READING COMPREHENSION AND SELF-REGULATED LEARNING: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Reading is a critical component of academic life. Undergraduate students' course success depends much on how they process their reading. However, some studies show that students face difficulties in their reading in several terms. These difficulties are twofold for English as a Foreign Language students who have to deal with reading and language content. In this respect, students must be able to self-regulate their reading activities in and outside classrooms. This study was intended to investigate the students' levels of self-regulated learning in reading comprehension. This study used a cross-sectional design with 40 English Language Education Study Program students at Universitas Lambung Mangkurat . The instrument was a questionnaire adapted from Zimmerman's Academic Self-Regulated Learning Scale (2000). The questionnaire was distributed online to the students using Microsoft Forms. The data were analyzed using a t-test. The findings show that the ways both groups of students regulate their cognitive processes, motivation, and behavior within an educational setting are similar. Nevertheless, concerning that the fourth-semester students might be more organized SRL students than the second-semester ones, reading instructions must be structured to develop students' self-regulated learning. In other words, lecturers should condition the instructions to enhance the students' self-regulation.


INTRODUCTION
There have been many studies in reading comprehension with many different variables and methods. However; studies with reading comprehension and self-regulated learning are rare, especially a cross sectional study (Ahmed, 2021a;Cosentino, 2017a;Dreisoerner et al., 2021;Mohammadi et al., 2020;Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007). Hence the study fills the gaps with
Although reading comprehension is regarded as the heart of academic life, many studies reported that university students face difficulties in reading comprehension. The difficulties encompass making inferences, obtaining the gist of the text, managing the reading tasks (Ahmed, 2021b), analyzing, inferring, and evaluating information in the text (Kendeou et al., 2014), working out the meaning of difficult words, identifying supporting ideas/examples (Alghail & Mahfoodh, 2016). These difficulties are likely because university students take the surface approach to reading, where information provided in the text is considered isolated and unlinked. In contrast, they should be able to process the information using their high-order cognitive skills (Hermida, 2009). Moreover, applying high-order cognitive skills might become another challenge for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students who have to deal with both the language and the reading content.
Furthermore, in the context of EFL learning, reading comprehension can be regarded as the core aspect whereby the students learn how grammar and vocabulary are used within context. For university students majoring in English, an excellent ability to read in English becomes the main factor determining their success in the courses. By having good reading skills, they are likely able to improve their vocabulary mastery and, at the same time, increase their knowledge of many things. They also have a chance to improve their listening, speaking, and writing skills. (Mikulecky, 2008) contended that reading comprehension is the basis of instruction in several teaching programs to improve vocabulary, writing, grammar, and other general language courses. In this respect, students must have good planning and arrangement of learning activities, both in and outside the classroom. They need to self-regulate their learning process to maximize the knowledge obtained from reading.
Self-regulated learning (SRL) has been perceived as a significant factor in academic achievement. Learners who have good SRL personally activate and sustain their cognitions affects, and behaviors oriented towards the attainment of their learning goals systematically (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011a). The SRL processes occur in a cycle of three phases: the forethought phase, in which learners set their learning goal and plan some strategies to achieve it; the performance phase, wherein the learners monitor and regulate their performance; and the self-reflection phase, in which the learners reflect the results of their learning. The cycle then repeats as the learners use their reflection to adjust and prepare for the following tasks.
Additionally, according to (Wolters, 2003), self-regulation is a process involved in monitoring, managing, and controlling factors such as cognition, motivation, behavior, and the environment to obtain self-setting goals. In this respect, the particular components of SRL, such as memory strategy, goal-setting, self-evaluation, seeking Assistance, environmental structuring, Responsibility, and organizing, can be helpful in any task. However, only some students can naturally self-regulate their learning process because they need to get the ability automatically (Maftoon & Tasnimi, 2014a). Regardless of their age and length of study, students will only obtain their self-regulated learning ability if they know the strategies themselves.
Several studies have reported the significant role of SRL in students' reading comprehension. (L. Chu et al., 2020a) argued that self-regulated learning helped primary school students manage their learning process and adopt correct behavior to maintain their reading habits. Similarly, their study on junior undergraduate students (Mohammadi et al., 2020) highlighted that SRL instruction significantly improved EFL learners' reading comprehension and problem-solving. Studies conducted on primary school students have shown that some SRL components were the main predictors of reading comprehension processes (Qi, 2021); (Mohammadi et al., 2020); (Lau & Ho, 2016); (Ayşe & Ali, 2016); (Eissa, 2015); (Souvignier & Mokhlesgerami, 2006b).
They are the students' cognitive and metacognitive thinking skills, control strategy, and elaboration strategy. (L. Chu et al., 2020) mentioned that practicing self-regulation on students enables them to have and use effective strategies to maintain their reading habits. Moreover, (Cirino et al., 2017) also specified some components of SRL linked to reading. They include the activation of background knowledge, strategy use, self-efficacy, motivation, and performance goal orientations.
The findings mentioned above have displayed how SRL interplay with reading comprehension. However, many of the studies involved primary school students as participants.
Before this study, some problems with ELESP students' reading comprehension were identified. They needed more arrangements and planning in learning, such as determining goals and materials and setting learning activities, so the achievement could be more optimal. They also had shallow English reading habits and strategies that could be seen from their ability when given reading material as an assignment. Most of them could not complete the task because they needed to read better. In addition, they needed more mastery of students' English vocabulary.

