EFFECT OF TWO METHODS OF TEACHING PUNCTUATION MARKS, CONTENT GENERATION AND EXPRESSION ON COMPOSITION WRITING

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to examine the effects of three methods of teaching punctuation marks, content generation, and expression on Senior Secondary School students’ composition writing in Oredo Local Government Area. Six research questions were raised and six hypotheses were formulated to guide this study. The population of the study consisted 2,743 public school students in Senior Secondary School 1(SS1) in Oredo Local Government Area of Edo State. A total of 125 constituted the sample size. This study utilized the quasi-experimental design, employing a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design with a 3x2x2 factorial design. Simple random sampling procedure was used to select three coeducational schools. In each of these selected schools, one (1) intact class of SS1 was selected making it a total of three (3) intact classes. The instruments used for data collection were the Questionnaire on Parental Involvement (QPI) and the Essay Writing Achievement Test (EWAT). The reliability of the Questionnaire on Parental Involvement (QPI) was determined using the Cronbach Alpha Formula and the reliability coefficient obtained was 0.83.The Inter-rater reliability was used for testing the EWAT. The obtained Intraclass Correlation (ICC) value was 0.80. The data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and quantitative statistics. ANCOVA and ANOVA were used to test the hypothesis at .05 level of significance. The result shows that the Task-Based Method is superior to the Collaborative Method which in turn is superior to the Traditional Method; there was a significant difference in achievement in the use of punctuation marks, content generation and expression among the students who were taught with the different methods. The Task-Based showed superiority over all the other methods and that sex did significantly influence the performance of the students. Based on these findings, it was concluded that there will be improvement in composition writing if the Task-Based Method and the Collaborative Method are incorporated into classroom instruction. It is, therefore, recommended among others that the Ministry of Education should conduct workshops and seminars on how to incorporate the principles of Task-Based and Collaborative Methods into the composition teaching process.