OPTIMIZING STUDENT’S READING SKILL: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF COMIC MEDIA ON ARABIC LANGUAGE LEARNING

Abstract

The low interest in learning and insufficient reading skills among students pose challenges in Arabic language education at Al-Falah Islamic Junior High School in Padang city. There is a need for engaging and innovative teaching media to address this issue. This research aims to determine the effectiveness of using comic media as a learning tool to enhance students' reading skills in the Arabic language subject. The study employs an experimental research design involving 66 students, with 33 students in the control group and 33 students in the experimental group. The research findings indicate that there is a significant variation in students' learning outcomes before and after using comic media in reading skill learning related to the material of at-ta’aruf. According to the findings, the average pretest scores for the experimental group and the control group were 63.12 and 63.15, respectively. Meanwhile, the average posttest scores for the experimental group and the control group were 79.6 and 69, respectively. The independent sample t-test for the difference in means yielded a significance value of 0.000. The decision-making criteria analysis of the independent sample t-test revealed a significant result, with a significance value (Sig) of 0.000 < 0.05. This indicates sufficient evidence to support the alternative hypothesis (Ha). These findings verify that the media has a substantial impact on improving students' reading skills in the context of the at-ta’aruf material.