Reading and Writing Proficiency Level of Selected Graduate Students

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International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management 29

th Aug 2013. Vol.16 No.1

© 2012 -2013 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

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GRADUATE STUDENTS’ PROFICIENCY LEVEL FOR ANENHANCED SKILLS TRAINING PROGRAM

Er l inda Abletes-Cayao Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, (University of the City of Manila)

ABSTRACT

This descriptive-correlational study was conducted to evaluate the reading and writing proficiency level

of selected graduate students who are presently enrolled in the program Master of Arts in Education

majoring in Educational Administration or Educational Management in selected higher education

institutions during second semester of academic year 2010-2011. The proponent made use of the

following instruments to carry out the purpose of the study: reading and writing proficiency inventories,critical reading and writing tests and rubrics for evaluating composing skills of graduate students.

Experts in the area of language education and communication served as validators of the instruments

used and they also evaluated the writing prompt of the respondents. The focus of evaluation for reading

area are identifying syntactic meaning of words, pointing out details, determining logical relationships,

detecting evidences, predicting outcomes and making informed judgments. In the area of writing, the

following are covered: establishing clear purpose, organizing ideas logically, demonstrating control

over sentence structure and style and exhibiting mastery in mechanics. This study is anchored on the idea

with that of Marzano’s proposed New Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (2001). It aimed to respond

to the shortcomings of the widely used Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Keywords: reading and writing proficiency in English, graduate students

Introduction

Graduate education is the highest level of study

in the Philippine Educational System. It is

believed that through it, professionals were

honed for continued improvement of their craft

in the areas of teaching and learning, delivery

of student services and management of

educational programs. Moreover, it is

considered also as one of the most effective

means of developing capacities related to doing

research that will improve educational theory

and practice in the many different aspects of the

educational process. As stipulated in theCommission on Higher Education

Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 53 series of

2007, an individual who completes a master’s

degree in education is able to demonstrate: (a)

in-depth understanding of a complex and

coherent body of knowledge and skills in an

area of study in education, which may be

applied in many types of school or other

educational environments. (b) Higher order

level of skill in the analysis, critical assessment,

and application and communication of

knowledge in the field. (c) ability to apply

knowledge and skills in the field to new

situations in more creative and flexible ways,

and to solve complex problems in ways that

involve rigorous thinking and independent

work.

Aside from that, higher education system of the

Philippines is considered a key player in the

education and integral formation of professionally competent, service-oriented,

principled, and productive citizens. Through its

tri-fold function of teaching, research and

extension services, it becomes a prime-mover

of the nation’s socioeconomic growth and

sustainable development. By tradition, the

education sector is in charged with the most

crucial role in shaping the leadership and future

of this country. In an effort to develop the







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quality human resources needed, Presidential

Decree no. 6-A states that there is a need to

train the nation’s manpower in the middle levelskills required for national development and

also to develop high level professions that will

provide leadership for the nation, apply

knowledge through research, and apply new

knowledge for improving the quality of human

life.

As a response to these national concerns,

various higher education institutions designed

their curricular offering to further ensure the

highly qualified personnel who would

administer the nation’s school. The Master of

Arts in Education, major in EducationalAdministration or Educational Management

aimed at developing professionals and

competent leaders who can spearhead the

operation of educational institutions in the

country and at the same time work as effective

agents of change in the transformation and

development of this society. With this premise,

the role of educational administrators is so

crucial and it would require them to be

proficient in areas of communication. However,

an observation was pointed out by Clemeña and

Acosta (2010) pertaining to the status of

graduate education in the Philippines. Theyhave mentioned that the minimal involvement

of the faculty in research activities can be

attributed to the lack of firm training from

graduate studies that would make them

consistent producers of research. Similar

observation was also noted by the researcher.

She, being exposed to the nature of being a

research adviser and a reader, has observed that

there is a pressing need to evaluate the reading

and writing competencies in English of

graduate students.

The main concern of this study is to evaluate

the reading and writing proficiency level of

selected graduate students who are presently

enrolled in the program Master of Arts in

Education majoring in Educational

Administration or Educational Management in

selected higher education institutions during

second semester of academic year 2010-2011.

