Noor, Gusti Rayyan. 2020. Reading Habit and Writing Ability of English Language Education Students at Lambung Mangkurat University: A Correlational Study. A Thesis. English Language Education Study Program. Lambung Mangkurat University. Advisor 1: Dini Noor Arini, M. Pd., and Advisor 2: Elvina Arapah, M. Pd

Keywords: Reading habit, writing ability, correlation

Writing is essential in the educational field, yet it is a difficult skill to master. One of many factors which influence writing is reading. Many studies have shown that there is a connection between reading and writing. With that assumption, this study attempts to investigate the correlation between English reading habits and writing ability of the students who have taken Advanced Writing Course at the English Language Education Study Program, Lambung Mangkurat University.

The method is quantitative approach and correlational type. The population is the batch of 2018 students of English Language Education Study Program. Among them, 50 students were taken randomly as the samples by using simple random sampling technique. In collecting the data, the questionnaire is used for getting the students’ reading habit score while a test is used for finding out the students’ writing score. After the data was collected, the Pearson Product-Moment Coefficient Correlation is used to analyze the correlation between the variables.

The result showed that the coefficient correlation value was 0.211 and the significance value was 0.141 which means H0 is accepted because sig ≥ 0.05. Therefore, the correlation between students’ reading habits and their writing ability is low and negative. This happened because there are many students with good reading habits score, have low scores in writing ability, and vice versa, implying the correlation between the two variables is weak. It is suggested that the students need to improve their reading habit by starting with small steps such as picking a short easy-to-read book, setting small goals, making it enjoyable, finding reading friends, and being consistent.