Teachers' and students' attitudes towards reading and writing: Do they correlate to students' achievement in English?

Titus Terver Udu

Abstract


This survey tested the null hypothesis that teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards reading and writing do not simultaneously predict students’ achievement in the English language. The researcher utilized a sample of 38 teachers and 492 senior secondary school students from 12 schools in Benue State, Nigeria, for the study. The researcher developed and utilized the English Language Students’ Attitude Scale (ELSAS), English Language Teachers’ Attitude Scale (ELTAS), and Reading and Writing Achievement Test (RWAT) for data collection. An estimate of internal consistency was obtained through Cronbach’s Alpha and Kuder Richardson’s reliability methods and found to be 0.76 for ELSAS, 0.68 for ELTAS, and 0.81 for RWAT. Data analysis was by multiple regression statistics. The findings revealed that both English language teachers and students have a positive attitude towards reading and writing (F3, 492 = 0.160, p<0.05) implying that teachers and students’ attitudes towards reading and writing jointly predicted students’ achievement in the English language in senior secondary schools. To conclude, learning would be facilitated if both teachers and students hold positive attitudes towards reading and writing, and this, in turn, could impact the students’ achievement in the English language. It was recommended that teachers should plan reading and writing instruction that can help students develop positive attitudes to these skills and parents should help in the development of these skills at home.

Keywords


English language; attitude; reading; writing; achievement

Full Text:

PDF

References


Akmal, S., Dhivah, I., & Mulia, M. (2020). Investigating students’ interest on reading journal articles: Materials, reasons, and strategies. Studies in English Language and Education, 7(1), 194-208.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.

Bas, G. (2012). Correlation between elementary students’ reading attitudes and their writing dispositions. International Journal of Global Education, 1(2), 1–25.

Baştuğ, M. (2015). Effects of primary school fourth-grade students’ attitude, disposition and writer’s block on writing success. Education and Science, 40(180), 73-88.

Bulut, P. (2017). The effect of primary school students’ writing attitudes and writing self-efficacy beliefs on their summary writing achievement. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 10(2), 282-285.

Chappell, V. (2011). What makes writing so important? Marquette University. http://www.marquette.edu/wac/WhatMakesWritingSoImportant.shtml

Davis, D. S., & Neitzel, C. (2010). The relationship between students’ reading orientations and their strategic activity during a collaborative reading task. Reading Psychology, 31, 546-579.

Ellah, B. O., Nworgu, L. N., & Oparah, C. E. (2019). Cognitive styles and attitude to science of senior secondary school science students of low cognitive ability level. Benue State University Journal of Education, 19(1), 169-181.

Emaikwu, S.O. (2011). Fundamentals of research methods and statistics. Elfers.

Fitzgerald, J., & Shanahan, T. (2000). Reading and writing relations and their development. Educational Psychologist, 35, 39–50.

Ghazali, S. N., Setia, R., Muthusamy, C., & Jusoff, K. (2009). ESL students’ attitude towards texts and teaching methods used in literature classes. English Language Teaching2(4), 51-56.

Good, C. V. (1973). Dictionary of education (3rd ed.). Mc Graw Hill Book Company.

Graham, S., Berninger, V., & Abbott, R. (2012). Are attitudes towards writing and reading separable constructs? A study with primary grade children. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 28(1), 1-15.

Jabali, O. (2018). Students’ attitudes towards EFL university writing: A case study at An-Najah National University, Palestine. Heliyon, 4, 1-25.

Jeffries, L., & Mikulecky, B. (2014). Advanced reading power. Pearson Education ESL.

Kever, L. A. (2018). Reading proficiency and attitude towards reading as correlates of senior secondary school 2 students’ achievement in essay writing in Benue State. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria.

Komolafe, A. T., & Yara, P. O. (2011). Sentence combination strategy and secondary school students’ achievement in writing in Ibadan, Nigeria. European Journal of Scientific Research, 40(4), 531-539.

Koul, L. (2013). Methodology of educational research (4th ed.). New Delhi: VIKAS.

Kush, J.C., Watkins, M.W., & Brookhart, S.M. (2005). The temporal-interactive influence of reading achievement and reading attitude. Educational Research and Evaluation, 11 (1), 29-44.

Lee, J., Schallert, D. L., & Kim, E. (2015). Effects of extensive reading and translation activities on grammar knowledge and attitudes for EFL adolescents. System, 52, 38-50.