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Concerning the process of reading, scholars define reading in several ways. (Clapham, 2009) perceived reading as the reader's ability to understand written or printed symbols that are used to retrieve or guide the recovery of information from his memory; subsequently, the information is used to construct a reasonable interpretation of the author's message. (Snow, 2002) contended that in reading comprehension, the reader process the text by simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and engagement with written language emphasizing both the importance and the insufficiency of the text as a determinant. The process entails three elements: the reader (the person doing the), the text (the written or printed language to be comprehended), and the activity (what the reader does to comprehend the text). Reading comprehension is also referred to as the reader's ability to understand the superficial and concealed meanings of the text using their meta-cognitive reading strategies (Reza Ahmadi et al., 2013). In addition, (Park, 2020) noted that reading comprehension involves the reader's ability to remember detailed information essential to conclusions. Reading comprehension is not merely a passive skill toward written text; it involves different cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies to understand the message conveyed.
This study was carried out to investigate the second and fourth-semester students' levels of SRL in reading comprehension in terms of SRL components, i.e., memory strategy, goal setting, self-evaluation, seeking Assistance, environmental structuring, Responsibility, and organizing. Comparing the two groups of students would provide some perspectives on students' levels of SRL in reading comprehension. This study gets answers to the following research questions.
1. Is there any significant difference in SRL levels in reading comprehension between the second and fourth-semester students? 2. How do the SRL levels in reading comprehension between the two groups of students differ regarding the SRL components?

METHOD Design
This research was causal-comparative since the data gathered was in the form of numbers that intended to investigate whether there was a significant difference between the second and fourth-semester students. The decision to use this design was because the differences between the two groups of students had presumably occurred before the study was conducted (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2006), and it was due to their length of study. This study used a cross-sectional survey design in which two predetermined groups of students were compared (P. Chu & Chang, 2017); (Testa, 1979). The information about the students' SRL levels in reading comprehension was collected at just one point at a time through an online survey.

Participant
There were 40 students involved in this study: 19 second-semester students and 21 fourth-semester students of the English Language Education Study Program (ELESP), Universitas Lambung Mangkurat, Banjarmasin. The selection of the students was based on their reading comprehension scores in Advanced Reading Course. Ten students were classified into students with high scores, and the other ten were categorized into those with low scores. Thus, the sampling technique employed 'purposive sampling' as a non-probability approach.

Instrument
This study required two kinds of data: students' reading scores and SRL levels. The reading scores were obtained from the accumulation of students' Advanced Reading Course scores, and their SRL levels were taken from the Academic Self-Regulated Learning Scale (ASRLS). The instrument for this study was a questionnaire adapted from (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011b). It consisted of 28 statements on a 4-point scale. The statements covered the components of memory strategy, goal setting, self-evaluation, seeking Assistance, environmental structuring, Responsibility, and organizing. The questionnaire was distributed online to the students using Microsoft Forms. The steps in implementing the solutions to overcome the problems use self-regulation strategies. They include (1) identifying low student achievement, especially the low reading ability of students of the ELESP, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of both Universitas Lambung Mangkurat (ULM); (2) selecting low-achieving students; (3) preparing and compiling the necessary materials on Self-Regulation that will be used; (4) giving a presentation of selfregulation and its benefits for improving achievement. The presentation includes giving short online tutorials on self-regulated learning to students. The contents were about planning, setting goals, building motivation, monitoring success and processes, evaluating and reflecting on what had been achieved, and (5) participants filling out (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011b).

