9. What were the findings and conclusion?

4
I conducted a simple study based on assessment of students’ work. I used experimental design and
devised a simple workable treatment. The purpose of my study was to assess implications of
parents’ support for improvement in reading and writing skills of elementary students in a rural
school of Pakistan. I conducted test assessments, where one part of assessment focused on the
reading comprehension and other on the creative writing. I conducted assessments twice: once prior
to the treatment and second after two months of the treatment. The assessment was marked as
having 100 marks in total, whereby 50 marks represented reading comprehension and 50
represented creative writing. Following results relate to the assessment conducted prior to
treatment:
I had total 20 students in class, out of which 12 students were assigned to control group and
remaining 8 were assigned to the treatment group. Considering reading comprehension test, it was
found that all students secured less than 20 marks. Only four students out of total twenty were able
to secure 20 marks out of 50 and remaining were even lower than that. I calculated average of
treatment as well as for control group. Average marks of treatment group were 16.38 out of possible
50, while average marks of control group were 16.42 out of possible 50. Overall average for
students was 16.40 marks. It could be noted that there was not much difference between both
control and treatment groups and both groups had lower reading comprehension skills. Further, for
writing, situation was even worse. Students could hardly write 2-3 lines and those also had
grammatical, spelling and other mistakes. Maximum marks secured for writing assessment were
14 out of possible 50. Average marks for writing assessment were 9.13 for treatment group and
9.17 for control group. Overall average for complete sample was 9.15 out of a possible 50. This
indicated that students at elementary level was very poor at writing on their own and reading alien
texts, out of text book. Further, I added marks of reading and writing to compute overall score for
students. Overall average for complete sample was 25.55 out of a possible 100, while treatment
group had an overall average score of 25.50 and control group secured an average of 25.58 marks.
It was found that elementary student had lower reading and writing skills, particularly when they
are asked to read form books other than their course book and write on their own.
After conducting pre-treatment assessment, I started to give extra home work to both of the groups
and requested parents of treatment group to help and support students in their homework tasks.
Further, I also started taking extra care of the class to monitor their extra homework and encourage
them to complete the task. I used to award candies/chocolates to the students completing their work
with due diligence. It was a slow process and students started to improve gradually. I could only
run the experiment for two months and efforts started to pay off a bit. I had to conduct post
treatment assessment after two month of treatment to assess impact of treatment.
Results of post treatment results indicated a slight improvement in the assessment scores of all
participants of the study. However, improvement in assessment scores of treatment group was
better compared to control group. Considering reading assessment, average score of treatment
group improved to 24.50, while average scores of control group improved to 21.50 only. Overall,
average scores for reading improved to 22.50. This implied that more work and teacher
encouragement resulted in an improved reading comprehension of students, while parents’ help
and support further improved the reading comprehension skill of students. Further, for creative
writing as well, average scores of treatment group improved to 16.67 and average scores of control
group improved to 14 only. Overall average score for writing assessment improved to 14.89. This
was again evident that teacher’s care and support improved creative writing skills of the students,
and parents’ support further improved writing skill to significant extent. Overall score of the
students also improved: 41.17 for treatment group, 35.50 for control group, and 37.39 for overall
sample out of possible 100.
Considering the results of the study, I conclude that teacher’s and parents’ support is an essential
factor to improve reading and writing skills of elementary students in rural areas of Pakistan.
Therefore, it is essential that parents be advised and educated to support educational endeavours of
their children. Further, I also assert that teachers can also take initiative to keep in touch with the
parents to advise them to support their children and inform them about the progress of their
children.