Gender as a Correlate of Senior School Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement in English in Ebonyi State

Abstract

The study considered the correlation between gender and senior school students’ reading comprehension achievement in English in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. The design of the study was a correlational design, which correlated gender with senior school students’ achievement in reading comprehension. The population of the study was 33,986, being the total number of senior school 2 students in Ebonyi State public schools. The sample size was 396 students which was arrived at, using the Taro Yamane formulae for determining sample size. Instrument for data collection was a reading comprehension test adapted from the government prescribed English language reading text. While research questions were answered using coefficient of correlation, hypotheses were tested at an alpha level of 0.05 of significance, using step-wise linear regression. Items whose “T” were less than significance of “T” were accepted, while items whose “T” were more than significance of “T” were rejected. Result showed that there was significant relationship between male students’ attitude and achievement.  Result equally showed that there was a significant relationship between female students’ attitude and their achievement in reading comprehension. Based on these findings, recommendations were made among which was that since attitude to learning made a lot of difference in academic achievement, senior students’ attitude to learning must be monitored by teachers if their achievement would be improved.

Keywords: Correlation, Gender, Senior School Students, Reading Comprehension Achievement, English Language.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/13-18-03

Publication date:June 30^th 2022