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Effectiveness of Activity – Based – Learning Methodology for Elementary School

Education

Paper Submitted for National Child Rights Research Fellowship 2010

CRY

Dr. Prabha Hariharan

Coimbatore

Tamil Nadu

India

April - 2011

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Abstract

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has brought about numerous innovative

methods to bring about changes in the educational practices. In the state of Tamil Nadu,

the elementary schools have started using the methodology called as activity based

learning (ABL) through the SSA. This study investigated the educational experiences and

attainment of learning outcomes of students in class IV who have gone through the ABL

methodology. Classroom observations showed that a good deal of student time is spent

on non-learning related activities for a majority of students. Certain social, emotional and

psychological aspects of classroom behaviour have been seen to be positive in ABL

classes although certain problems were also seen consistently. Students with disabilities

who are included in the regular classes have shown improvements in communication and

certain life skills but not in cognitive skills. Various aspects of the methodology have

been explored to analyze how the activities in the methodology address the issue of

individual differences in learner needs and the cognitive needs of the age group of

elementary school. Learning achievements were seen to be moderate for basic language

and mathematical skills and low for advanced language and mathematical skills. Further

the levels of learning outcomes of public school students was found to be significantly

lower than that of private school students even at basic levels of skills. A set of

recommendations arising out of the study has been presented.

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the Child Rights and You (CRY-India) and their National Child

Rights Research Fellowship (NCRRF) for their funding and support to this research

project.

I would also like to thank the NCRRF team of CRY for the enabling workshop and mid

year workshops they conducted as these were time when I was able to interact with senior

scholars, the selection committee professors and co-fellows whose inputs, feedback and

direction was invaluable for my study.

I am grateful to the State Project Director, Thiru R. Venkatesan, IAS; Joint Director,

Tmt. N. Lata, and the Research co-coordinator, Ms. Nagamani of the Sarva Shiksha

Abhiyan – Tamil Nadu for their permission and guidance for conducting this study.

I am grateful to the District Program Coordinator – Coimbatore, Ms. Kalaivani; Block

supervisor, Ms Gita; the Block Resource Teacher, Ms. Pushpalata; Head of the Integrated

Education Department, Ms Pushpalatha and their staff, and the headmistresses and

teachers of all the participating schools for their co-operation during my study.

I also thank Ms. Kalaiselvi, who worked as my research assistant for her timely

assistance in this project.

My sincere thanks to the documentation center of CRY-Mumbai and Mr. Keith for

providing me necessary documents and reference articles.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family for their unstinting support that

enabled me to work towards this project.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

a. Background and significance of the study 5

b. Framework of „best interest principle‟ for education of the child 9

c. Research questions . 11

2. Literature Review

a. History of elementary education in India 13

b. Activity-based-learning 17

c. Insights into individual differences 18

d. Learning outcomes at end of class IV 23

e. Inclusion of students with disabilities in regular education 24

3. Methodology 25

4. Data Analysis and Results 30

5. Discussion and Conclusion 68

6. Recommendations 78

7. References 81

8. Appendix 83

9. Photos 84

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INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

The Indian Education System has set high constitutional goals of Universalization

of Elementary Education and Education for all. The Right of Children to Free and

Compulsory Education Act of 2009 specified certain aspects of the curriculum and

evaluation procedures in elementary education in its section 29, sub-section (2), clauses

(a) to (h). Of these, it says, in clause (b), that curriculum should take into consideration

„all round development of the child‟, in clause (c) „building up child‟s knowledge,

potential and talent‟, in clause (d) „development of physical and mental abilities to the

fullest extent‟, in clause (e), it says “learning through activities, discovery and

exploration in a child-friendly and child-centered manner” and in clause (g) „make the

child free of fear, trauma and anxiety and helping the child express views freely‟. This

Law has provided the policy direction for implementing high quality education for

children at elementary level (Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act,

2009).

