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Analysis of “Come” Errors in Written Compositions of Secondary School Students in Kwara State
- Imran YUSUF, Ph.D.
- Muhydeen Olaitan ABIOLA, Ph.D.
- 1075-1085
- Aug 9, 2023
- Education
Analysis of “Come” Errors in Written Compositions of Secondary School Students in Kwara State
1Imran YUSUF, Ph.D., 2Muhydeen Olaitan ABIOLA, Ph.D.
1General Studies, Mewar International University, Masaka, Nasarawa State, Nigeria.
2Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2023.70784
Received: 19 June 2023; Revised: 04 July 2023; Accepted: 08 July 2023; Published: 09 August 2023
ABSTRACT
Human being is characterized as distinct for the use of language and his ability to acquire and/or learn a language, with which he can explore and deplore the nature as well as nurture of settings, situations and creations. Despite the gift, he is flawed with imperfection thereby making him commit errors, even in language. Errors are deviant forms of language for breaking the standard rule guiding the use of the language. COME is an acronym for Content, Organization, Mechanics and Expression as features of written composition; hence, errors committed on these features are termed COME errors. This study analyzed COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State and specifically examined the influence of their field of study, gender, school location and school type on the subject. The study adopted descriptive survey research; secondary school students III constituted the population for the study. 411 students were selected as sample using random and stratified sampling techniques. A researcher-designed test titled “Written Composition Test” was used as instrument for data collection. The instrument was validated using content validity and then tested reliable for obtaining 0.69 coefficient using a test-retest method of three-week interval and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation. The findings of the study showed that Kwara State secondary school students committed content, mechanic, organization and expression (COME) errors in their written compositions with mechanics being the most committed errors, and all the variables, except gender, created a significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State. It was therefore recommended, among others, that teachers should reform and redesign their methods and strategies of teaching writing composition while targeting how COME errors can be avoided and students should be further exposed to various forms of COME errors and how to avoid them in their compositions.
Keywords: composition, error, COME error, school location
INTRODUCTION
Human beings are distinct high animals for a gift of brain by means of birth, nature and nurture capable of acquiring and learning a language. The high animals are not only speaking beings (homo sapiens) and also writing/graphic beings whose developments and the progress of their society hinge on language. The inevitability of language in the life of human being made Lawal (2020: xxii) see language as “a mental marvel and a divine gift given exclusively to human beings to achieve meaning in their life”. The scholar pointed that the development is achieved on the basis of ideas first expressed in oral, written or other forms of language and then transferred into reality.
With language, man can express himself through oral and written medium. Man communicates, interact and transact through oral or written medium. Speaking and writing are productive language skills and they also connect/relate with the perceptive skills of listening and reading. Speaking and reading are oral while writing and reading are literary skills that rely fundamentally on primary or natural skills of listening and speaking for the perfect learning and use. However, as perfect as human being assumes himself as a high animal endowed with brain, reasoning and language (Yusuf, 2022), he tends to commit errors, part of which is deviants he commits when using language. Errors serve as a facilitating force that leads to discovery, development and perfection, and thus committing errors is considered as part of the human nature.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Writing is a productive literary skill considered as the most complex among the four skills, especially when encoding information at a textual and discourse level. At discourse level, writing is a composition of thoughts, facts, messages or information through a set of words, phrases, clauses, sentences and paragraph strung together based on certain principles to imply a meaning to be inferred by the reader. Writing involves an interaction between the writer and the reader, who is always not physically present but expected to decode the encoded symbols in prints. It is a process because it involves recursive or overlapping stages of pre-writing (planning), drafting (implementation) and post-writing/proof reading/editing. The effective teaching and learning of writing through the three stages inform a process approach of teaching writing composition.
Writing is a product because it represents a coherent and cohesive body of information representing the thoughts of the writer. It is a finished and complete message encoded following some language rules and principles of communication, and cognitive, sociological principles. Thus, the teaching of writing as a whole text of communication informs product approach.Writing is a genre because it is a meaning-induced composition that varies in terms of purpose, structure, language, content and context. These characteristics define and classify compositions into fictional and non-fictional or literary and non-literary texts. Thus, writing is defined as a print code that varies in texture and text. The teaching and learning of writing as a texture of text brings about a genre approach. Also, writing is a task-based activity which involves certain stages such as pre-task, task, planning, report, analysis and practice. Though it shares some features with others (process, genre and product), task-based approach involves the use of authentic or real-life setting and situation as a drive in as well as a means of teaching and learning writing (Yusuf & Lawal, 2017).