Specifically, it aimed to answer the following

questions:

1. What is the self-assessed reading

proficiency level of the respondents in

terms of the following:a. identifying syntactic meaning of

words;

b. pointing out details;

c. determining logical relationships;

d. detecting evidences;

e. predicting outcomes; and

f. making informed judgment?

2. What is the self-assessed writing

proficiency level of the respondents in

terms of the following:

a. establishing clear purpose;

b. organizing ideas logically;

c. demonstrating control oversentence structure and style; and

d. Exhibiting mastery in mechanics?

3. What is the reading proficiency level

of the respondents based on the scores

in the critical reading test in terms of

the skills stated in problem 1?

4. What is the writing proficiency level

of the respondents based on the

experts’ assessment in terms of the

skills stated in problem 2?

5. Is there a significant relationship

between the respondents self-assessed

reading proficiency level and theirscores in the critical reading test in

terms of the skills stated in problem 1?

6. Is there a significant relationship in the

respondents’ self-assessed writing

proficiency level and the experts’

assessment in terms of the skills stated

in problem 2?


between the respondent’s self-assessed

reading and writing proficiency level?


between the respondents’ critical

reading scores and the experts’

assessment of their writing prompt?9. What skills enhancement training

program for graduate students can be

proposed?

The following hypotheses were tested at

.05 level of significance:

Ho 1 : There is no significant

relationship between the respondents’







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self-assessed reading proficiency level

and their scores in critical reading test

in terms of skills stated in problem 1.Ho 2 : There is no significant


self-assessed writing proficiency level

and the experts’ assessment in terms of

the skills stated in problem 2.



self-assessed reading and writing

proficiency level.


relationship between respondents’

critical reading scores and the experts’

assessment of their writing prompt.

Method

Descriptive-correlational research design was

used in conducting this study. The researcher

has considered institutions of higher learning

where two of which is public and the other two

were from private sector. The following schools

were chosen to represent other schools offering

master level in education major in education

administration or management. The names of

institutions are withheld; however, they are

described in order for the reader is given a

background of these institutions. Cluster

sampling technique was used in this study.

Cluster sampling is a frequently-used, and

usually more practical, random sampling

method. There were three types of instrument

utilized in order to achieve the objectives of this

study. The Reading Proficiency Inventory and

the Writing Proficiency Inventory, the Critical

Reading and Writing test and the Rubrics for

Evaluating Composing Skills of GraduateStudents. They were all researcher-made

instruments and it underwent content validation

of experts. The criteria for choosing the experts

were as follow:

a. has specialized in Language

Education or Communication;

b. must be in the academe for more

than 10 years; and

c. at least possesses Masters’ Degree

in Language Education or in

Communication.

The experts’ are also the ones responsible forchecking the critical writing part of the test

which is called the writing prompt. There were

five experts considered in this study. The idea

of using an inventory is similar to that of

Shagufta (2004) who made an assessment of the

respondents’ usage of metacognitive strategiesin reading. Another study where the idea of

using an inventory was taken from Ifedeli

(2005) as she examined the reading culture

among tertiary institutions in Nigeria. After the

content validation of experts, the instruments

were tested to 20 graduate students who are not

part of the actual sample of the study. After the

pilot test, the Reading Habit Inventory was

subjected to reliability test. The result yielded

.9482 using Cronbach alpha . On the other

hand, the Writing Proficiency Inventory yielded

.9497 value also using the Cronbach alpha .

Scale Verbal Interpretation Range

5 Excellent 4.21-5.00

4 Very Satisfactory 3.41-4.20

3 Satisfactory 2.61-3.40

2 Fair 1.81-2.60

1 Poor 1.00-1.80

The following steps were considered by the

researcher prior to coming up with the Critical

Reading and Writing Test:

1. Documentary Review - This initial step

prompts the researcher to review thesis,

dissertation, journals, references and the

like in order to come up with appropriate

reading and writing skills mostly needed by

the graduate students.