The right to education is a major right that children in our country have (National

Policy on Education, 1986, 1992; Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education

Act, 2009). Unfortunately, in reality, this fundamental right is denied to the most

underprivileged and needy children many times. This denial comes either from the

students‟ own families through negative parental attitudes and/or from the types of

schooling facilities provided to them (De et. al., 1999). Poverty, caste structure and

disability are three main bases that marginalize children leading to their reduced access to

quality education and their exploitation through child labour. Our government schools are

typically tasked with the job of providing education to students at low costs and are the

main place of education for children from the lower socioeconomic classes who

constitute a major proportion of children in our country. Children from dalit, tribal,

female headed and landless families, girl children, and children with disabilities, form a

majority among these marginalized children (De et. al., 1999; Sainath, 1996). Private

schools try to provide better education, but it is only the lesser percentage of children

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from middle to higher socio economic classes that can avail of them. Even these schools

are plagued with problems such as over focus on examinations, high school bag weights

and diminishing but yet omnipresent corporal punishments by teachers.

One major aspect of high quality in education is attainment of high learning

outcomes in the various academic skills and knowledge and when such education is able

to include students with disabilities as much as students without disabilities irrespective

of their socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Elementary education is the first stage

of the school education ladder, which sets the foundation for the rest of school education

and all higher education. Our education system, therefore must build in students the

essential skills and knowledge base that will enable cognitive growth and development

through using these essential skills. These basic skills are reading, writing, listening,

communication, mathematical skills and observation skills (NCF-2005).

Figure 1 conceptualizes our education system as concentric circles where the

outermost circle is the entire system, the second inner circle is the school, the third inner

circle, the classroom and the innermost circle is the student. At each level, philosophies

of education guide curricular decisions and practices. Further, personal philosophies of

teachers and school heads and other individuals at the various hierarchical levels of the

government departments of education also have impact on various decisions taken at the

classroom, school and system levels of education. These in turn have their final impact on

the educational experiences of the child. Children in our schools, especially government

schools, differ in multiple ways not only from each other but also from students studying

in private schools. These differences arise from their socio-economic backgrounds,

cultural backgrounds, ability levels and their natural learning styles.

Traditionally, our pedagogical practices have involved the „one size fits all‟ idea

where there is a lecture method and students who follow the teacher within the time

frame stipulated in the timetable progress while those that don‟t get left behind. Further,

those who get left behind would be detained in the same class leading to negative social,

emotional and psychological effects.

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Figure 1: Our Education System – a diagrammatic conceptualization

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the flagship program of the Indian Government, has

taken up the task of achieving universal elementary education in our country. With its

conception in order to achieve the promise of the 86th

amendment of the Constitution, it

has aimed at bringing back to school all those children who have not been able to avail

education and to improve the quality of education provided to all students. It has been

instrumental in bringing about many important reforms and improvements in our

education system through new initiatives. One such new initiative is the teaching

methodology in elementary schools. This methodology is the activity – based learning

(ABL) method for teaching students at the elementary schools. This method has its

origins in a multi-grade, multi – level methodology created by the Rishi Valley Institute

of Educational Research and the Montessori methods of teaching.

System

School

Classroom

Students

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The ABL method seeks to address some major problems of the traditional lecture

method of teaching. In doing so, it has brought about a paradigm shift in some key

classroom processes such as the role of the teacher and instructional materials and

methods. It was started in Chennai in 2003, first in 13 corporation schools, then in all 264

corporation schools and in 2007 it was upscaled to nearly 37,000 schools across the state

of Tamil Nadu. Its implementation has been made possible with a lot of effort and

resources. Key effectiveness studies, comparing the method with the traditional method

should have been taken up before upscaling but unfortunately, were not done (V.

Vasanthakumari, Dr. S. S. Rajagopalan and Dr. R. Jayakumar, 2008). Further, any

instructional methodology always presents challenges once set out into the field and

needs a lot of research that can provide good evidence of its effectiveness and /or provide

ways to improve its effectiveness. The SSA has been undertaking studies assessing its

impact on various aspects of schooling recently.