Data Analysis Technique
In data analysis, students' responses to the ASRLS were statistically computed to categorize the students into groups of high, moderate, and low levels of SRL. Statistical computation was also used to determine the mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum scores, and range. The following analysis was on the fulfillment of statistical assumptions of the data, i.e., homogeneity and normality. Finally, when all these statistical assumptions were fulfilled, parametric testing using a t-test was deployed to determine whether there was any significant difference in the mean scores of both groups. On the contrary, non-parametric testing was utilized if one or more statistical assumptions were not fulfilled. On the other hand, the citing process employed offline citing using Mendeley Desktop in both text and list of references (Turmudi, 2020).

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The aims of this study were twofold. First, it attempted to compare the SRL levels in reading comprehension between the second and fourth-semester students of ELESP Universitas Lambung Mangkurat, Banjarmasin. Second, it tried to describe the difference of SRL levels in reading comprehension in terms of SRL components, i.e. (1) Memory Strategy (1), Goal Setting (2), Self-Evaluation (3), Seeking assistance (4), Environmental Structuring (5), responsibility (6), and Organizing (7). The first research question that this study tried to answer was whether there was any significant difference in SRL levels in reading comprehension between the second and fourthsemester students. Based on the descriptive statistical computation, the types of descriptive statistics used are the mean, median, and mode. As can be seen from Table 1, the mean is 79.90 and 85.50, which differ quite significantly. The first interpretation of the output is to ensure that the data is valid. For both groups, there are 20 data each. Unfortunately, 50% of the data was statistically considered missing, and only 50% was considered valid, as shown in Table 2.  Due to the low percentage of data validity, normality testing was used. It measured whether the data were typically distributed to apply inferential or parametric statistics. The results of normality testing can be seen in Table 3. The results from Table 3 show that the data normality test for both groups has been previously tested using Lilliefors because the data is less than 100. In addition, using SPSS, the data were tested using Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk. The statistical test criteria are if the Significance Value is more than 0.05, the data is normally distributed. From Table 3, the significance value is 0.200 and 0.041. It means only data for Group 1 is normally distributed based on Kolmogorov-Smirnov. However, the data for Group 2 is not normally distributed.

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For Shapiro-Wilk calculation, the coefficient values of both Tables of coefficient and   Table of p-value are 0.0140 and 0.905. To claim that the data distribution is normal, Wilk Count should be more than Wilk Table. From Table of  Since data normality for Group 1 and Group 2 can be said as uniquely and slightly different, outlier testing for data distribution is necessary. The two distribution, as seen in Figure   1, are compared as equal and normal because the points on the Q-Q plot almost perfectly lies on a straight line x = y.  Since the data of both groups are not similarly and normally distributed, Mann-Whitney Test is used to investigate the mean difference of SRL results from both groups. The output is seen in both Table 4 and Table 5. Based on Table 4, the mean rank of Group 2 is higher than Group 1. Based on the output of 'Test Statistics,' from Table 5 of the Mann-Whitney test above, it is known that the Asymp value. Sis (2-tailed) of 0.053 is more excellent than the> 0.05 probability value. So, it can be concluded that Ho is accepted, which means there is no difference between

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Group 1 and Group 2. In conclusion, the results of the t-test showed no significant difference between Group 1, the second-semester students, and Group 2, the fourth-semester students. .052 b a. Grouping Variable: Group b. Not corrected for ties.

