Developing English Literacy Norms
The projects described below were concerned with developing English literacy norms against which
to measure the progress of pupils at different levels of primary school.
In each of the three countries; Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe, university-based research
teams engaged in working with a wide range of stakeholders to establish English Literacy Norms,
against which to measure the performance of acceptbale standards in primary school pupils.
To learn more about the project and meet the teams who conducted the research,
click on the country link, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda
The basic approach adopted in each of the countries was as follows:
- hypothesizing the optimal skill levels (norms) that pupils
should acquire in the four spheres of English literacy (listening, speaking, reading,
and writing) during the early grades of primary school. This entailed using a variety
of sources such as existing literature, the formal curriculum
(including the English syllabi) as well as the opinions of professionals and other
stakeholders in the community. Primary data was collected through questionnaires and interviews
from a wide-range of education stakeholders, notable primary school teachers, pupils and parents.
- tests were developed, based on the hypothesized norms as
criteria. These were then administered to samples of primary school pupils to measure their
performance and assess mastery.
- alongside this process, the research teams also developed
hypothesized key predictors of English proficiency. Hypothesized predictors of performance
include students' background factors such as home locale (large town, small town, rural),
parents' level of formal education and occupation; indicators of household level of income
(e.g. type of house, piped water, source of energy, and ownership of bicycle, motor vehicle,
radio, television, telephone, computer, video cassette recorder, daily/weekly newspapers,
books in the home, reading room/table) as well as the school which they attend (public/private,
day/boarding, single-sex/mixed; physical facilities (e.g. number of classrooms, pupils'
desks and chairs, pupils per toilet unit by gender); instructional materials (e.g. pupils
per textbook ratio in English; library and number of books); and teacher characteristics
(academic and professional qualifications, total length of teaching experience, experience
at current school). The teams then statistically related the data to the performance
on the criterion-referenced tests to these hypothesized predictors of proficiency.
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the final aspect of the research projects was making feasible recommendations, based on the
findings for improvement of English literacy in relation to curriculum development,
development of teaching-learning materials, teacher education, classroom methodology,
supervision and inspection, and assessment.