An Assessment of Students’ Performance in Communication Skills A Case Study of the University of Education Winneba

Abstract

This study was done to find out the factors that account for the poor performances of students and to find out ways of improving the teaching and learning of the Communication Skills course at the University of Education, Winneba. The research also had an aim of bringing to light suggestions and recommendations on how to improve the teaching and learning of the Communication Skills course. In order to do this, the researcher used interviews, observation and documents to collect data in order to answer the questions that this research seeks to answer. The study targeted all second year students of the university and lecturers of Communication Skills as its total population but used the purposive sampling technique to select thirty five (35) respondents which included thirty (30) students and five (5) lecturers. The main findings were that students have negative perceptions towards the course even though they try to exhibit positive attitudes towards it. Again, some of the students admitted into the first year have weak language backgrounds which reflected in their communicative competence and thus they do not perform well. Other issues like large class size coupled with lack of modern lecture halls and facilities do not help in the teaching and learning process. The study also revealed that there are not enough lecturers currently teaching the course. The study recommended that students, lecturers and administrators of the Communication Skills Unit should play their various roles to make the course a success. It was also recommended that all those involved should have regular meetings to overcome the problems that have been mentioned above in order to improve on performances and the teaching and learning process.

Keywords: Communication Skills, Performance, Ghana