However, it again seems to use the „one-size fits all‟ thought. It is important to

address this issue, as any innovation that does not take care of individual student needs

cannot be truly child-centered. Further, it has been noted that the anti-detention policy,

where students are promoted to the next class whether or not they have progressed

cognitively, is adversely affecting the quality of education (EdWatch, 2008). In addition,

previous studies and the nation-wide Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER 2010)

have shown low levels of achievement among government school students. This has been

reported even in the state of Tamil Nadu where the educational innovation of activity-

based-learning (ABL) has been upscaled by the SSA through out the state. The results of

ASER-2010 contradict the reports of the evaluations of ABL done by the SSA (Nehru

and Raghupati, 2011). Many reasons could underlie these discrepancies in assessed

outcomes. These findings underscore the need for independent research to investigate the

quality of learning in our schools. Such research is of extreme importance as it can

generate specific evidence that can form the basis of effective educational reforms.

. This research proposal aims at studying the educational experiences of the

children studying in the ABL methodology and evaluating their learning outcomes

towards the end of fourth standard. It also attempts to assess the quality of learning

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outcomes in comparison to private schools reputed in the society to provide good quality

education.

As of now, educational commission reports and national debates form the basis of

education reform and unfortunately educational research remains an underutilized area.

Educational research is being undertaken by apex bodies of educational research such as

NCERT and NUEPA or by the government itself such as the SSA and there is less of

independent research in the field. Further, student achievements are studied more in

terms of low levels of attainment such as ability of class V students to read class I or class

II books (ASER, 2010). While it is disappointing that even at such low levels of

expectations the results are so abysmal, they also allude to the fact that low expectations

at all levels begets low quality at all levels. If after 93 amendments to our constitutional

law, two major centralized programs and so many innovations, we are still far from the

goal of high quality of education for all India‟s children, there needs to be a major

reconsideration of our philosophies and practices of pedagogy as has been pointed out by

educationists (Sinha, 2006).

It is the researcher‟s belief that if India must serve its children‟s educational needs

with high quality, the education system‟s reforms and innovations should be subjected to

rigorous research. The evidence thus produced must serve with greater weightage as the

basis for reforms in our education system. A shift in instructional methodology from

traditional to any other method will be effective only if the methodology attends to

certain important factors that can positively impact the education of the child and be in

the best interest of the child. A framework of „best interest principle‟ has been proposed

in the following section that can serve as a guide for any reform or innovation in the

education system.

Framework of „Best Interest Principle‟ for education of the child

The best interest principle for the education of all children can be conceived of as

one where students‟ have successful educational experiences in the class and school.

Here the class time should be used in fruitful and effective learning activities. This will

lead to growth of knowledge and skills resulting in all round development of our

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children. This can in turn create knowledgeable and conscientious future citizens who are

intellectually and economically productive and can contribute fruitfully to our society and

nation. Most important of all, such education should be accessible to all our children

irrespective of caste, social class, gender and ability.

To understand the educational experiences of the child, it is very necessary to

identify and understand the factors that influence the educational experiences of the child.

Three such important factors are philosophy guiding the educational system, ideology that

directs curricular practices and knowledge about the students‟ learning needs. Successful

educational experience for a child is like a three-legged stool that is supported by these

three factors as each leg or three vertices of a triangle with the successful education

experience of the child in the center (see figure 2). It can be achieved by making sure that

the curriculum, which includes the goals, instructional materials and methods and

assessments are all guided by these factors and they form the framework of „best interest

principle‟ for education of the child.

Figure 2: Framework of „Best Interest Principle‟ for education of a child

Critical Pedagogy is a science and art of the teaching learning process, which

enables development of attitudes and values of social consciousness, and responsibility

through development of cognitive skills of critical thinking (Panda, 2006; Ramesh Babu,

Philosophy of critical pedagogy to

guide the educational system and

curriculum development

Ideology of constructivist

pedagogy to guide instructional

practices

Knowledge of individual differences

among students to effectively address

each child‟s learning needs

Successful

educational

experiences

for the child

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2007). These skills are in the higher cognitive domain and include analysis, inferences,

application, revisiting and reconsider existing unjust and improper practices in the

society. Attitude of society reflects attitudes of people in schools and vice versa. In doing

so, education acts either as an agent of status quo maintenance or an agent of change

through social transformation. Since critical pedagogy, as a philosophy, has multi

dimensional potential, leading to creation of reflective and responsible democratic

citizenship, it has to be the main guiding philosophy in our education system.

