A study of the responses to prose fiction of certain secondary school students in Uganda leading to proposals for promoting creative reading

Abstract

This thesis is the record of an investigation into the written responses by certain senior secondary pupils to selections of published prose fiction. Most of the pupils were in their second year (S2). The 52 pupils were drawn primarily from Kitante Bill School and supplemented by a selection of pupils from Gayaza High Sohool, Lubiri Senior 3eeondary School and King's College,Budo. Some first year pupils (S1) from Kitante Hill and Kololo Senior secondary Schools were also tested. The average number of S2 pupils who sat each of the seven tests was 243 compared with 67 from Sl, with average ages of 16 and 14 respectively. Half the Sls and somewhat over a quarter of the S2s were girls. The tested pupils were amongst the 5-l0, of their age group who were in senior secondary school at that time, having reached this level after six years of primary school and two years of junior secondary school. Before entering S1 they had received at least two or three years of English-medium instruction and been taught English as a subject for four or five years. Seven graded tests were constructed, each containing questions designed to test and encourage creative reading of a sample of prose fiction. The questions were interpolated into the pros and pupils were instructed to stop reading and answer each question as they came to it. A range of acceptable answers was determined on the basis firstly of answers in trial tests by random samples of Kitante pupils, mostly in S2, and secondly of answers given as correct by myself and a few adult moderators. The scores for each question reveal what percentage of the tested pupils in land S2 were correct in the sense that their creative responses were consistent with the text. Conversely, the scores for each question show the percentage of pupils whose answers were insufficiently consistent with the text and these answers were marked wrong though they ht indicate some comprehension and creative response.