COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DETAILED AND NON-DETAILED CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT FEEDBACK STRATEGIES ON THE LETTER WRITING PERFORMANCE OF JSS II STUDENTS IN KADUNA STATE

Abstract

This study was on the “Comparative Study of Detailed and Non-Detailed Continuous Assessment Feedback Strategies on the Letter Writing Performance of JSS2 Students in Kaduna State”.  The study aimed to find out the effect of Detailed C.A feedback strategies on JSS II students’ academic performance in essay writing. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design in which the subjects were assigned to experimental and control groups. 161 JSS II students were randomly selected across two chosen schools to conduct this research as the target population of this study. 75 students from GJSS Gyellesu were assigned as the experimental group.  While 86 students from GJSS Sabon Gari, Zaria as control group. The two groups were given a pre-test. Then treatment was carried out in which the experimental group was taught letter writing using Detailed C.A Feedback Strategy for six (6) weeks, while the control group was taught the same topics for three (3) weeks using Non- Detailed C.A Feedback Strategy as treatment. The longer duration for the Detailed C.A. Feedback Strategy was necessary due to its multi-step nature which requires time for feedback delivery, students’ reflection, re-writing, follow-up, scores and general comment unlike the Non-Detailed C.A Feedback which involves only scores and general comment. At the end of the treatment, a post-test was given to the two groups. English Essay writing test was used as the instrument of this study. The data collected from the two groups were analysed using the SPSS package; descriptive statistics were employed to answer three research questions of the study, and an independent t-test was employed to test the null hypotheses at an α < 0.05 level of significance. The research was based on Hattie & Timperly (2007) Feedback Model and Vygotsky (1978) Socio-cultural Theory.  At the end of the study, findings showed that the English Letter writing performance of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group after exposing the students to Detailed C.A Feedback treatment. This showed that Detailed C.A Feedback Strategy improved the students’ English essay writing performance in the aspects of expressions of ideas and mechanical accuracy. The study therefore recommends that Detailed C.A. Feedback Strategy should be employed in teaching letter writing in English language so as to enhance students' writing skills and to improve their performance.