Constructivism is an ideology that originated in the 1700s and has been shown to

be concerned with understanding of what is knowledge and how it develops. According

to constructivism, knowledge is constructed by the knower using the society and the

student‟s own experiences as the reference points for construction of knowledge. Such

learning leads to purposive solutions for meaningful problems (Aggarwal, 2007; Pandey,

2007).

Knowledge of individual differences has been increased owing to the increases in

information in the fields of cognitive developmental neuroscience (Munakata, Casey &

Diamond, 2004) and the realization that neuroscience research can actually help

education of children by understanding how the brain works at different ages and for

different activities (Goswami, 2004). Further theories of multiple intelligences (Howard

Gardner, 1983) and Universal Design for Learning (Rose, Meyer, Rappolt & Strangman,

2002) have shown that students actually vary in their intelligences and learning needs

respectively. Further, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds also predispose children

to differences in learning readiness and privileges, all of which contribute to individual

differences among students.

The framework of best interest principle proposed here is based on these three

fundamental factors that impact the successful educational experience for a child.

Research questions

This research project aims at studying the prevalent instructional practices at the

level of elementary education. Using the framework of „Best Interest Principle”

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constructed in the previous section, the research questions have been framed to address

two important issues – educational experiences and learning outcomes.

Part A: What are the educational experiences of elementary school students being

educated using the ABL methodology?

RQA-1: What kinds of activities are planned for in the ABL methodology to address

individual differences in learning needs?

RQA-2: How much time is actually spent on learning related activities in the classroom

in different subject areas?

RQA-3: What are the experiences of students with disabilities who are included in the

government schools?

Part B: What are the learning outcomes at end of class IV of students educated

using the ABL methodology?

RQB-1 What has been the progress of students in class IV in the ABL levels as the

school year progressed?

RQB-2: What are the learning outcomes of students in public schools in the learning

outcomes assessment test?

RQB-3 What are the differences in learning outcomes in basic and advanced cognitive

skills among the public schools and are there gender differences in these outcomes?

RQB-4 What are the differences between learning outcomes of class IV students in ABL

level four and private school class IV students in basic and advanced cognitive skills?

RQB-5 To what extent does ABL level effect learning outcomes in English and Maths?

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LITERATURE REVIEW

The present literature review will address the key issues that relate to

understanding and implementing effective instructional practices for elementary

education in India. First, the history of elementary education in India will be traced with

reference to policy, pedagogy and quality issues. Then, recent understandings about

individual differences will be reviewed. Third, the methodology activity – based –

learning will be reviewed. Fourth, learning outcomes at the end of class IV will be

reviewed to identify reasonable expectations of learning outcomes at that level. Finally,

the practice of inclusion of students with disabilities in regular education with special

focus on government schools in India will be reviewed.

History of elementary education in India

Education in India was through the Gurukul system up to a few centuries ago till

the beginning of British rule in India. During the British rule, the British brought in their

education system and started schools with the aim to prepare local Indian people for jobs

in the British government in India. In 1947, when India got freedom, the British left India

but left behind certain changes they had made in the country, one of them being the

education system. On January 26th

, 1950, our constitution was formulated and

educational goals for Indian people were rewritten. The first government of free India had

wanted to make sure all children in the age group 6-14 will be educated – Universal

Elementary Education (UEE) with in ten years. Since then, the goal to educate all

children in our country has been attempted in many ways but the deadline of „in the next

ten years‟ has somehow been elusive (EdWatch, 2008; Kingdon, 2007; Yadav, 2007).

