EFFECT OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING STRATEGY ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ABIA STATE

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of collaborative learning strategy on students’ academic achievement in English language comprehension in senior secondary schools in Abia state. The study which adopted a quasi-experimental, pretest posttest non-equivalent control group research design was carried out in Umuahia zone of Abia State. A sample of 96 Senior Secondary (SS) II students was drawn from two public secondary schools in Umuahia metropolis using multistage sampling procedure. Data were collected using a 33-item multiple choice English Language Comprehension Achievement Test (ELAT). The instrument was subjected to face and content validation using three experts in curriculum and instruction, Measurement and Evaluation and one secondary school English Language teacher. The internal consistency aspect of the reliability of the instrument was determined using Kuder Richardson (K-R20) formula which yielded an index of 0.76 indicating that the instrument was highly reliable. The experiment lasted for six weeks and was carried out with the assistance of the regular English Language teachers in the sampled schools. The ELAT was used to collect data for both Pre-Test and Post-test. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the two research questions that guided the study, while the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null-hypotheses had increasing effect on the students’ academic achievement in English Language Comprehension at 0.05 level of significance. The results among others showed that collaborative learning strategy, having recorded higher mean gain than those in control group. It also showed that collaborative learning strategy had more increasing effect on the male students’ academic achievements in English language Comprehension than on the female students. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that English language Comprehension teachers should be encouraged to use the method regularly while teaching in order to improve students’ achievement in the subject.