DISCUSSION METHOD AND ITS EFFECT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN READING COMPREHENSION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA

The study investigated the effect of Discussion method on the performance of students in reading comprehension in secondary schools in Plateau state. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design. Two randomly selected Government Secondary Schools from Jos North and Jos South Local Government Areas were used for the study. One hundred (100) senior secondary class II students from two intact classes were used for the study (i.e. 50 students per class, per school). Government Secondary School, Jos, was used as the experimental group while Government Secondary School, Bukuru, was used as the control group. Students from both groups were pre-tested to establish the homogeneity of the two groups before the commencement of the treatment to the experimental group. Both groups were taught for eight weeks. Students were tested using an instrument called a Cloze reading comprehension test. The hypothesis postulated for the research was tested using T-test as a statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance. The findings indicated that there was a significant difference in the pre-test and post-test mean scores of students in the experimental and control groups. The result further revealed a higher mean score of students taught reading comprehension using the discussion method as compared with those taught using the conventional method. Based on this finding, the study recommended that teachers should be encouraged to use discussion method alongside the conventional method to enrich their reading comprehension lessons. Curriculum planners and textbook writers should equally provide topical issues/discussion topics before, during and after every reading task to make reading comprehension lessons more participatory, meaningful, purposeful, exciting, enjoyable and pleasurable.  Article visualizations: