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Exploring the Punjab Examination Commission 5-Grade Board Exams of English

and Urdu Papers: Case Study

Hafsa Zia
Roll # B.Ed-f15-10
B.Ed. (Honors) 2015-18

Supervised by: Dr. Shaista Syeda

University of Education
Lower Mall Campus
Lahore
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Table of Contents
Methodology ...................................................................................................................1
Rational of Qualitative Study .......................................................................................1
Rationale for a Case Study Design ...............................................................................2
Positioning and Reflexivity ..........................................................................................2
Theoretical Framework (Social Constructivism) ..........................................................3
Sampling procedure .....................................................................................................4
Data Collection ............................................................................................................5
Data Analysis ..............................................................................................................6
Validity .......................................................................................................................7
References .......................................................................................................................8
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Methodology

Rational of Qualitative Study

Qualitative research is like an umbrella term covering, an arrangement of

informative procedures which seek to define, interpret, explain, and then come to

relations with the significance, not the occurrence, of definite more or less naturally

occurring phenomena in the social world (Van Maanen, 1979). Essentially, qualitative

researchers are involved in understanding the meaning people have constructed, that is,

how people make logic of their world and the experiences they have in the world.

Qualitative research originates with expectations, a worldview, the likely use of a

theoretical lens, and the study of research problems examining into the meaning, persons

or groups assigned to a social or human difficult. To study this problem, qualitative

researchers use an initial qualitative approach to inquiry, the gathering of data in a normal

setting profound to the people and places beneath study, and data analysis that is

inductive and creates designs or themes.

Qualitative research targets to expose how people interpret their experiences, how

they build their worlds, and what meaning they point to their experiences (Merriam,

2009). The qualitative approach is well-matched while undertaking tentative research and

allows the identification of developing themes within the research process (Cooper and

Schindler, 1998)

For the exploration of the board papers, qualitative study is best. The study will be

done in depth. The problems in the assessment procedure can be identified more

appropriately in this study. Sometimes, the technique used by public teachers of

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assessment is not effective for the learnings of the students. This research study gives the

right direction to the students and teachers for the assessment.

Rationale for a Case Study Design

A case study is a detailed inquiry of a confined system in a real-world perspective

and states that case studies frequently deal with many more variables of concentration

than data points, depending on multiple forms of data, and help from the previous

progress of theoretical intentions to guide data collection and analysis (Yin, 2014).

The qualitative case study can be defined as the manner of completing the

investigation. The output of an investigation, a case study is a severe, for complete

explanation and analysis of an individual, phenomenon, or socialist. According to

Creswell (2013), one aspect of case study research is that multiple sources of data are

collected and analyzed. Case studies are descriptive and experimental, not to be mixed up

with casework, case technique, case history, or case record. In all the research, the

optimal of a case study design relies on what the researcher wants to identify.

The qualitative study states finest when using case study methodology. The case

study may help the researcher to identify the issues generated in the board exams of

grade-5 for English and Urdu. Also, the researcher will categorize the problems faced by

the teacher of a public sector school while making the board papers and keep ready the

students for the board exam. It might help the researcher to determine the experiences of

the teachers.

Positioning and Reflexivity

I am a student of B.Ed. (Honors) 8th semester at the University of Education. My

topic of the research project is Exploring the Punjab Examination commission 5-Grade
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Board Exams of English and Urdu Papers. I have experience in making papers and taking

the formative assessment at school as a prospective teacher. In my experience of

attempting 5-grade board exams, I notice that teachers do not take this level of

examination seriously.

In my opinion, the guidance they give to students is not applicable in solving

papers to get maximum marks. In my course of study (B.Ed.), I studied procedures of

assessment. The teachers must follow these procedures but in the public sector school,

most of the teachers do not even know about what kind of instructions for assessment are

suggested by the examination committee. The teacher must be aware of the aims and

objectives of the assessment. To improve instruction and student learning, teachers need

to change their approach to assessments.

In the above paragraph, I already declared my topic and participants. I came to

know my biases and going to compare it throughout the research. While collecting the

data I will talk with my participants and try to know about their opinion.

Theoretical Framework (Social Constructivism)

Social constructivism tries to find the meaning of the world in which people live

and work. They construct a personal understanding of their experiences toward definite

objects or belongings (Creswell, 2007). Social constructivism is a concept of awareness

of sociology and statement. That observes the enlargement of jointly constructed

identification of the world. The best approach to qualitative research is constructivism.

To find the fault in formative assessment and papers of the board it is needed to have a

proper understanding of the instructions given by the board committee.

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Social constructivism compares the procedural individuality of balanced choice

according to which the fundamentals of the social life of the human being in action

(Elster, 1989). Social constructivism gives emphasis to the significance of culture and

context in understanding what happens in society and raising awareness based on this

understanding (Derry, 1999; McMahon, 1997). The modern study will direct

constructivism. It will help the researcher to criticize the procedures of the formative

assessment forward by the public sector school system. The pattern of English and Urdu

board papers must be according to the examination committee. Assessment system now

undergoes from numerous lacks in helping quality education. The assessment instrument

should be such that logical thinking and extreme reflections are selected and stimulated.

