Effects of Cooperative Thinking Skills Training Intervention on Academic Performance of Primary School Pupils in Nakuru West Sub-County, Kenya
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Date
2019-09Author
Aguta, Matunga Hellen
Gichohi, Paul
Wamalwa, Bernard
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Academic performance has remained elusive as different cohorts of learners perform differently
in national examinations. Previous studies on academic performance of pupils have explored the
question mostly from environmental perspectives rather than pupil’s intrinsic factors such as
reading difficulties and successes of respective intervention measures. Interventions on reading
difficulties being experienced by learners have been sought, however, the persistence of the
problem leads to questions over the efficacy of the interventions. This study was set out to find out
the effects of cooperative thinking skills training intervention on academic performance of public
primary school pupils in Nakuru West Sub-County, Kenya. Descriptive survey research design
was used targeting 12 public primary schools from which 342 language teachers and 1133 pupils
were theorized to have reading difficulties were sampled. A sample size of 160 respondents was
selected using both purposive and stratified random sampling for teachers and pupils respectively.
Data was collected using a well-structured questionnaire and an observation schedule which were
analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21.0. Descriptive
statistics involving frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations, and inferential
statistical methods involving linear regression were used to analyze data. The results from the
observation schedule were analyzed using content analysis and integrated during interpretations,
discussions and conclusions. The study found that cooperative thinking skills training intervention
had a positive and strong effect on academic performance of pupils with reading difficulties among
public primary school pupils in Nakuru West Sub-County. Hence, the study concluded that
cooperative thinking skills training intervention as currently applied in teaching was a very
promising intervention in remedying reading difficulties. The study recommended that teachers
should find out and introduce new ways of cooperative learning specifically those which encourage
the learners to assist each other improve their reading proficiency .
Citation
Aguta, M. H., Gichohi P. & Wamalwa B. (2019). Effects of Cooperative Thinking Skills Training Intervention on Academic Performance of Primary School Pupils in Nakuru West Sub-County, Kenya. Journal of Education, 2(3), 25-35Publisher
Stratford Peer Reviewed Journals and Book Publishing Journal of Education