Jigsaw-Based Reading Instruction: Does It Change Students’ Reading Comprehension in the Border Area’s Secondary School?

This study examined changes in ninth-grade students’ reading comprehension following Jigsaw-based instruction at SMPN 1 Tarakan, Indonesia. A quantitative one-group pretest–posttest design was used with 32 students from class IX-3. Students completed reading comprehension assessments before and after four instructional meetings involving home groups, expert groups, descriptive texts, and narrative texts. The study employed descriptive statistics, the Shapiro–Wilk test, and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The statistical descriptive table reported an increase in mean scores from 53.59 (SD = 13.984) to 76.87 (SD = 9.483). All 32 paired observations were positive, and the Wilcoxon test indicated a significant pre–post difference (Z = −4.955, p < .001). It also reported a normalized gain of 0.4973 in the moderate category. The findings suggest that the learning activities were associated with improved reading test performance and increased opportunities for peer explanation.