Vocabulary knowledge and grammatical competence as correlates of senior secondary school students' achievement in essay writing in Ibadan north local government area

Abstract

The study investigated vocabulary knowledge and grammatical competence as correlates of senior secondary school students’ achievement in essay writing in Ibadan North Local Government Area of Oyo State. The study adopted the descriptive research design of the correlational type. Five (5) senior secondary schools were randomly selected from forty-two (40) public senior secondary schools in Ibadan North Local Government Area of Oyo State. Fifty (50) students were randomly selected from each school making a total of two hundred and fifty students (250). Three instruments were used for data collection for the study: Essay Writing Achievement Test (r= .81), Students' Vocabulary Knowledge Test (r= .84) and Students' Grammatical Competence Test (r= .79). Three research questions were raised and answered. Data collected were analyzed using Multiple Regression Analysis at 0.5 level of significance. The results showed that there was a positive significant relationship between vocabulary knowledge, grammatical competence and students' achievement in essay writing, (r— .432, p< 0.05), (r= 435, p< 0.05). It was revealed that there was a joint contribution of the two independent variables (vocabulary knowledge and grammatical competence) to students' achievement in essay writing (Adj R2= 0.274) (F (2:497) = 95.204). The independent variables account for 27.4% of the total variance in students' achievement in essay writing. The result showed that vocabulary knowledge contributed relatively to students' achievement in essay writing (β= 0.260). Also, grammatical competence contributed relatively to students' achievement in essay writing (f = 0.346). Based on the findings, it is recommended that teachers of English should pay more attention to the teaching of English vocabulary and grammar in order to make students develop acceptable level of competence in vocabulary and grammar.