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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY: APPLIED
BUSINESS AND EDUCATION RESEARCH
2023, Vol. 4, No. 10, 3516 – 3520
http://dx.doi.org/10.11594/ijmaber.04.10.07
How to cite:
Galang, R. T., Arrozal, J. Y., Regala, A., & Manlutac, A. C. (2023). Reading Comprehension Level and Academic Performance
of College Students in Their Mathematics Course. International Journal of Multidisciplinary: Applied Business and
Education Research. 4(10), 3516 – 3520. doi: 10.11594/ijmaber.04.10.07
Research Article
Reading Comprehension Level and Academic Performance of College
Students in Their Mathematics Course
Ruby T. Galang*, Jocelyn Y. Arrozal, Angelo Regala, Anne Canlyn Manlutac
Don Honorio Ventura State University-College of Arts and Science
Article history:
Submission September 2023
Revised October 2023
Accepted October 2023
ABSTRACT
Reading is regarded as a vital skill in attaining proficiency and widen-
ing knowledge in different subjects. The research aimed to establish
the relationship of reading comprehension to academic performance
in Mathematics. The respondents were the freshmen students in spec-
ified Math in the Modern World course. This study employed descrip-
tive quantitative design. A researcher-made instrument which under-
went experts’ validation and reliability test was used in determining
the comprehension level in reading of the respondents. The results
specified that positive correlation of reading comprehension and ac-
ademic performance exists. Based on the results, there exists a highly
significant difference between the reading comprehension level of the
participants and their academic performance in their math courses.
Moreover, with the generated value of .298, it can be inferred that that
there is a positive relationship between the variables. This means if
one variable increases the other variable moderately increases.
Keywords: Academic performance, English, Reading comprehension
*Corresponding author:
E-mail:
rtgalang@dhvsu.edu.ph
Introduction
Reading is one of the language skills being
used to attain English language proficiency. It is
considered to be one of the most important
skills that serve as an instrument to widen our
knowledge since materials for learning like
textbooks, scholarly works are published. As a
result, reading becomes the foundation of ad-
vanced knowledge wherein textbooks and
other reading materials could be accessed even
in the olden days as stated by Roe, Stoodt, &
Burns (2012). According to Bano, Jabeen and
Quitoshi (2018), reading is a skill that teaches
pupils how to extract ideas from text and create
an understanding of that idea. This implies that
reading serves as a process for pupils to ac-
quire knowledge and information throughout
the learning process (Chua&Sulaiman, 2021).
In the study of Suson et.al (2020) stated that
the ability to read and comprehend are essen-
tial skills for students to survive and under-
stand how society works because most infor-
mation is presented through text.
Galang et al., 2023 / Reading Comprehension Level and Academic Performance of College Students in Their Mathematics Course
IJMABER 3517 Volume 4 | Number 10 | October | 2023
Reading comprehension is one of the ele-
ments of the reading process, it is where the
learners understand what they read. According
to Lynch (2020), reading comprehension is the
ability to mentally process written words and
deduce what they mean, integrating this new
knowledge with past knowledge. It’s not just
the ability to accurately read words on a page-
rather, understanding the meaning of the text
is the key part of reading comprehension.
According to Elleman &Oslund (2019),
reading comprehension is one of the most com-
plex behaviors in which humans engage. Read-
ing theorists have grappled with how to com-
prehensively and meaningfully portray reading
comprehension and many different theoretical
models have been proposed in recent decades
(McNamara & Magliano, 2009; Perfetti & Sta-
fura, 2014). Across studies, vocabulary, infer-
ence-making, and background knowledge all
influence, both directly and indirectly, reading
comprehension from adolescent to young adult
readers (Elleman &Oslund, 2019).
Reading comprehension is always linked to
academic performance. The understanding of
what is read is a clear indicator that learning
takes place. According to Madrazo (2019), her
study on reading habits, reading comprehen-
sion, and academic performance yielded a re-
sult that the students’ reading comprehension
was highly correlated with their academic per-
formance.
There are several factors that can be at-
tributed in the study on reading comprehen-
sion. One of which is the vocabulary level of stu-
dents. As emphasized in the study of Ma and Lin
(2014), as words are integral part in the study
of language, vocabulary language has been
widely considered as one of the most signifi-
cant contributors of reading comprehension
and predictors of text difficulty. Furthermore,
results proved that vocabulary size, word asso-
ciation knowledge, collocation knowledge, and
morphological knowledge are significantly re-
lated to the reading comprehension levels of
the respondents.
Similarly, in his study, Nergis (2013) ex-
plored the role of vocabulary knowledge, met-
acognitive awareness, and syntactic awareness
in academic reading comprehension in L2.