2. Construction of Table of Specification

(for Reading Test) - A necessary step in test

construction is making the table of

specification. This would ensure that

appropriate items were made for each

target skill. (see appendix)







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3. I nitial D raft of the Test - Writing out the

actual reading and writing items guided by

the table of specifications for the readingtest. Consultation with the researcher’s

adviser was constantly done at this point.

4. Experts’ Validation and Pilot Testing - The

help of the experts were sought pertaining

to the content and the instrument was pilot

tested to 20 graduate students who are not

included in the sample of the study.

5. I tem Revision and F inal ization - After the

pilot test, the researcher were guided as to

what items that need revisions and

clarification. Finally, the instrument was

ready for the actual data gathering

procedure.

A rubric for evaluating graduate students

composing skills was also made by the

researcher. It includes four major components

namely; establishing clear purpose, organizing

ideas logically, demonstrating proficient control

over sentence structure and style and exhibiting

mastery in mechanics. It is a five-point rubric

specifying appropriate skill with its

corresponding point. This rubric also underwent

experts’ validation as well. This was used by

the experts to evaluate the writing prompt of the

respondents.The following statistical tools were used in this

study:

For problems 1 and 2 which aimed at

determining the self-assessed reading and

writing proficiency level of the respondents,

weighted mean was utilized.

For problems 3 and 4 which aimed at

determining the critical reading test scores of

the respondents and also the experts’

assessment of the respondents’ writing prompt,

simple mean average was used.

For problems 5 up to 8, Spearman’s Rho is used

to determine the relationship betweenrespondents self-assessed reading proficiency

level and their critical reading test scores; self-

assessed writing proficiency level and experts’

assessment of the respondents’ writing prompt;

self-assessed reading and writing proficiency

level and; critical reading test scores and

experts’ assessment of respondents’ writing

prompt. After which, t-test is used to determine

if the relationship is significant.

POPULATION AND SAMPLE OF THE STUDY

Institution Population Actual Sample Valid Data

Gathered

1 37 26 24

2 26 23 23

3 118 66 53

4 28 25 25

______________________________________________________________

Total 209 140 125

Results

The following are the findings of the study: (1)The respondents assessed their reading and

writing proficiency level as very satisfactory.

(2) The respondents critical reading test scores

are fair for identifying syntactic meaning of

words, pointing out details from the text and

determining logical relationship. They got a

satisfactory rating for the skills detecting

evidences, predicting outcomes and making

informed judgment. The over-all mean for the

critical reading test score is 16.34 with a verbal

interpretation of satisfactory. (3) The

respondents writing proficiency level as rated by the experts is fair . (4) There is no

significant relationship between the

respondents self-assessed reading proficiency

level and their scores in the critical reading

test. (5) There is no significant relationship

between the respondents self-assessed writing

proficiency level and the experts’ assessment

of their writing prompt. (6) There is a







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significant relationship between the

respondent’s self -assessed reading and wr iti ng

proficiency level . (7) There is a significantrelati onship between the r espondents scores in

the critical reading test and the experts’

assessment of their wr it ing prompt .

DiscussionBased on the findings of the study, the

researcher proposed that a careful introspection

on the part of the graduate students must be

done. They must be advised particularly

pertaining to their self-assessment of their

reading and writing proficiency level. Since

their self-assessment is not reflective of what

they could actually do based on the results ofthe critical reading and writing tests scores,

these area must be addressed carefully by their

respective institutions of higher learning. Aside

from that, since the reading and writing

proficiency level of the respondents has not met

the standards set by the CHED (Commission on

Higher Education) and presumably of their

respective institutions, a more in-depth look at

the policy and curricular offerings is needed

.The instruments crafted by the researcher may

be used by other institutions in assessing the

reading and writing proficiency level of their

graduate students. After which, a possibleremediation may be done. The proposed

training enhancement program of this study

may be utilized by the respective institution.

Monitoring and feedback system is also

recommended to the proper authorities

specifically once they implemented the

suggested program which is an output of this

study. Institutions of higher learning must take

into consideration the results of this study and

they may be able to carefully plan specific

actions pertaining to the reading and writing

needs of their respective students. Parallel study

should be conducted by other researchers

possibly exploring on the reading-writingconnection across levels.

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Reading and Writing Proficiency Level of Selected Graduate Students

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