COMPARATIVE EFFECTS OF PEER TUTORING AND INDIVIDUALIZED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES ON SENIOR SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING COMPREHENSION IN LOKOJA, KOGI STATE

The research study investigated the comparative effects of peer tutoring and individualized instructional strategies on senior school students’achievement in reading comprehension in Lokoja, Kogi State. The sample for the study consisted of 160 SSS2 students from two co-educational schools in Lokoja education zone. Two research questions and two null hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance, guiding the study. The population for the study comprised 14,582 (6,459 males and 8,123 females) senior secondary two (SS2) students for the 2023/2024 academic session. The sample size consisted of 78 experimental group consisted of male and female students, while the control group consisted of 82 male and female students. The research adopted a quasi-experimental design. The students were divided into two groups: one receiving peer tutoring and the other with individualized instruction. Pre-tests and post-tests were administered to measure the students' reading comprehension before and after the intervention. The instrument for data collection was the English Reading Achievement Test (ERAT), which was marked by over fifty. The data collected were analyzed using ANCOVA to determine the effectiveness of each instructional strategy. From the results obtained, it was found that students in the experimental group(peer-tutoring) had significantly higher achievement scores in English reading comprehension than their counterparts who were in the control group (individualized strategy). Also, gender had a significant effect on students' achievement in English reading comprehension. Based on the findings, it was recommended that English language teachers should adopt a peer tutoring strategy in teaching English reading comprehension.