CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Words is very important in communication. Students’ performance towards oral and

written assessment is important and useful to everybody. Some students prefer or excel in written

assessment where they can truly express their own opinion and ideas as they can handle their

emotions and sometimes written assessment has hindrance especially it takes time to read one’s

idea and some students prefer to be good in oral as they are comfortable to express their ideas in

face to face where they can see expressions and emotions of a person talking through this the

communication skill of the student was exercise and develop one’s self-confidence.

The philosopher Frege emphasized the ambiguity and fluidity of language, and discussed

how the ability of spoken, as opposed to written language to carry emotional charge reflects a long-

held position in philosophy, going back to Plato who elevates thee spoken word above the “mere

shadow” that is written (Joughin 1999). The idea have been develop more recently by Barnett, who

considers that the students struggle in this “risky” environment of higher education. Related to

these ideas is the pervasive and notion that the higher education consists of dialogue and learning

conversation. To adapt a phrase from psychoanalysis, teaching is an alchemy of discourse (Hayes

2009) from which the new understanding can rise. Hence, there are fundamental reasons why the

higher education may value thee oral assessment.

Learners around the world today uses oral assessment as most useful as they directly

express their ideas without any hesitations and this is how they prove that through oral they can
show their wide knowledge in expressing many ideas and how their minds works actively and how

they can adopt questions easily, on the other hand written assessment a learner has time to think

while their writing, they can also erase their ideas that they think not useful and expand ideas while

in oral you cannot change ideas that you have already say but through this you can easily give your

assessment without hesitation that what you heard is the final say that could not be revoke by

anyone unless being express, and through oral you can assess how knowledgeable is the speaker.

Despite these arguments the oral examinations are rare and one of the obvious reasons

could be the perception that it will take long time. But there is a more explicit concern about

reliability and bias. Wakeford (2000) advices: ‘The new practitioner in higher education is

consoled to beware of and avoid orals’ since it is may be open to bias. There is a concern that oral

examination is very stressful and might unfairly favor the extravert and confident student

(Waterfield & West 2006). In addition, oral examination may be seen as suitable for assessing

more emotive or personal issues, such as ability to reflect, but not as appropriate for abstract

reasoning: ‘ only an exceptional person would prefer to be judged on the basis of the spoken rather

than written performance when the assessment relates to complex abstract ideas (Lloyd et al.,

1984). Hence despite the strong arguments in favor of oral examinations, educators might

legitimately fear using them given the pressures on time, warnings that they may not reach

transparent standard of relating and may be biased against some students and feelings that they are

only for the “special” groups.

In relation to this, the researchers conducted this study to further understand the

performance of the students and the strengths and weakness of oral versus written assessments. It

aims to let the readers be aware of academic performance both oral and written.
Scope and Delimitation of the Study

This study is focused to provide information on the Oral vs. Written Assessment of the

Grade 10 Students of St. John Early Learning Center, Inc. This study considers the student's

personal information such as their name (optional), gender and age.

The researchers limited the study to 30 male and female students enrolled in the S.Y. 2019-

2020 at St. John Early Learning Center, Inc. Each of the respondents will be given a questionnaire

to answer. The students who will be selected will be coming from different sections to avoid

prejudice to the perception.

In order to assure manageability of the collected data, the questionnaire included multiple

choice items, ranking/rating questions and did not include open-minded response items.

Statement of the Problem

Generally this study enable us to understand the “Oral vs. Written Assessment of the

students of St. John Early Learning Center Inc.

Specifically, this study aims to answer the following questions:

1. What are the comparison between oral and written assessment of the student?

2. Which do students prefer, oral or written assessment?

3. Where did the students excel?

4. Is there any significant relationship between oral and written assessment to the

academic performance of the students.

Research Hypothesis

Based on the statement of the problem, the null hypothesis was formulated.

HO1: Oral assessment has no significant relationship to the academic performance of the students.

HO2: Written assessment has no significant relationship to the academic performance of the

students.

Conceptual Framework

This study aims to identify the "Oral vs. Written Assessment of the Grade 10 Students of

St. John Early Learning Center, Inc." and determine where the students excel in Oral or Written

performance.

