Performance of College Students in Writing and Literature Courses

Abstract

Previous studies revealed that English language proficiency were affected by certain factors such as sex, courses taken and attendance to remedial courses. This descriptive research dealt with the performance in writing and literature courses of college students at the University of Antique, Tario-Lim Memorial Campus, Academic Year 2011-2012. The subjects were 223 randomly selected students who have grades in English 2 and in English 4. The sources of data included the Report of Enrollment, Metropolitan Achievement Test result sheets, and grade sheets in English 2 and in English 4. Mean, standard deviation, t-test for independent sample, and one-way ANOVA were used as statistics. Alpha level was set at .05 for the two-tailed test. It revealed that college students had “very satisfactory” performance in writing course, except for the males and the Business and Management students who had “satisfactory” performance. The students also had “very satisfactory” performance in literature course, except for the males who had “satisfactory” performance. Significant differences were noted in the performances in writing and in literature courses of the students grouped according to sex and attendance to remedial course. However, when their courses were considered a significant difference existed in their performance in writing course but none in their performance in literature course. Therefore, sex is a factor that affects students’ performance in these learning areas. Also, course affects students’ performance in writing but not in literature. Further, attendance to a remedial course is not a guarantee that students’ performance in writing and literature would be better than those who are already competent in English.