Martinez, R. S., Aricak, O. T., & Jewell, J. (2008). Influence of reading attitude on reading achievement: A test of the temporal-interaction model. Psychology in the Schools, 45(10),1010-1022.

McCoss-Yergian, T. (2010). Do teacher attitudes impact literacy strategy implementation in content area classrooms? Journal of Instructional Pedagogies, 4, 1-18.

Mede, E. (2010). The effects of instruction of graphic organizers in terms of students’ attitudes towards reading in English. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2, 322-325.

Nippold, M. A., Duthie, J. K., & Larsen, J. (2005). Literacy as a leisure activity: Free-time preferences of older children and young adolescents. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 36, 93-102.

Nootens, P., Morin, M. F., Alamargot, D., Gonçalves, C., Venet, M., & Labrecque, A. M. (2019). Differences in attitudes toward reading: A survey of pupils in grades 5 to 8. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1-13.

OECD. (2018). PISA 2009 results: Executive summary. Retrieved July 5, 2019, from www.oecd.org/publishing.corrigenda

Oslon, D. R. (n.d.). Writing. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/writing

Oyetunde, T. O. (2009). Beginning reading scheme: Empowering teachers to help their pupils become good readers. Lecaps.

Pagal, C. L., Mirafuentes, J. K., & Ypanto, Q. C. (2017). School age gender gap in reading comprehension. Journal of Asian Development, 3(2), 78-102.

Pamuji, A. (2015). The correlation among attitude, reading comprehension, and writing achievement of English education study programme students of Sriwijaya University. Jurnal Adminika1(1), 17-28.

Pappalardo, P. (2010). Teacher behavior and attitude and student writing apprehension [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Patrick, H., Ryan, A. M., & Kaplan, A. (2007). Early adolescents’ perceptions of the classroom social environment, motivational beliefs, and engagement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 83-98.

Phatchara, P., & Pothitha, S. (2014). Development of English reading comprehension by using concept maps. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,116, 497-501.

Ralwings, J. O., Pantula, S. G., & Dickey, D. A. (1998). Applied regression analysis: A research tool (2nd ed.) Springer.

Rosa, R. (2018). The reading-writing connection is much stronger in one direction than the other. Psychreg. https://www.psychreg.org/reading-writing-connection

Sánchez, X. A. C., &Gavilánez, L. F. P. (2017). Learners’ attitudes toward extensive reading in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) contexts. Revista Publicando, 4(12), 259-268.

Seitz, L. (2010). Student attitudes toward reading: A case study. Journal of Inquiry & Action in Education, 3(2), 30-44.

Setiawan, M. R., & Wiedarti, P. (2020). The effectiveness of Quizlet application towards students’ motivation in learning vocabulary. Studies in English Language and Education, 7(1), 83-95.

Staiger, R. C. (1973). Reading in today’s world. In R.C. Staiger (Ed.) The teaching of reading. UNESCO.

Suk, N. (2017). The effects of extensive reading on reading comprehension, reading rate, and vocabulary acquisition. Reading Research Quarterly, 52(1), 73-89.

Taylor, T. R. (2014). The attitudes toward reading and reading achievement of seventh grade students in a sustained silent reading program [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Mississippi.

The West African Examinations Council. (2018). The West African senior school certificate examinations chief examiners’ report. WAEC.

The West African Examinations Council. (2019). The West African senior school certificate examinations chief examiners’ report. WAEC.

Trykacz, K. (2019). Investigating Swedish EFL teachers’ attitudes towards extensive reading practices in upper secondary education [Research paper]. Stockholm University.

Tunde-Awe, B. M. (2014). Relationship between reading attitudes and reading comprehension performance of secondary school students in Kwara State, Nigeria. Review of Arts and Humanities, 2(2), 203-215.

Unal, E., & Iseri, K. (2012). Analysis of the relationship between reading and writing attitudes of teacher candidates and their academic achievements through the structural equation model. Elementary Education Online, 11(4), 1066-1076.

Yamashita, J. (2013). Effects of extensive reading on reading attitudes in a foreign language. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25(2), 248.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v8i1.17524

Article Metrics

Abstract view : 0 times
PDF - 0 times

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Print ISSN: 2355-2794, Online ISSN: 2461-0275

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


View Journal Stats