Moreover, the researchers identified the performance of the students in terms of oral and

written assessment as the dependent variable which is the oral and written assessment of Grade 10

students of St. John Early Learning Center, Inc.

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

The performance of students The Oral and Written

in terms of assessment of the students

 Oral
 Written
Significance of the Study

This study aimed to determine the Oral vs. Written Assessment of the Grade 10 students

in St. John Early Learning Center, Inc. This research also aims to provide information regarding

the number of the students who prefer oral or written assessment.

This study will be tremendous help for the following:

To the Researchers. This research study will enable them to fill their curiosity about in

which assessment did the students prefer in between the oral and written assessment. This will also

help them to improve their ability to make a research paper about real life situations at the same

time it will also widen their sense of awareness regarding to the problems that are currently

happening in their country.

To the Students. The results and findings of this study will provide the students more

knowledge and it will also give them an idea in which assessment between oral or written

assessment they excel and where assessment they should improve or work on. This will give them

realization about the topic.

To the Teachers. It will provide deeper knowledge on what strategies to use to educate

their students, in which assessment they should focus or improve in the ability of their students. It

will also give the teachers perspective why some of the students would act in a certain way,

therefore it can help them have additional techniques on how to improve the academic performance

of their students.

To the Future Researchers. The ideas presented in this research may be used as a

reference data in conducting new researches or in testing the validity of their related findings. This
study will also serve as the source of the background and overview regarding written vs. oral

assessment.

Definition of Terms

To further understand and comprehend the intention of the study, the researchers defined

the following concepts conceptually and operationally;

Assessment. It is the process of systematically gathering information as part of an

evaluation.

Hindrance. The thing that provides resistance, delay, or obstruction to something or

someone.

Hesitation. It refers to the action of pausing or hesitating before saying or doing something.

Revoke. It means to put an end to the validity or operation.

Tremendous. It is a very great amount, scale, or intensity.

Open-ended. It refers to having no determined limit or boundary.

Comprehend. It is to understand something completely.

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Black & Williams (1998) define assessment to include all activities that students undertake

in the classroom that can be used to modify students learning. The definition given by Black &

Williams (1998) includes observation of the students’ mode by teachers in the class discussion,

the analysis of work done by the students in the classroom, homework tasks and test. The purpose

of analysis is to modify the teaching and learning accordance with the observed needs of the

students, as perceived by the teacher. These outcomes may be based on acquisition of certain skills

or knowledge acquire in a specific period of learning, usually one semester or two semesters for a

particular subject.

Joughin (2010) defines oral assessment as "any assessment of learning which is conducted

by a spoken word". The medium of communication between students and assessor is the spoken

word in its various forms. Spoken words provide an opportunity of unrestrained talk between one

person and another person in oral assessment (Kehm 2001). According to Joughin (2008), "people

identify themselves with their words whereas the writing separates the knower from the known".

The students own the words in the oral assessment and present it in their own style. The second

element in the oral assessment is the passion and force in which students express their ideas in

front of an audience which may be an access or a group of other students. In doing so, they can

observed the reaction of their audience to their argument more or less forceful. It highly organized

and cannot be presented without knowing the topic and making it in a proper way. According to

Pearce and Lee (2009) the skills that are usually evaluated in oral presentations are: knowledge of
the subject, confidence, confidence of the responses, thinking on the spot, communication skills,

application of theory to practice, ability to handle questions, body language, professional manner,

and clarity of responses.

Joughin (2004) discusses the pros and cons of oral assessment and provide tips for

successful oral assessment as well as an indication of which parameters are best assessed orally.

In the case against using oral assessment he includes the difficulty or justifying a mark in the

absence of written evidence which may be problematic for the purpose of external examination.

Gibbs and Hebeshaw (1988) note that there may also be problems when asking a student to perform

a skill which they don't have a lot of experience. Joughin (2008) tips for successful oral assessment

includes: planning, learning from other experiences, preparing the students, preparing colleagues,

fairness, and efficiency.