Based on the Nigerian secondary school education curriculum, writing as a composition is classified into correspondences (formal, semi-formal, informal letters), essay (narrative, expository, argumentative and descriptive), report, speech, minutes, article as well as creative writing (Federal Ministry of Education, 2008). Each class of composition has distinct features, as they are similar in terms of unity, completeness, emphasis and coherence. They are taught, assessed and scored as well as graded through Content, Organisation, Mechanics and Expression – acronymically referred to as COME in the study.
Writing is taught using one or some of process, product, genre and task-based approaches. Sanni-Suleiman Adeniyi-Egbeola and Bello (2020) identified four basic principles of teaching writing namely, copying, controlled, guided and free writing while each has its distinct purpose. The four principles are procedural and developmental stages in teaching and learning writing beginning with copying and ending with free writing when a person has become an expert writer. Nevertheless, each principle can be used at all levels of teaching, learning and practicing writing. For instance, free writing can be used as any technique for generating ideas or points for the subject of the writing during the planning/brainstorming stage.
Whatever approach to and the techniques selected for teaching writing, teachers are expected to stimulate/facilitate or take learners through the pre-writing or planning stage. At the stage, learners should be familiarized with certain criteria for choosing, selecting and developing a topic/subject. Such criteria include purpose, text form/type, language, setting, audience, content, and therefore go through storming their brain or brainstorming and map the stormed points/the sourced information in a logical coherent order. This process informs the beginner writer that writing involves a series of overlapping activities in order to produce a well coherent write-up. Sanni-Suleiman, Adeniyi-Egbeola and Bello (2020) posted that beginner writers should be guided and led through planning such as choosing the subject and collecting and sorting out ideas drafting to editing stages. If the processes are maintained, there is a possibility of minimizing or avoiding errors in the written composition.
Errors are said to be a means of learning a language, especially a second or foreign language; thus, they become invaluable in language teaching and learning. Coetzee (2009) stated that there are different approaches to determining the nature of language errors. He identifies contractive analysis and error analysis as the basic approaches to the classification, description and prediction of the second language learners’ errors in the target language. Error analysis evolves from the perception of errors as “natural product” and as the evidence for learner’s language system development. Error analysis, focusing on the understanding of the processes underlying second language learning, is an attempt to analyze the errors that learners make in relation to the target language (Corder, 1971). Delleman (2008) submitted that error analysis is a systematic procedure which attempts to collect, identify, describe, explain and evaluate errors from a collection of language learner data by analyzing learners’ error and comparing it to the convention of the target language. Selinker (1992) considered error analysis as the device that learners use in order to learn; therefore, since error making is “a necessary part of learning”, language teachers should use it as a means to achieve the objectives of instruction in a language teaching and learning class (Maicusi et al., 2000).
Senior School Certificate Examinations such as West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) assess candidates’ written compositions based on content, organization, mechanical accuracy and expression referred to as COME in this study. Content covers the ideas and their relevance to the main theme of the writing while organization includes a suitable opening or introductory paragraph, adequate development of points, good paragraphing balance, coherence and a suitable conclusion.
Candidates’ expression in writing is judged based on clarity and general appropriateness of style, variation of sentence structure and type, judicious use of figurative language, and skillful and sophisticated use of punctuation marks (WASSCE, 2020). Candidates’ competency in grammar, spelling and punctuation is assessed under mechanical accuracy. An error committed should be ringed, and it attracts a deduction of half a mark from the maximum of 10 obtainable marks allowed for this aspect. However, any error other than mechanics of grammar, spelling and punctuation is underlined and penalized under expression.
Alu Faghai (2016) submitted that written compositions were marked based on content, organization, mechanical accuracy and expression and found that students committed errors in the four areas. The researcher listed spelling, punctuation, use of capital letter and tenses as the common sources of the students’ problem in writing. However, Alu Faghai (2016) did not point out the area where learners committed most or least errors among the four areas of assessment. The scholar assessed the written composition of junior secondary school students in Owan West in Edo, while this researcher examined those of senior school students in Kwara State. It is required of the writer to edit his draft to identify sentence fragments and sprawl, misplaced modifiers, faulty parallelism, wrong use of pronoun, omitted and superfluous commas, apostrophe errors, misspelling, among errors.
