Foreign Language Aptitude Predicts Multimedia-Assisted Reading Comprehension among Indonesian Senior High School EFL students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32678/ell.v5i2.13098Keywords:
Cognitive Individual Differences, Foreign Language Aptitude, Multimedia-Assisted Learning, Reading Comprehension, Second Language AcquisitionAbstract
Reading comprehension remains one of the most challenging skills for Indonesian senior high school EFL students, and prior research suggests that instructional media alone cannot fully explain the substantial variation in students' achievement. This study investigated whether Foreign Language Aptitude (FLA) predicts students' Multimedia-Assisted Reading Comprehension, while also comparing achievement between multimedia-assisted and conventional paper-based instruction. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was employed involving 69 Grade XI students (34 experimental, 35 control) selected through cluster random sampling. Data were collected using the Researcher-Developed Foreign Language Aptitude Test (R-FLAT) and a 30-item reading comprehension test based on argumentative texts, and analyzed using independent and paired-samples t-tests and simple linear regression. Results showed that both groups improved after treatment, but the experimental group achieved a substantially larger gain (+15.07) than the control group (+6.47). Foreign Language Aptitude was also found to significantly predict multimedia-assisted reading comprehension achievement (B = 2.52, p < .001, R² = .884), indicating that students with higher aptitude benefited more from multimedia instruction. These findings suggest that multimedia-assisted instruction is more effective than conventional instruction, but its effectiveness depends on learners' cognitive aptitude rather than technology alone. The study recommends that English teachers complement multimedia-assisted reading instruction with differentiated, aptitude-responsive support to promote more equitable learning outcomes.
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