As tutors are encouraged to be more innovative in their assessment, (Bryan & Clegg, 2006;

Mowl 1996) oral technology may become more of a feature in University assessment. It has been

suggested that students may find oral performance of this kind is more challenging than the written

format and this type of learning leads to better and understanding (Jouhin, 2008). Oral assessment

appears to be a neglected area analysis in nutritional education. The work of Joughin has enlighted

comparison of oral presentation and written assignments. The present study contributes to the

research in this area and focuses on the students who are seeking employment which involves

strong element of communication. Biggs (2003) makes valid point when discussing the mismatch

between guidelines used to define coursed and the reality on how they are taught or assessed.
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

This study used descriptive research design to determine the peformance of students in

terms of oral and written assessment. The data was gathered through a survey questionnaire which

will be administer to the respondents.

Locale of the Study

This study will be conducted at St. John Early Learning Center, Inc. Tacurong City, Sultan

Kudarat.

Respondents of the Study

The respondents of the study will be the selected students of St.John Early Learning Center,

Inc. The students will be chosen as the respondents of the study and to answer the survey

questionnaires prepared by the researchers regarding the comparative study in oral vs. written

assessment of the students of St. John Early Learning Center, Inc. The total number of the

students who will answer the survey questionnaires will be 30.

Sampling Technique

The respondents will be subjected using the Random Sampling. Random Sampling was the

basic sampling technique where we select a group of subjects (a sample) for the study from a larger

group (a population). Each individual was chosen entirely by chance and each member of

population has an equal chance of being included in the sample. Every possible sample of a given

size has the same chance of selection.

Data Gathering Instrument

To acquire necessary data from the respondents, an instrument is designed which will be

distributed to them. The data gathering instrument is the survey questionnaire. The questionnaire

will be used for gathering the data.

The data gathering instrument is consists of two parts. There are questions related to the

predetermined factors that the researchers made and their academic performances. It also consist

the profile of the respondents.

The questionnaire included 15 questions, specifically 3 questions in the part were the

researchers asked for their profiles and 12 questions in the part were the Rating Scale method was

used. The first part of the Rating Scale were the questions about their performance in oral

assessment, while the second part is all about the written assessment of the students.
Data Gathering Procedure

In gathering the data from the respondents, the following procedure will be used. A letter

of approval will be addressed to the principal of St. John Early Learning Center, Inc. where the

study will be conducted, noted by Sir Art Cemino, Practical Research 2 professor. Distribution of

questionnaires will follow after the letter was approved.

The following rating scale will be used by the respondents to determine their responses

(Grospe, 2008).

Rating Scale Descriptive

5 Always

4 Often

3 Sometimes

2 Seldom

1 Never
 • Validation of the survey quaestionnaire
Step 1

• Distribution of the survey questionnaire

Step 2

• Gathering of the survey questionnaires

Step 3

• Analysis of data and interpretation of results.

Step 4

Statistical Test

The data that will be gathered by the researchers will be analyzed using the following tool.

Measure of central tendency. This technique was used to explain the comparison between Oral vs.

Written Assessment of the students.

Measures of the central tendency are numbers that describe what is the average or typical

within a distribution of data. There are three main measures of central tendency, mean, median,

and mode. While they are all measures of central tendency, each one is calculated differently and

measures something different from the others.

In formula

To determine the mean of this study

Mean= ∑ 𝑥
 n

Where: x= Score of the respondents

n= Sample size

Instruction. Please check (√) and rate yourself honestly based on what you actually do given the

statements using the following scales:

Part I. Name (Optional):

Age:

Gender: ( ) Male ( ) Female

Part II . 5- Always 4- Often 3- Sometimes 2- Seldom 1- Never

A. Oral Assessment 5 4 3 2 1

1. I can do oral works.

2. I can communicate through verbal.

3. I find oral assessment easier.

4. I can express my thoughts through oral speaking.

5. I find oral assessment difficult.

6. I prefer oral than written.

B. Written Assessment 5 4 3 2 1

1. I can do written works.

2. I find written assessment easier.

3. I can express my thoughts through writing.

4. I like participating in written activities.

5. I find written works difficult.

6. I prefer written than oral.