Morphological Instructional Packages as Determinants of Inferring Word Meanings in Reading Comprehension among Secondary School Students

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of morphological instructional packages as determinants of inferring word meanings in reading comprehension among secondary school students in Ekiti State. The study adopted pre-test, post-test and control quasi-experimental research using two experimental groups and one control group with a sample of 270 Senior Secondary II students selected from nine public senior secondary schools using multi-stage sampling procedure, stratified random sampling and purposive sampling. The selected schools were assigned into three major groups, with each group made up of three schools of 30 students per school (two experimental groups and one control group). Three instruments were adapted, validated and used for data collection for the study namely: Morphological Production Task on Students’ Academic Ability (r = 0.74), Morphological Analysis Task of Students’ Academic Ability (r = 0.83) and Achievement Test in Comprehension (0.75). Data collected were analysed using Mean, Standard Deviation, Analysis of Covariance, Scheffe post-hoc and Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA). The study showed that there was significant difference in the achievement mean score of students in reading English language comprehension between the experimental and control groups. It showed that students exposed to a combination of morphological instructional packages with Eclectic and Problem-Solving methods achieved more in inferring word meanings. It was recommended that teachers of English language should be encouraged to use morphological instructional packages combined with Problem-Solving and Eclectic methods should be given enough orientation through seminars and workshop on the importance of morphological instructional packages combined with eclectic and Problem-Solving methods towards the teaching of languages and reading comprehension in particular.