Instruction in Textual Cohesive Conjunctions and Senior Secondary School Students’ Achievement in Essay Writing in the Osogbo Metropolis, Nigeria

This study determined the effect of instruction in textual cohesive conjunctions on students’ achievement in essay writing in Osogbo metropolis, Nigeria. It also examined the moderating effect of vocabulary knowledge on students’ achievement in essay writing. The study adopted the pretest-posttest control group quasi experimental design with a 2 x 3 factorial matrix. The participants were 201 students in intact classes from four purposively selected senior secondary schools in Osogbo metropolis. The instruments used for data collection were Essay Writing Achievement Test (r = .79), Vocabulary Knowledge Test (r = .87), Instructional Guides on Textual Cohesive Conjunctions and Modified Conventional Strategy. Three null hypotheses were generated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data collected were analyzed using ANCOVA and
Estimated Marginal Means. Findings revealed that there was a significant main effect of treatment on students’ achievement in essay writing (F = 41.33; ç2 = .39) as the students instructed in textual cohesive conjunctions had a (4,196) higher mean score in essay writing (10.46) than those taught using modified conventional strategy (4.32). There was a significant main effect of vocabulary knowledge on students’ achievement in essay writing (F = 5.15, ç2 = .05). Students (3, 197) with high vocabulary knowledge had the highest mean score (x = 10.08) followed by those with medium vocabulary knowledge (x = 7.01) and low vocabulary knowledge (x = 6.40). The two-way interaction effect of treatment and vocabulary knowledge was also significant (F = 4.21, ç2 = .006). Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended (11, 189) that: English Language teachers must explicitly teach textual cohesive conjunctions in order to enable students to write
better essays.

Keywords: Textual cohesive conjunctions, essay writing, vocabulary knowledge, achievement in essay writing