CHAPTER IV PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA
2. Students’ Performance in the Three Learning Modalities
Performance of students was determined in the following English language learning modalities: reading, listening, and speaking. Reading as a receptive skill is a process where series of written symbols is looked into and
where meaning is derived. It can be done in silence or aloud. Information is received through reading. Listening on the other hand needs focus and attention to understand facts and ideas. It is a skill considered very important as concentration is needed in order to comprehend the meaning of words. As for speaking, it is a language skill which mode of delivery is through the mouth and requires a listener. As an interactive process, speaking is spontaneous, evolving and open-ended. It requires specific points of language by the learner as well as an understanding of the ways language is used.
2.1. Reading. Reading as a learning modality among sophomore college students is critical as it is presumed that students have already develop their reading skills at this stage of their education. Inadequate reading skills and lack of adaptive skills in this modality can negatively impact learning in other areas of tertiary education. Assessments were made on the learning modalities of the student respondents in reading. List of 16 modality items were presented to the student respondents for them to answer. Their scores were analyzed as to how correctly they answer the modality items and reflected as students’ performance in reading.
The items were distributed as follows: three items on Reading- Word Recognition skills with one item each for Context Clues, Phonetic Analysis and
Structural analysis; three items on Reading- Outlining and Summarizing skills with one item each for Title selection, Topic sentence and Summarization; and ten items for Reading Comprehension involving one item each for Subject- matter, Significance, Noting details, Making inferences, Drawing conclusions, Implication, Generalization, Communication technique, Tone and Vocabulary.
The result of this test evaluation is presented in Table 6.
As shown in the table, it can be observed that the students have generally low performance in all the test areas in the learning modality of reading with an average correct rating of 24.91 percent and a verbal equivalent of poor. In fact, it was only in three out of the 16 modality items that the percent correct scores were above 50 percent and these pertains to phonetic analysis, title selection and topic sentence.
The modality item with highest percent correct score is phonetic analysis followed title selection and then by topic sentence. The presence of the two last items in the Reading- Outlining and Summarizing made this group acquired a score of 39.85 percent with a subsequent result of making it the only reading modality group that is above 5 percent or Low Average. This means that although this group and the other group like Reading- Word Recognition skills showed better scores, the modality items under them were
Table 6
Levels of Students’ Performance in the Learning Modality of Reading
Test Groups
Frequency of Correct Item
Percent of Correct
Items
Verbal Interpretation
1.1 Reading-Word Recognition Skills
1.1A Context Clues 7 2.51 Very Poor
1.1B Phonetic Analysis 274 98.21 High Average
1.1C Structural Analysis 1 0.36 Very Poor
Mean 94 33.69 Poor
1.2 Reading-Outlining and Summarizing
1.2A Selecting appropriate titles for set of
phrases 241 86.38 High Average
1.2B Locating topic sentence 173 62.01 Average
1.2C Making summary statements 13 4.66 Very poor
Mean 142 51.02 Low Average
2. Reading Comprehension
2A Subject-matter 54 19.35 Very Poor
2B Significance 37 13.26 Very Poor
2C Noting details 29 10.39 Very Poor
2D Making inferences 29 10.39 Very Poor
2E Drawing conclusions 35 12.54 Very Poor
2F Implication 45 16.13 Very Poor
2G Generalization 24 8.60 Very poor
2H Communication technique 38 13.62 Very Poor
2I Tone 0 0.00 Very Poor
2J Vocabulary 14 5.02 Very Poor
Mean 31 10.93 Very Poor
Over all Mean 89 22.72 Poor
Number of student respondents: 279
In both groups, high and low scoring items can be found, which is a reflection of inconsistent performance. The third reading group which is on Reading Comprehension, while showing a Low Average rating was more consistent and homogeneous.
Based on the pattern, it can be noted that the performance of the students in the modality of reading is low and not at par of what is expected of them. It is clear that their skill has not matured as they were performing better only on early skills of reading like word recognition specifically phonetic analysis and outlining and summarizing particularly title selection and topic sentence. Their skills have not grown and expanded to the advance skills of reading like comprehension and have not shown sustainability to warrant full understanding of the reading material. This is contrary to the idea of Swam (1975) which stated that a student is good at comprehension if he can read accurately and efficiently so as to get the information of a text with the minimum of understanding.