Sampling procedure

Sampling is a method or technique of selecting a sub-group from a population to

participate in the study. It is the process of choosing a number of characters for a study in

such a way that the persons characterize the large group from which they were carefully

chosen (Ogula, 2005). The sample for the study will be convenience. Convenience

sampling is also known as accidental sampling. It is mostly used by the researcher when

the researcher has limited time and money. A Convenience sampling is an objective of

what is implicit by the word you select a sample built on time, money, location,

approachability of sites, and furthermore (Merriam, 2009).

The convenience sampling is a minor difficult procedure, including the collection

of the most accessible subjects. It is the least expensive to the researcher, in terms of

time, effort and money, but may result in poor quality data and wants academic
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reliability. There is a part of convenience sampling in several qualitative studies, but a

more understanding approach to the selection of a sample is generally acceptable.

The researcher will conduct the interviews from a public sector school teacher of

5-grade, English, and Urdu. Before taking interview the researcher will yield the

permission from the principal by giving him a permission letter. After this, the researcher

will fix a sitting with the dean of the school and tell him the purpose of the meeting.

Later the researcher will meet with the participants. The participants might be 2-3.

The interviewee will be the teachers of English and Urdu. Again the researcher will ask

for an interview from teachers and grantee them to keep the conversation secret. The

names of the participant will be changed. The researcher will promise that the researcher

will remove the whole recording of the interview after the analysis of the data. The

researcher will make the interviewee relaxed and ease with the researcher. The researcher

will generate a cool environment. The researcher encourages the sponsors to express their

feeling liberally.

Data Collection

For the research, the bases of data collection are interviews, observation and

document analysis. The interview detained in a time period between 40 to 50 minutes.

For our determination, the interview will refer to face to face verbal swapping, in which

one person, the interviewer, efforts to provoke information and expression of opinion and

belief from a new person or persons (Maccoby and Maccoby, 1954).

The other method of data collection is observation. The central attention of the

researcher will be the teaching style of the teacher while observing the class. The

researcher also observes the facilities, behavior of teacher with students and students’
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interaction with their teacher and observation of public-school English & Urdu teachers’

for formative assessment. The researcher will observe the primary section class of the

school. The researcher will make a checklist so that it will be easy to conduct the whole

procedure.

Document analysis will also be an alternative source for the data collection for the

research. The document will be 5-grade Last 5-years Punjab Board papers of English and

Urdu. The analysis of the document consists of the reading of the Last Five Years

Assessment Patterns of 5-Grade Board Exams of English and Urdu.

Data Analysis

Data analysis is the process of making sense of the data in qualitative research.

Data involves combining, reducing, and interpreting what people have said and what the

researcher has seen and read. Data analysis is a complex method that contains moving

backward and forward between real bits of data and mental concepts, between inductive

and deductive reasoning (Merriam, 2009).

As the researcher will collect the data from interviews, observations, and

documents. The analyzing will start with the first interview, observation, and document

reading. For the research, the researcher will code the data and give melodies to each

interview. The researcher will set the collected data and analysis it with repetition and

write notes in the limitations. The researcher will draw a checklist for analyzing the data

that will be acquired from the observation. The checklist consists of all the organized

services that will be assigned to doing the research. The behavior of the teacher with

students and students’ interaction with their teacher will also be written. The document
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contains the analysis of the 5-grade Last 5-years Punjab Board papers of English and

Urdu.

Validity

Validity is a term that defines whether the research correctly measures that which

it was projected to measure and how accurate the research results are. In other words,

does the research tool acknowledge you to hit "the bull’s eye" of your research purpose?

Researchers generally decide validity by inquiring a series of questions, and will often

look for the answers in the research of others (Joppe, 2000).

The research will be guided by three steps of validity. Validity involves the

reflexivity in which the researcher will declare the biases. The researcher will control his

biases while leading the interviews. The researcher will give respect to the values of the

participant. For collecting data, the researcher will adopt the ethical procedure. The

researcher will ask for permission first from the head of the public sector. Then, ask

teachers for the interview by giving them a consent form. After that, the third part will be

to review the verbatim of interview and observation made by the researcher. The

statement will be given by the supervisor.

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References

Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative case study research. Qualitative research: A guide to

design and implementation, 39-54.

Van Alstine (2014). Teaching and Learning in Purgatory: A Case Study of Two Different

Student Teaching Experiences EDPS 935.

Marshall, M. N. (1996). Sampling for qualitative research. Family practice, 13(6), 522-

526.

Mishler, E. G. (1991). Research interviewing. Harvard University Press.

Golafshani, N. (2003). Understanding reliability and validity in qualitative research. The

qualitative report, 8(4), 597-606.

Carswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2007) qualitative inquiry& research design. Choosing

Among Five Approaches. Sage publications.