Developing Written English through Multimedia for Slow Learners: an Experiment at Engineering College Level

Abstract

In this study the investigators tried to improve the written ability of the students, particularly the slow learners, who find it difficult when it comes to writing any text. Single group, pretest, posttest design was adopted after identifying the slow learners. A multimedia package was designed by the investigators and the sample was trained using the self learning multimedia package. The posttest scores of the samples were improved remarkably than the pretest and the progressive test scores, establishing the effect of the multimedia package. 45 students were taken for the study pertaining to four disciplines. The tool used for this study was Test of General Intelligence Tool (TGI Tool) for identifying the slow learners, a diagnostic test, achievement tests and attitude scale. For analysis of data, mean, SD, percentage of errors, t-test, Karl Pearson product moment correlation and Annova were used. The achievement scores of the posttest was greater than the pretest scores as well as the post attitude score was also considerably greater than the scores in the pre attitude, confirming the effectiveness of multimedia self learning package. The gap closure in the achievement was 41.69 percentage and in the attitude was 17.7 percentage, proving that the teaching via multimedia self learning package was more effective in developing written English.

Keywords: Slow Learners, Writing Skill, Multimedia Self Learning Package