Effects of Cloze Instructional Approach on Senior Secondary School Students' Achievement in Igbo Language Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of cloze instructional approach on senior secondary school students’ achievement in Igbo language reading comprehension. The study utilized a quasi experimental research design of the pretest posttest non-equivalent control group design. The study was conducted in Abakaliki education zone of Ebonyi State of Nigeria. A total of eighty nine research subjects from two intact classes of senior secondary class 1 students were used for the study. The treatment group was taught Igbo language using the cloze instructional approach while the control group was taught the same topics using the conventional class discussion method. Igbo Language Reading Comprehension Test (ILRCT) was used to collect data for the study. Data were analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. Research questions were answered using the adjusted mean while the hypotheses were tested at 95% confidence level using the Analysis of Co-Variance (ANCOVA). Results reveal that the cloze instructional approach is superior to the conventional discussion approach in fostering students’ achievement in Igbo language reading comprehension. It was also revealed that although the mean scores of male students taught Igbo language reading comprehension using the cloze approach is higher than those of their female counterparts in the same group, the difference is not statistically significant. In addition there is no significant interaction between method and gender on students mean achievement in Igbo language reading comprehension. This implies that the cloze instructional approach is cost effective in teaching both male ad female students

Key Words: Readability, Comprehensibility, Cloze instructional approach, quasi experiment.