral text for teaching or assessing reading

comprehension. Moreover, it will be better if the

neutral text also has a topic which is familiar to the

students.

The teachers are also suggested to reduce their

too-much-drilling in genre because it can give

negative effect on female students and the

knowledge of genre barely has effect on reading

comprehension. The teachers are advised to avoid

the overuse of teaching genre in teaching reading.

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