Amoakohene (2017) identified 1050 errors out of the essays written by final year students of Allied Sciences Ghana, and grouped the errors into grammatical error (with the highest percentage – 55.6%), mechanical errors (42.1%) and poor structuring of sentences (2.3%). The researcher recommended that the hours allotted for the teaching of writing composition should be increased while the teaching of academic and communicative skills should be extended to the second year. Demir (2014) found errors in ten areas of grammar; they were articles, conjunction, noun, gerund and infinitive, preposition, capitalization and punctuations, word order, modal, pronoun and subject-verb agreement. He found that the most committed was the wrong usage of article, which comprised 20%.
Khatter (2019), like Demur (2014), and Amaokehena (2017) and Alufohai (2017), analyzed errors in essay writing and found punctuations errors as the most frequent types of errors committed by the participants. The researcher also found spelling, preposition, article, tense and word form errors, pluralization, word choice, concord, pronoun, copular “be”, word order, conjunction, infinitive, and gerund and translation errors in the writing comprehensions of the participants who were Saudi female students of the English language in the department of English, Majmash University. The scholar discovered that interlingua and intralingua transfers were the sources underlying most of the errors the students committed. Khatter (2019) concluded that the Arab students’ writing problems were as a result of the differences in the phonological, morphological, lexical levels and grammatical structures of Arabic and English. He recommended that writing should be taught grammatically, logically and regularly with appropriate pedagogical nitty gritty and learners’ writing skill should be examined through questions that task and enhance their critical and creative thinking.
Furthermore, Students’ discipline or field of study, gender, age, school location and school type, among others, are some of the variables that researchers employ to determine whether they have an effect on research subjects. The effect or significance of these variables is validated in some studies while it is found invalid in others (Yusuf, 2022). For instance, Yusuf and Lawal (2017) found a significant difference in the text-message-related errors committed by the students on the basis of gender with the male students committing more of such errors while Bello and Abdulkareem (2021) found that gender did not influence the undergraduate’s adoption of web content for learning. Yusuf (2022) thus stated that it becomes pertinent to continue determining the status of these variables on the process, product and input of teaching and learning so as to address any issue developed through them. He suggested that all education stakeholders such as government, researchers, lecturers/teachers and students should consider the variables as key to the achievement of the educational aim and goal, the instructional objectives and students’ academic performance. Thus, the variables are also considered in this study in order to determine whether they create a difference in the type of errors students committed in the written compositions.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Writing is an encoding skill considered as the most complex among the four communicative skills. Its complexity has led to many studies centered on its nature, techniques of composition, inter-relationship with other language skills, analysis of grammatical errors as well as textese-related error in the composition. Yusuf and Lawal (2017) analyzed text message-related errors in the written composition of secondary school students. They found that the students committed morphological, lexical, synthetic, and semantic errors as a result of their knowledge and use of the textese or chart message form of language. They also found that the students from private, public, rural and urban schools without any gender difference influence committed the text message-related errors.
Also, Awada (2006)carried out effects of WhatsApp on antique writing proficiency and perceptions towards learning. The researcher found mobile technology-aided WhatsApp more effective than the conventional instruction in enhancing the critique writing proficiency of the participants and their motivation for learning. Her finding tallies with Bouhnik and Deshon’s (2014) assertion that WhatsApp is a Smartphone application which improved learners’ level of interaction, social and enjoyable atmosphere, profound collaboration with others and sense of sharing information, knowledge, skill and value.
Fatma (2017) stated that WhatsApp is used as a tool for writing and found it significantly influencing students’ performance in writing. The scholar observed that writing involves different aspects systematically overlapping in order to produce a coherent message in print. The aspects include content, organization, mechanical accuracy and grammatical expression but some of these features are not adequately and appropriately aligned in some write-ups in the technological age.
The present researchers found the gap between this study and the previous ones which dwelt on effect, nature and influence of social networking sites such as WhatsApp on writing. Such studies did not cover an analysis of basic features of writing such as Content, Organization, Mechanical accuracy and Expression; thus forming an acronym referred to as COME. Therefore, the gap created a difference between this study and the previous ones, and hence informed the purpose of this study.
