EFFECT OF ROLE-PLAY INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ON PUPILS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND ATTITUDE IN ENGLISH STUDIES IN PUBLIC BASIC SCHOOLS IN AWKA SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT EDUCATION AUTHORITY, ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of role-play instructional strategy on pupils’ achievement and attitude in English Studies in public basic schools in Awka South Local Government Education Authority, Anambra State. Six research questions guided the study and six null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The non-equivalent control group quasi experimental design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all 5,672 basic five pupils in Awka South Local Government Education Authority. A sample size of 83 basic five pupils was drawn through a multi-stage sampling procedure. Two sets of instruments titled Reading Comprehension Achievement Test (RCAT) and Pupils’ Attitude towards Reading Comprehension Scale (PARCS) were used for data collection. The instruments were subjected to face and content validation. The face validation of the instruments was established by three experts: two from the Department of Early Childhood and Primary Education and one from the Department of Educational Foundations, all within the Faculty of Education at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. The content validation was established using the table of specifications. The reliability of the RCAT was determined using the Kuder-Richardson formula 20 (KR-20), which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.79, while the reliability of PARCS was established using Cronbach Alpha method, which yielded a coefficient of 0.82.  Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while ANCOVA was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 significance level. The findings showed that pupils taught English Studies using a role-play instructional strategy had higher achievement than those taught using the expository teaching method in basic schools in Awka South Local Government Education Authority. It was also found that there is a significant difference between the mean attitude scores of pupils taught English Studies using a role-play instructional strategy and those taught using expository teaching method in favour of the experimental group. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that English Language Teachers should employ role-play instructional strategy to improve the achievement and attitude of pupils towards the subject.