A Study on the Proficiency in the use of Articles

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to find out the proficiency in the use of articles by the students of grade nine of Kathmandu district, comparing different variables in terms of sex and schools. For this study, the researcher took the sample students studying in grade nine from public and private schools of Kathmandu district. The total sample of the study consisted of two hundred students. Five public and five private schools with equal sex ratio i.e. twenty students (ten girls and ten boys) from each school were randomly selected for the collection of data. The main findings of the study can be stated as the proficiency of the private school students was better than that of the public schools students. Similarly, the proficiency of the boys was found to be better than that of the girls in total. Among different types of test items the item named “supply a/an and the where necessary in the given dialogue” was found to be the most difficult whereas multiple choice item was found to be the easiest one by all the students. It also consists of recommendation to teach articles on the basis of the findings. The study has been presented in four chapters; the first chapter consists of general background, importance, general introduction to articles, review of related literature, objective of the study and significance of the study. The second chapter describes the methodology applied in carrying out this research that deals primary sources of the data, secondary sources of the data, tools for collecting of data, process of data collection and limitations of the study. The third chapter consists of item wise analysis of the status of proficiency in using articles, status of total proficiency in each item, comparison of different variables with the average of each item, analysis and interpretation of the total proficiency of the students, comparison of total proficiency by sex and schools, comparison of their total proficiency within the schools, comparison of the proficiency of ten different schools with the total average and comparison of proficiency with the secondary norm. The fourth chapter presents the findings derived from the analysis and interpretation of the data. In the final section of the study the references and appendices are included.