Purpose of the Study
The general purpose of this study was to analyze Content, Organization, Mechanical accuracy and Expression errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State, while specifically finding out:
- COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State, and
- COME errors committed in the written compositions of secondary school students based on gender, school location, school type and students’ area of specialization.
Research Questions
The following research questions were raised and answered.
- What are the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State?
- Do gender, school type, school location, and students’ area of specialization create any difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State?
Research Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses were raised and tested.
HO1: There is no significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on gender.
HO2: School type does not create any significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State.
HO3: No significant difference exists in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on school location.
HO4: Area of specialization does not create any significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State.
METHODOLOGY
The study adopted a descriptive survey research of cross-sectional type for enabling a direct contact with the sample. The population for the study consisted of all secondary school students in Kwara State and the target population was senior secondary school III in the state. A total number of 411 students were selected from the three senatorial districts of the state (Kwara-north, Kwara-south and Kwara-central) using random sampling and stratified techniques; 142, 119 and 150 students proportionally selected from the districts respectively.
A test of essay writing was the instrument for this study. The instrument entitled “Written Composition Test” had two sections A and B. Section A contained items on students’ data such as gender, school type, school location, and area of specialization while section B contained five SSCE English Language past questions on essay writing. Each respondent was asked to choose one of the five questions and requested to write in about 450 words. The instrument was validated through content form of validity by three language and measurement and evaluation experts in the university of Ilorin, Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, and Mewar International University, and then a test retest of a three-week interval was employed to determine the level of the reliability of the instrument. The test was administered to 50 purposively selected students who were not part of the sample but were also among the target population. The two sets of scores got from the administrations were analyzed using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation and 0.69 was obtained as a reliability coefficient point.
The respondents’ answers were assessed using the criteria of Content, Organization, Mechanics and Expression and errors committed therein were tagged COME errors. 10, 10, 10 and 20 were the obtained scores for Content, Organization, Mechanics and Expression (COME) respectively while some marks were deducted from each error committed from the areas of content, organization, mechanics and expression. Errors of content included digressing or deviating from the topic or distorting ideas and creating irrelevant topic or theme to the question/ misinterpreting the question; 3, 5 points and the whole 10 marks were lost respectively for each of the errors. Respondents lost 2 marks each for poor paragraphing (such as poor introduction, inability to develop points into paragraphs, poor links between paragraphs and poor conclusion), illogical arrangement of ideas or points, inappropriate use of emphasis, wrong format/feature of the composition selected and lack of unity – all were considered as error of organization. Errors of mechanical accuracy included breaking grammatical, punctuation and spelling rules and ½ mark was deducted for each of the errors up to a maximum of 10 marks. It implied that a respondent who committed 20 mechanical errors lost all the 10 marks. Errors of expression included wrong use of language for the chosen type of composition, incomplete sentence, mother tongue-induced expressions, wrong use of lexical items among others and each attracted a deduction of 2 from the 20 obtainable marks.
The demographic data of the respondents were analyzed using frequency counts and percentage distribution. The first research question was answered using mean and rank order while research question 2 with corresponding hypotheses 1, 2, 3 and 4 were tested with t-test and one-way Analysis of Variance at 0.05 level of significance.
RESULTS OF THE STUDY
The results of the study are presented below.
Table 1: Demographic Data of Respondents
Variable | Frequency | Percent |
Gender | ||
Male | 244 | 59.4 |
Female | 167 | 40.6 |
Total | 411 | 100.0 |
School Type | ||
Public | 227 | 55.2 |
Private | 184 | 44.8 |
Total | 411 | 100.0 |
Area of Specialization | ||
Science | 168 | 40.9 |
Commercial | 135 | 32.8 |
Arts | 108 | 26.3 |
Total | 411 | 100.0 |
School Location | ||
Kwara Central | 150 | 36.5 |
Kwara North | 142 | 34.5 |
Kwara South | 119 | 29.0 |
Total | 411 | 100.0 |
Table 1 shows that four hundred and eleven respondents participated in this study and they were males and females sampled based on area of specialization, school type and school location.