Discussion
The statistical computation for the mean scores of each SRL component depicts that there was not much difference between the second-semester and the fourth-semester students, as shown in Table 8.   Table 8 portrays that the highest difference in the mean score of all components was in terms of organizing (1.89 points). The fourth-semester students showed a slightly higher average than the second-semester students. The organizing component covers several indicators. They include highlighting essential concepts and information and imagining the would-be-faced reading exam questions based on the previous exam. They also include putting past-time notebooks and handouts in a particular container, reading at one's own pace, tidying up the study area, and ensuring it is clean before studying. From the difference of 1.89, the fourthsemester students can be said to be more organized regarding their reading technicalities.
The self-evaluation becomes the third component with a slightly high mean score difference. It includes asking for guidance from someone more capable, evaluating the progress of learning achieved at the end of each lesson, recording all the progress of learning made for a reading course, and monitoring the progress of reading ability. With a difference of 0.74, in which the fourth-semester students depict higher average scores than their counterparts, it can be said that the fourth-semester students are better at evaluating themselves in their reading activities than the second-semester students are.
Furthermore, seeking assistance encompasses using library resources and other search engines to find the information needed, asking a classmate about a particular reading assignment, learning from a classmate by comparing their reading understanding, and explaining what they have learned to peers. The difference in average score between the second and fourth-semester students is 0.61, whereby the fourth-semester students have a slightly higher average score than the second-semester ones. Regarding the length of study, it can be assumed that the fourth-semester students have been familiar with their learning environment and peers, so they have owned their strategies to seek assistance. However, since the selfregulated ability only automatically grows with age and length of study, further study needs to be conducted to determine how this strategy develops in the students and their length of study in the university.
The memory strategy and responsibility become the last two components out of the six components of self-regulated learning strategies. The memory strategy includes writing information to remember in note cards, summarizing what is read, making outlines as guides while studying, visualizing words in mind from the books being read, and reading aloud lecture notes when studying for the exam. Meanwhile, responsibility deals with doing one's reading assignment immediately, prioritizing one's reading over other activities, and finishing one's reading before doing anything less important. The difference of 0.2 for memory strategy indicates how both groups managed their SRL similarly, although there is a one-year difference in the study length. Additionally, the responsibility component owns a shallow difference between the two groups, which is 0.08. It can be inferred that there is almost no difference in responsibility between the two groups.
Based on the findings, the ways the students or participants of this study regulate their cognitive processes, motivation, and behavior within an educational setting were similar between those of the second and the fourth semester. It is also necessary to note that the fourthsemester students have slightly higher average scores than those of the second semester in most components of SRL. In terms of the criteria of the questionnaire, the highest level shown is Good among the two groups. In addition, some students of both groups are at a Very Good level at applying specific strategies such as memory, responsibility, and organizing.
The characteristics of self-regulated learners can be summarized as actively participating in their learning, persisting in instructional tasks, prevailing over problems, and liking to work together (El-Henawy et al., 2010). Based on the findings, all indicators of the self-regulated learning components showed that the students were active learners, persevered in their reading assignments, solved problems raised, and enjoyed collaborating. It shows that components of SRL strategies are reflected in the level of Good and Very Good.
Furthermore, several ways can be engaged with reading instructions to enhance students' SRL. (Cosentino, 2017b) conducted a study with struggling readers who, in the end, applied the SRL strategies. Providing opportunities for students to discuss the importance of goal setting can help increase their SRL ability. Besides that, the discussion on the student's desire to improve and the choice of strategies that they utilize to reach their goals can contribute to their becoming self-regulated learners. To conclude, reading comprehension is vital in improving undergraduate students' academic achievement in other courses. Therefore, involving SRL components in students reading classes will likely improve their reading comprehension and academic achievement in other courses.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION
This study intended to investigate the second and fourth-semester students' levels of SRL in reading comprehension in terms of SRL components, i.e., memory strategy, goal setting, self-evaluation, seeking Assistance, environmental structuring, Responsibility, and organizing.
All participants studied at English Language Education Study Program, Universitas Lambung Mangkurat. In this study, the second and fourth-semester students applied the SRL strategies with the Good criteria. Although the fourth-semester students were assumed to have applied better SRL strategies than the second-semester students, the results of this study showed a slightly different conclusion. Based on the findings that showed how the fourth-semester
Self-regulation in reading would lead to two advantages: improved feelings of personal control over reading and increased reading self-efficacy. These advantages may also result in an increased positive influence on reading. Self-regulated learning is vital for making students responsible for themselves in learning. The students will likely have the habit of planning and the ability to organize and evaluate what they do. They can build motivation and self-confidence to show abilities according to their fields, achieve better academic achievement and improve abilities to a better level. The limitation of this study is that further exploration of the effects of self-regulation strategies on students' self-efficacy, motivation, and reading comprehension was not conducted. In short, the effects of SRL components were not investigated and discovered.
Further researchers might carry out studies to investigate the effects of SRL on those components.