ANALYSIS STUDY ON STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN UNDERSTANDING SCIENTIFIC TEXT

Abstract

The purposes of this research are to find out students’ difficulties in understanding scientific text and the causes that make them difficult in understanding scientific text. The participants of this study are 15 students who were categorized into High, Middle, and Low. The writer used descriptive method and to get the data, she used non-test instruments such as documentation, questionnaire, and interview. Based on the result from the documentation, questionnaires, and interview with the students and the lecturer, the writer found the difficulties faced by the students are difficult to understand the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary and the terminology, difficult to find information which is implied, and lack of background knowledge of science. There are internal and external factors that make the students difficult in understanding scientific text. The internal factors are the lack of vocabulary, lack of motivation, and self condition. The external factor is situation in the classroom. From the finding above, the writer suggest that the students enrich their vocabulary by reading scientific text a lot.