Table 2: Mean and Rank Order of COME Errors in Students’ Written Compositions
Error | N | Sum | Mean | Rank |
Content
Organization Mechanics Expression |
411
411 411 411 |
801.00
982.00 1565.00 1142.00 |
1.13
2.39 3.81 2.77 |
4th
3rd 1st 2nd |
Table 2 reveals the mean scores and rank order of the respondents’ COME errors found in their written compositions. The table shows that mechanic errors ranked 1st because of its mean score of 3.81 which is higher than those of the other forms of errors. The expression error ranked 2nd with the mean score of 2.77 while organization and content errors ranked 3rd and 4th with the mean scores of 2.39 and 1.13 respectively. This implies that mechanic errors were the most committed by the respondents while content errors were the least committed out of the COME errors.
Table 3: t-test Analysis of Difference in the Undergraduate Students’ Information Retrieval based on Gender and School Type
Variable | N | Mean | SD | Df | t-value | p-value | Decision |
Gender | |||||||
Male | 244 | 10.4303 | 5.97933 | ||||
409 | -1.127 | 0.261 | Accepted | ||||
Female | 167 | 11.3473 | 9.28136 | ||||
School Type | |||||||
Public | 227 | 9.8811 | 5.75372 | ||||
409 | -2.667 | 0.008 | Rejected | ||||
Private | 184 | 11.9402 | 9.10123 |
Table 3 shows the results (t{409}= -1.127, p>0.05) and (t{409}= -2.667, p<0.05) for Research Hypotheses 1 and 2 respectively. Thus, since the p-values of .261 obtained for Research Hypothesis 1 is greater than 0.05 level of significance, the hypothesis is accepted. Therefore, this implies there was no significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on gender. However, the p-values of .261 obtained for Research Hypothesis 2 is less than 0.05 level of significance, the hypothesis is rejected. Therefore, this implies that school type created a significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State.
Table 4: ANOVA Analysis of Difference in the COME Errors in the Written Compositions of Secondary School Students in Kwara State Based on Area of Specialisation
Variable | Sum of Squares | df | Mean Square | f | Sig. | Decision |
Field of Study | ||||||
Between Groups | 1695.703 | 2 | 847.85 | 116.18 | 3.000 | Rejected |
Within Groups | 21375.33 | 408 | 52.391 | |||
Total | 23071.04 | 410 |
*Significance at p<0.05
Table 4 shows the result (F{2, 408}= 16.183, p<0.05) for Research Hypothesis 1. The p-value of .000 is less than 0.05 alpha level; the hypothesis was rejected. This implies that there was a significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on area of specialization. Hence, Duncan’s Post Hoc analysis was carried out as shown in Table 5 below.
Table 5: Duncan’s Post-Hoc Analysis of the Significant Difference in the COME Errors in the Written Compositions of Secondary School Students in Kwara State Based on Area Of Specialization
Field of Study | N | Subset for Alpha = 0.05 | ||
1 | 2 | 3 | ||
Sciences | 168 | 8.8690 | ||
Commercial | 135 | 10.6963 | ||
Arts | 108 | 13.9444 | ||
Sig. | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
*Significance @ 0.05
Table 5 shows that the mean scores of 8.8690, 10.6963 and 13.9444 of Sciences, Commercial and Arts respectively were in Subsets 1, 2 and 3 respectively. As indicated in the table, discipline tended to create a significantly difference in content, organization, mechanic and expression errors committed by students with arts students recording the most because of its highest mean score of 13.9444. The result proves that there was a significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on area of specialization. It can be deduced that students committed COME errors generally but their area of specialization appeared to create a significant difference in the level of errors they committed.
Table 6: ANOVA Analysis of Difference in the COME Errors in the Written Compositions of Secondary School Students in Kwara State Based on School Location
Variable | Sum of Squares | df | Mean Square | f | Sig. | Decision |
School Location | ||||||
Between Groups | 756.189 | 2 | 378.09 | 56.91 | 3.001 | Rejected |
Within Groups | 22314.85 | 408 | 54.693 | |||
Total | 23071.04 | 410 |
*Significance at p<0.05
Table 6 shows the result (F{2, 408}= 6.913, p<0.05) for Research Hypothesis 1. The p-value of .001 is less than 0.05 alpha level; the hypothesis was rejected. This implies that there was a significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on school location. Hence, Duncan’s Post Hoc analysis was carried out as shown in Table 7 below.
