Effect of Peer Tutoring on Students’ Achievement and Interest in Reading Comprehension in Oredo Education Zone of Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was designed to investigate the effect of peer Tutoring on students’ achievement and interest in Reading comprehension. Six research questions and six hypotheses guided the study. A quasi-experimental design was used specifically, the non radonmnised control group design, involving four intact classes. The sample for the study consisted of 200 SSII students from four co-educational secondary schools in Oredo Education zone. A purposive sampling technique was used, first to draw four co-educational schools and two intact classes from each school, and to assign school to experimental (PTS) and control groups (LM). Two instruments, namely the English reading comprehension Achievement Test (ERCAT) and the English reading comprehension interest inventory (ERCII) were developed and validated. The internal consistency of ERCAT was computed and found to be 0.91 using Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation co-efficient while that of ERCII was 0.87 using cronbach Alpha. The research questions were answered using mean scores, while the hypotheses were tested using Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The result indicated that PTS had significant effect on students’ achievement and interest in reading comprehension but gender did not significantly influence students’ achievement and interest in reading comprehension. The result also revealed that there was no significant interaction effect of instructional method and gender on students’ achievement and interest in reading comprehension Based on the findings, it was concluded that the study provided empirical evidence of the efficacy of PTS in enhancing students’ achievement and interest in reading comprehension . It was therefore, recommended among others that government and other professional bodies should organize workshops, seminars and conferences to educate and sensitize the serving teachers on the use of PTS in teaching reading comprehension.