Effects of Short Story Instruction on Students’ Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary Skills Development and Reading Motivation: The Case of Second Year English Major Students

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of short story intervention on Ambo
University students’ reading comprehension, vocabulary skills development and reading
motivation. All second year English Language and Literature major students were purposefully
selected as the subjects of this study. They participated in six months short story interventions.
Quasi-experimental research design was employed. The researchers used a within-subject
design where a single group of subjects is exposed to all levels of independent variables, a short
story. Next, the students were given intensive training that lasted for six weeks. After the
completion of the training, a post-test was administered. Then, the results were collected and
recorded. The collected data was analysed by using paired sample t-test and descriptive
statistics (mean and standard deviation). The result of the data analysis revealed that short
story intervention has a significant effect on the improvement as the paired sample t-test results
indicated that a statistically significant improvement in reading comprehension, t (19), 4.41, p
<0.001, with the very large effect size (Cohen’s d=3.40); vocabulary skills development showed
significantly higher score than before the intervention t(19)=11.43, p=0.001, Cohen’s’ d=0.99,
95%) and level of reading motivation levels from pre-test result to post-test result t(19) = 11.32,
p = 0.001). Based on the findings, it was recommended that appropriate short story should be
used in the teaching of reading and vocabulary so that it may help students to improve their,
reading comprehension, vocabulary skills and motivation to read.