This observation is critical considering that the respondents are already sophomore students and yet their English reading skills have not matured. In fact, it is clear that their reading comprehensions skills are low and must require remedial interventions.
modality of listening was evaluated using the same test instrument consisting of four modality items under the Listening-Comprehension skill. The performance of the students is summarized in Table 7.
Table 7
Levels of Students’ Performance in the Learning Modality of Listening
Test Group Listening
Frequency of Correct Item
Percent of Correct
Items
Verbal Interpretation
Item 3A 53 19.00 Very Poor
Item 3B 164 58.78 Average
Item 3C 0 0.00 Very Poor
Item 3D 234 83.87 High Average
Mean 113 40.41 Low Average
Number of student respondents: 279
As shown in the table, it can be observed that the students generally showed an average performance with an mean percent correct score of 31.59 percent.
This value is not even at 50 percent, however, looking at the component items, it can be noted that only items 3B and 3D contributed to this high values. In fact, a zero score was obtained for item 3C and only 14.85 percent
for item 3A. The apparent heterogeneity in performance in the four items indicates an inconsistent skill of the respondents. It appears that item 3C is foreign to all the respondents that they had not experienced or encountered it and failed to comprehend and process the information. This further implies that the advanced skill of listening comprehension has not clearly solidified as a skill among these sophomore students.
While it is understood that listening comprehension is not a simple skill but a product of conglomeration of several skills including listening-vocabulary, listening-accuracy and cognitive processing among others, the synthetic process that comes out as a consequence of multiple inputs are supposed to drive the students to generate the correct response. This is in line with Lynch et al.’s (2002) view of listening as a more active and interactive process in which the message is not fixed but is created in the interpretational space between participants, and meanings are shaped by context and constructed by listener through the act on interpreting meaning rather than receiving it intact.
Such a process is apparently not clearly developed to maturity in these groups of sophomore students.
2.3. Speaking. The performance of student respondents in the learning modality of speaking was assessed following a similar approach to
reading and listening using the same test instrument consisting of three modality items listed under the Speaking skill namely: Pronunciation and fluency, Comprehension and vocabulary, and Grammatical accuracy. The performance of the students is summarized in Table 8.
Table 8
Levels of Students’ Performance in the Learning Modality of Speaking Test Group
Speaking
Maximum Rating
Average of Student
Rating
Percent of Student
Rating
Verbal Interpretation
1. Pronunciation
and fluency 5 2.4 47.74 Average
2. Comprehension
and vocabulary 5 2.4 47.74 Average
3. Grammatical
accuracy 5 2.4 47.74 Average
Total 15 7.2
Mean=
47.74 Average
Number of student respondents: 279
As shown in the table, it can be observed that the students generally showed an average performance with a mean correct score of 47.74 percent.
This means that similar to listening, the students were performing at an average level in the modality of speaking. However, numerically it can be
noted that the performance was lower in speaking. Furthermore, looking at the individual items, it can be observed that the score were homogeneous. This indicates that the performance of the students in the modality items of speaking was consistent and all were below 50 percent.
The low average rating of the students in this modality is not only consistent with the results obtained in reading and listening but is alarming, considering that these students are at the sophomore level. It appears that the students’ speaking skills have not matured in spite their being able to have undergone the Freshman English courses, or their exposure to the English media. This is in contrast to the idea of Burns et al., (1997) regarding speaking as an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information.
The occurrence of this low performance phenomenon in speaking that is consistent with reading and listening reflects on the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the Basic English courses that the students have taken in addressing their linguistic needs. It can be presumed that at this point in time, the poor performance is mainly contributing to the impaired learning process of these students at the tertiary level. This is more apparent as tertiary level education would require a reasonable linguistic competence in English to be
able to maximize learning in technology-based education. Thus, it would be likely that massive interventional programs need to be designed to address the linguistic inadequacies of these students.