Overall, discussion of the results exhibited that
the initial multiple-correlation analysis showed
that L2 reading performance was highly corre-
lated with metacognitive and syntactic aware-
ness, but moderately correlated with depth of
vocabulary knowledge.
Snow and Sweet (2003) demonstrated the
three dimensions that delineates the sociocul-
tural context phenomenon in reading compre-
hension. The reader corresponds to the idea
that some students come to the task of compre-
hension much prepared than the others. They
are considered as better in comprehension
with wide range of capacities and abilities such
as cognitive, motivational, and linguistic capac-
ities. It is in this matter that researchers wish
to prove if there exists a relationship between
reading comprehension skills and academic
performance in Mathematics and why is that
most of high reading performance abilities of
students does not guarantee a high academic
performance in mathematics.
Objectives
Some researchers have proven that there is
a positive correlation between reading com-
prehension and academic performance, but
will that findings correlate with all the mathe-
matics course in tertiary education? In this
light, researchers would like to find out if there
exists a relationship between reading compre-
hension and academic performance in Math
course (Mathematics in Modern World) partic-
ularly in worded problems taken at the tertiary
level.
Specifically, the study aimed to answer the
following questions.
● 1. How may the reading comprehen-
sion level of the respondents be de-
scribed?
● 2. How may the academic performance
level of the respondents in their Math-
ematics courses be described?
● 3. Is there a significant relationship be-
tween the reading comprehension
level of the participants and academic
performance?
Methods
Research Design
This study utilized a quantitative descrip-
tive design. As stated in SAGE Publication
Galang et al., 2023 / Reading Comprehension Level and Academic Performance of College Students in Their Mathematics Course
IJMABER 3518 Volume 4 | Number 10 | October | 2023
Quantitative Research (2016), the purpose of
descriptive studies is to describe, and interpret,
the current situation of individuals, settings,
conditions, or events (Metler, 2014). It simply
studied the phenomenon of interest as it exists
naturally, no attempt is made to manipulate the
individuals, conditions, or event.
Respondents of the Study
The respondents of this study were selected
BS Math and BS Stat 1st year college students of
the College of Arts and Sciences department in
Math in the Modern World (MMW) course. The
respondents were drawn out using Slovin’s
Formula using the random sampling technique
for the best selection of data sources. The re-
spondents’ general average on their final term
will be gathered covering all the English sub-
jects such Math and Science courses in the lo-
cale of DHVSU’s main campus. This data deter-
mined the impact of reading comprehension in
their academic performance.
Research Instrument
The instrument utilized in the study, is an
adapted researchers-made reading assessment
guide for reading comprehension was con-
structed. The reading comprehension assess-
ment tool was modified meeting the required
comprehension target. The tool undergone
testing or reliability among experts before it
was administered. The general average of the
respondents in their Mathematics courses was
be used to establish the relationship of the two
variables. Permission to use these data on the
students ‘general average of all the mathemat-
ics courses was sought in adherence of the data
privacy act.
Validity
Since the instrument was researcher-
made, it passed through necessary procedures
to establish its validity. The research instru-
ment was presented to three competent evalu-
ators who are considered experts in the field of
education. The researcher employed Gooda
and Scates checklist for validating the instru-
ment.
Data Gathering
In the conduct of the study, permission
from the dean of the department for the admin-
istration of the research instrument was
sought. After permission was granted, the re-
searcher gathered the general average of the
college students in all Math course. The re-
searchers-made reading comprehension as-
sessment was administered using the google
form which was sent to the respondents. The
completed data gathered was subjected for sta-
tistical treatment.
Ethical Considerations
The complete method must have to keep in
mind the standards of ethics and ought to be a
key attention. Consent must be acquired from
the scholars both verbally, thru era or in writ-
ing (Bhandari, 2021). In order to abide with
this, the researchers distributed the reading
comprehension assessment tool while follow-
ing and taking note of the proper guidelines.
They gave consent letters to the respondents to
know if they are willing to fully participate on
the study. The researchers also stated the pur-
pose of the reading comprehension assessment
tool and their reason why they are conducting
the study. Lastly, the researchers made it very
clear to the respondents that all of the data
gathered was treated with utmost confidential-
ity and anonymity. The researchers ensured
the respondents that the data obtained from
the respondents was used for academic pur-
poses and was shared among the researchers
only.
Data Analysis
A careful analysis of the completed assess-
ment tool was done to ensure that the collected
data are accurate and consistent with other in-
formation gathered. Pre-processing of col-
lected data was done through editing to detect
errors and omissions and make corrections
where necessary. After completion of coding,
the data was classified based on common char-
acteristics and attributes. The data was then
compiled and tabulated in form of statistical ta-
bles to allow for further analysis.
