Proficiency in the Use of Plurals

Abstract

The research work entitledProficiency in the Use of Pluralsaims at findingout the proficiency level of the students in the use of Plurals and compare theirproficiency in terms of items, school and area. The sample population of thestudy consisted of 120 students from grade eight of Palpa district. For that, sixdifferent schools (3 public and 3 private, 3 urban and 3 remote) were selectedpurposively. Twenty students (10 boys and 10 girls) from each school wereselected on the basis of simple random sampling procedure. A set of test-itemswas prepared on the basis of grade eight English Text-Book and GrammarBooks. The collected data were marked and tabulated very systematically.Then, analysis and interpretation were done on the basis of the tabulated data inaccordance with the set objectives. The overall proficiency of the students inthe use of plurals was found satisfactory. The students in private schools werefound better than the students in public schools. Similarly the students ofremote area were less proficient that of the urban area. The present study has contained into four chapters: Introduction, Methodology,Analysis and Interpretation, and Findingsand Recommendations. The firstchapter encompasses of general background, introduction to plurals, review ofrelated literature, objectives and significance of the study. Similarly, the secondchapter deals with the methodology adopted to carry out this research. Itcontains the source of data (both primary and secondary), population of thestudy and sample population, sampling procedure, tools for data collection,pilot test, process of data collection and limitations of the study. Likewise, thethird chapter deals with analysis and interpretation of data. This chapterconsists of four parts: analysis of the overall proficiency in the use of plurals,item wise analysis of the overall proficiency, comparison of the overallproficiency of different sexes andarea both within and between the public andprivate schools and schoolwise comparison of the total proficiency. The fourthchapter presents the findings and recommendations with the analysis andinterpretation of data carried out in chapter three. The final part of the thesis includes references and appendices.