Table 7: Duncan’s Post-Hoc Analysis of the Significant Difference in the COME Errors in the Written Compositions of Secondary School Students in Kwara State Based on School Location
School Location | N | Subset for Alpha = 0.05 | |
1 | 2 | ||
Kwara North | 142 | 8.9366 | |
Kwara South | 119 | 11.7395 | |
Kwara Central | 150 | 11.8267 | |
Sig. | 1.000 | .923 |
*Significance @ 0.05
Table 7 shows that the mean score of 8.9366 of Kwara North was in Subset 1 while those of Kwara South and Kwara Central fell under Subset 2. The result proves that there was a significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on school location as indicated by their mean scores. It can be deduced that school location seemed to create a significant difference in the COME errors in their written compositions, with the students from Kwara South and Kwara Central committing COME errors more than their counterparts from Kwara North.
DISCUSSIONS
The findings show that Kwara State secondary school students committed content, mechanic, organization and expression (COME) errors in their written compositions with mechanics being the most committed errors. The finding tallies with those of Khatter (2019), Alufohai (2017) Amoakohene (2017) and Demur (2014) that there were errors, especially grammatical/mechanic ones, in the students’ compositions. Khatter (2019) traced the sources of the errors committed by the students to language interference, ignorance of rule restrictions, poor spelling skills, poor mastery of English article and preposition systems and inappropriate teaching methods and strategies, students’ lack of adequate stock of vocabulary as well as their difficulty in selecting proper words begetting poor expressions, the lack of writing practice in and outside the classroom, among others. Khatter (2019) therefore recommended a painstaking teaching of writing with other skills, such as extensive reading, vocabulary development and critical and creative thinking skills, using different instructional strategies. Emvula (2020) found that learners committed a lot of grammatical errors and then stated that mother tongue interference, intralingua factor, overgeneralization and poor grammatical knowledge were the causes of students’ errors in written composition. As part of the mechanic errors, Ali, Amin and Ishtiaq’s (2020) findings revealed that students committed many punctuation errors with the highest frequency of comma, apostrophe and capitalization. They stressed that lack of instruction, lack of evaluation and lack of provision of feedback on punctuation were the causes of the punctuation errors students committed in their write-ups.
The finding also reveals that there was a significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on school type, area of specialization and school location. However, there was no significant difference in the COME errors in the written compositions of secondary school students in Kwara State based on gender. A host of researchers have worked on the effect, difference and influence the variables of gender, school type, school location and area of specialization have on various research topics, but their findings remain inconclusive about the variables. For instance, as found in this study, Oladosu, Adedokun-shittu, Sanni and Ajani (2020) Karatsoli and Nathanail (2020) and Yusuf (2022) found that gender did not create any effect or influence on the subject of their research while the findings of Ngozi (2011), Yusuf and Lawal (2017) among others showed its influence. Also, Fakeye (2010) and Araashi and Abdulazeez (2020) found school type and location insignificant in their various research outcomes, but Yusuf (2022) found a significant difference in the type of information undergraduate students in Nasarawa State retrieved from a text as correlate of teaching-learning effectiveness based on field of study. Thus, findings on the variables remain different. This may be the reason why Yusuf (2022) stated that it becomes pertinent to continue determining the status of these variables on the process, product and input of teaching and learning so as to address any issue developed through them.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
It was concluded that secondary school students, in Kwara State, committed COME errors in their written composition with mechanic errors topping the list, and effect of the variables of gender, school type, school location and area of specialization still need some further studies for validation. Thus, the implication of the findings includes the need to (re)design instructional decisions on writing composition to crosscut all forms of COME errors. It also implies that students should be taught and nurtured through a combination of guided, process and product writing and exposed to the importance as well as act of revising, editing or proofreading their drafts. Finally, it implies that the culture and practice of composition writing need to be revived.
RECOMMENDATIONS
It was therefore recommended that:
- Teachers should reform and redesign their methods and strategies of teaching writing composition while targeting how COME errors can be avoided.
- Instructions on writing compositions should not be limited to the classroom but to various settings depending on the type, content and context of the writing.
- Students should be further exposed to various forms of COME errors and how to avoid them in their compositions.
- Students should always be engaged in writing composition by teachers, parents, school administrators, and even community that are expected to serve as role models in this regard.
- Written composition is a product of the community/society as it is sourced from or it reflects the societal happenings, situations, conditions, events, etc.; hence, it should be always celebrated by the community.
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