Galang et al., 2023 / Reading Comprehension Level and Academic Performance of College Students in Their Mathematics Course
IJMABER 3519 Volume 4 | Number 10 | October | 2023
Result and Discussion
Table 1: Reading Comprehension Level of the Respondents
Reading Comprehension
N
%
Mean
Std. Dev
Verbal Description
(11-15)
Independent
0
0
4.78
1.255
Frustration
(6-10)
Instructional
17.00
41.46
(0-5)
Frustration
24.00
58.54
Total
41
100.00
Table 1 shows that out of 41 students, 0%
were rated independent, 41.46% were as-
sessed as instructional, and 58.54% were
rated as frustration based on Phil-IRI descrip-
tive interpretation of reading level. “The Phil-
IRI used as a classroom-based assessment tool
aims to measure and describe the learners’
reading performance in both English and Fili-
pino languages in oral reading, silent reading
and listening comprehension. These three
types of assessment aim to determine the
learner’s independent, instructional and frus-
tration levels” (Briones, 2018). An average
mean of 4.78 with 1.255 standard deviation
were obtained from the respondents’ scores.
The mean and standard deviation results were
described as frustration for reading level inter-
pretation.
Table 2. Academic Performance Level of the Respondents in their Mathematics course
Academic Performance
N
%
Mean
Std. Dev
Verbal Description
(1)
Excellent
0
0.00
1.69
0.40
Very Good
(1-1.5)
Superior
17
41.46
(1.6-2.0)
Very Good
16
39.02
(2.1-2.5)
Good
8
19.51
(2.6-3.00)
Fail or Passing
0
0
(3.1-4.0)
Conditional Failure
0
0
(4.1-5.0)
Failure
0
0
Total
41
100.00
Table 2 presents the academic performance
level of the respondents in their Mathematics
courses that shows that out of 41 respondents
0% obtained an excellent performance, 41.46
% obtained a superior performance, 39.02%
obtained a very performance, whereas 19.51%
got a grade with good descriptive
interpretation. Whereas, 0% were obtained for
Fail, Conditional and Failure. The average re-
sults also shows that an average mean of 1.69
and a standard deviation of 0.40 with verbal
description of Very Good were obtained from
the results.
Table 3. Significant Relationship between the Reading Comprehension Level of the Respondents and
Academic Performance in Math
Variables
R
Sig.
Reading Comprehension
Academic Performance in Math
.298
.059
Table 3 presents the significant relation-
ship between the reading comprehension level
of the participants and academic performance
in Math. The results show that there is a signif-
icant relationship between reading compre-
hension level (RCL) and academic performance
in Math (APM) with a p-value of .000 and Pear-
son coefficient of .059 Further with an r value
of .298. it can be said that there is a positive re-
lationship between the variables. This means if
one variable increases the other variable mod-
erately increases.
Galang et al., 2023 / Reading Comprehension Level and Academic Performance of College Students in Their Mathematics Course
IJMABER 3520 Volume 4 | Number 10 | October | 2023
Conclusions
This study has yielded a positive correla-
tion of reading comprehension and academic
performance. Reading comprehension is al-
ways connected in the academic performance
of students. Based on the results, there exists a
significant relationship between the reading
comprehension level of the participants and ac-
ademic performance in Math courses. Similarly,
with the r value of .298, can be said that there
is a positive relationship between the variables.
This means if one variable increases the other
variable increases. According to Simbulas
(2015), there exists a significance between
reading comprehension skills and problem-
solving skills, this implies that students need to
understand the problem before they can solve
it, moreover they also stated that the best pre-
dictor in problem-solving skills of students was
vocabulary. Another study proved that there is
a correlation between reading comprehension
results and students’ success in math or in sci-
ence (Akbasli, et.al, 2016). It is in this regard
that the problem of math difficulty in worded
problems can be addressed with the increase in
reading comprehension of the students. Stu-
dents that show better performance in their
reading comprehension would likely to have
bettter performance in mathematics.
Recommendations
This study has proven the positive correla-
tion between reading comprehension and
mathematics courses, hence reading compre-
hension can serve as a tool to improve the aca-
demic performance in math, which is somehow
a problem in our educational system. The result
of this study could help educators to further im-
prove our students’ reading comprehension to
improve our mathematical skills. With the aim
of achieving better performance , the research-
ers would like to recommend the following that
would help increase the academic performance
in math and reading comprehension;
1. A carefully planned intervention that will
meet all the targeted competencies in
mathematics and develop higher reading
comprehension level.
2. Secondly, more supplemental learning ma-
terials that will serves as worksheets to
every student to enrich lessons discussed
in both mathematics and reading compre-
hension.
3. Lastly, remedial teaching from respective
instructors for identified least learned
skills. In this way, students having difficulty
in reading comprehension and math skills
will enhance their academic performance
in both.
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