Browsing by Author "Leta, Dejenie (PhD)"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    An Assessment of the Content V Alidity of High School English Language Tests in Rela Tinon to Textbooks Concert'ffid
    (Addis Ababa University, 1995-06) Kebede, Kifle; Leta, Dejenie (PhD)
    The main objective of this study is to examine whether or not high school English language tests currently administered in schools adequately represent - both in content and in format - the practice exercises contained in the corresponding textbooks. Since some research works were conducted concerning the teaching and learning activities of the other grades. for the purpose of this study, grade ten was selected. The main data sources thus were Engl ish language textbook and sample test papers of the said grade gathered from different government comprehensive. vocational and senior secondary schools. The contents of lOth grade textbook and those of the English language tests were analysed . For the purpose of this study a representative list of content areas was drawn up by referring to the instructional material concerned. In order to assess the altitude of teachers and students towards the current 10'" grade English examinations. questionnaires were administered to those subjects. Inte rviews were also conducted to some subjects for the same purpose. Then, the Spearman's rank- order correlation coefficient statistical method was used in order to determine the degree of the relationship between the freque ncies from the analysis of the contents and formats of the textbook and those from the analysis of the examination questions. The results of the findings show that the contents of the sample test papers generally correlate with the contents of the textbook. However, in specific terms. the different content areas of the textbook were not proportionally represented in the sample test papers. The results of the study have shown that the weighting allocated to the various content areas and skills in the sample test papers fail to adequately mirror that of the language components and skil ls of the instructional material.Regarding the formats, the two materials (the textbook and the sample test papers) were found to be at var iance. In other words , the limited formats employed in the sample examination papers seem to fail in enabling candidates to make use of their knowledge of the English language in the various content areas and skills. On the bases of these findings, it is concluded that the English language examinations currently administered at Grade Ten level. relatively speaking , seem to possess low content validity.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The Effect of Placing Test Items in Different Positions in Listening Comprehension Tests: The Case of Unity College
    (2001-06) Sisay, Aytaged; Leta, Dejenie (PhD)
    An experiment was conducted to explore the effect of placing test items in different positions in listening comprehension tests. In this experiment three groups were made to view listening comprehension test items in three different positions. The first group viewed these items before two listenings while the second one viewed them after two Iistenings. The third group, on the other hand, viewed the questions between two listenings. First, Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was used to divide the testees in to three groups which had comparable listening abilities. The data obtained from this standardized test was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The result then showed that the three gro ups were comparable in their listening abilities. After this was done, a test prepared for College English students by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at Addis Ababa University was administered to investigate the mentioned treatments. To accept or reject the null hypothesis which stated that placing test items in different positions in a listening comprehension test has no effect on the testees' performance, a one-way ANOVA was employed. The AN OVA, then detected a significant mean ditlerence in scores across the three approaches. The calculated value of F (F=8-440 with degrees of freedom 2 and 132) exceeded the value of F tabulated at .05 probability level set for this study. As a result, the null hypothesis mentioned above was rejected. The Scheffs posthoc comparison of means also helped to locate the direction of the difference. The result of this test, thus, showed that the 'Sandwich group' produced significantly higher scores in the listening comprehension test than did the 'After reading group' and the 'Before reading group'. On the other hand, these latter groups did not show a significant difference in their performances.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    An Investigation of the Washback Effect of the Ethiopian School Leaving Certificate (Eslc) English Language Examination
    (Addis Ababa University, 2000-05) Negede, Dereje; Leta, Dejenie (PhD)
    T hi s study in vestigates th e wash back effec t of th e ESLC Eng lis h langu age exa minat io n 0 n w hat ha pp e ns in seco nda ry sc hool la ng u age c lass r ooms . T he study empl oyed vari ous meth o d o logical techn iqu es suc h as qu es ti onnai re, inte rviews w it h Gr ade 12 Eng lis h teacher s, wi th the E ng li s h Curri culum Desig ner, and w ith the Sen ior Expert in Eng li sh La nguage Exa min ation Developm ent, an d classroom Ob servati on . Besides, to exami ne w hether or not th e ES LC E ng li s h la ng uage examin at ion mi r ro rs t he seco ndary sc hool Engli sh textbooks, the co nte nts and me th o ds of th e tex tbooks and t he 1997, 1998 a nd 1999 ESLC English la nguage examinat io n papers were analyze d and compared . The resu lts of the study revealed that ESLC Eng li sh la nguage exami nation ha s an impact o n the secondary sc hool Engl ish la ng u age classrooms. Moreover, the re was strong unde sirable ESLC E ng li s h la ng u age exa mination's impact on the teachi ng co ntent and-to som e deg ree- o n teachin g met hodo logy as we ll as on students' study techni que. Eviden ce of negative was hb ack o n t he way teachers des ig n tests/examinations was a lso observed . T he ESLC Engl is h language exa mina t io n fa il ed to adeq uately re fl ect th e seconda ry school English la ng uage text b ooks. Besed o n th e res u lt s o f th e findin gs, conclus io ns were draw n and reco mm endat ionsmade.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The Relationships Among Motivational Orientations, Learner Autonomy, and Academic Achievement (EFL Learners at Dessie College of Teachers Education in Focus)
    (Addis Ababa University, 2009-06) Adem, Ali; Leta, Dejenie (PhD)
    This paper examines the relationships among motivational orientations, learner autonomy, and . academic achievement of EFL learners at Dessie College of Teachers Education. Eighty four students completed a questionnaire consisting two scales, namely, motivational orientations scale and learner autonomy scale. The motivational orientations scale was used to get students' responses to three orientations related to motivation: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. A learner autonomy scale elicited students' responses on their learner autonomy in learning English. Students' responses on both scales were correlated to determine any possible relationships between the independent variables and the dependent variable. Data were also obtained using interview, focus-group discussions, and open-ended items. Students' academic achievement scores were obtainedfrom the College's Registrar's Office. To describe the data, descriptive statistics such as percentage, mean, maximum and minimum, . and standard deviations were computed. Pearson-Product-Moment correlations and partial correlations were conducted to see whether or not there was a relationship among the variables. In addition, t-tests and ANOVA were used to check whether there were significant differences ill the mean academic achievements between different levels of the trails under discussion. The results from the correlation analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between the independent variables (motivational orientations and learner autonomy) and the dependent variable (academic achievement). Similarly, significant relationships among the independent variables themselves were found. But, amotivation was found to be negatively correlated with both the independent variables and the dependent variable. The partial correlations held among each independent variable and academic achievement showed that each was positively and significantly correlated with academic achievement except amotivation which is negatively but significantly correlated with academic achievement. Similarly, the results from the analysis oft-test and ANOVA have revealed that there was statistically Significant difference in the students' mean academic achievement score with different levels of the independent variables. Overall, the students found to be more extrinsically than intrinsically oriented as data obtainedfrom the open-ended items, interview, andfocus group discussions show . Based on the findings, suitable interventions like training learners, arranging self-access rooms, redesign of assessment modes and syllabus are recommended.