Further, education has been confined to literacy and not gone beyond that to educate the

mind and therefore, for generations, our Indian society, is plagued with a multitude of

problems.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training report entitled “India:

Educational policies and curriculum in upper primary and secondary education levels”

details the processes that have gone into formulating revisions to the curriculum through

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out our country. Many processes such as committees and commissions, national debates

and consensus have been used to formulate our educational policies. Unfortunately,

research has not got a mention in being used to guide educational policy. Secondly,

although the National Curriculum Framework (2005) emphasizes development of skills

and knowledge development, our syllabus does not address skill development as primary

areas of focus in the elementary stages. The skills of literacy and numeracy play an

important role in individual productivity and economic productivity (Hanushek, 2005, cf.

Kingdon, 2007).

Table 1 summarizes the major educational policies and programs of the

Government of India. Initially, post-independence, education was put in the State list

while deciding whose responsibility it would be to plan the educational services. At that

time, it was observed that many problems existed in the way education was provided in

the different states. After the Education Commission (1964-66) and the report for the

National Policy on Education (1968), it was decided that education would be moved to

the Concurrent list from the State list so that both the Center and the States would take

the responsibility of providing education to its children (Yadav, 2007). Subsequently, the

National Policy on Education (NPE) Act was passed in 1975 and further revised in 1986

and then in 1992. At these times, education and employment for students and people with

disabilities was also getting increasing importance and in 1975, the Indian Government

passed Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act. In spite of all these efforts, the goal of

Universal Elementary Education (UEE) and Education for All (EFA) seemed elusive,

Hence the Indian Government passed the Right to Education (RTE) Bill in 2010 with a

view to achieve our Constitution‟s goal of UEE and education for all (EFA).

In 1975, for the first time, a school curriculum framework was set up that would

guide the state education agencies in planning the curriculum, syllabus, instructional

methods and other schooling practices. This was the Ten-year school curriculum

framework and got revised in 1086, 2000 and 2005 subsequently. Presently, it is the

National Curriculum Framework-2005, which is the center‟s curriculum guide to all

states. Yadav (2007) has found that although the Nation Curriculum Framework (2000

and 2005) is the Center‟s guidance providing framework, its implementation varies

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largely among the States and Union Territories, regarding the subject areas, number of

hours of school, duration allotted to each class period, number of working days etc.

Table 1: Policy and programs guiding elementary instruction in India

Time Line Policy Practice

1950-1959 Framing of the Constitution of India, and

first five-year plan

1960-1969 Education Commission (1964-66),

National Policy on Education (NPE)

(1968)

Education moves from State list to

Concurrent list hence becomes the

responsibility of both the center and the

states.

1970-1979 Persons with Disabilities, Act (PWD) Ten-Year School Curriculum Framework

– 1975

1980-1989 NPE-revised - 1986

PWD-revised

School curriculum framework revised -

1988

1990-1999 District Primary Education Program

launched in 1994

2000-2009 Right to Free and Compulsory Education

Act – 2009

School curriculum framework revised –

2000, nation curriculum framework-2000

and 2005. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – 2001

came into being to make operational the

goal for Universal Elementary Education.

initiation and pilot of ABL through SSA

in TN during 2005-6 and upscaled to

entire state in 2007.

2010-2011 Different states implement school

curriculum in a different way.

The need to improve access and quality of education was felt and hence the

District Primary Education Program was set up by the Government in 1994 followed by

the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), which was set up in 2001, and was considered as the

flagship program of the Government in order to realize the goals of UEE and EFA. Under

the SSA, many innovations in educational practices were being initiated.

The multifold goals of the SSA included quality improvements in infrastructure

and educational practices in schools. For example, improvement in quality through

community ownership, improvement in student-teacher ratio, teacher training, facilitating

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development of teaching-learning materials, and providing textbooks and introducing

innovative methods of instruction (http://www.indiaedu.com/education-india/elementary-

education.html). All the same, evaluation of the innovative programs is still at its infancy

and needs much more research based data, which is heavily lacking (Kingdon, 2007).

In 2005, a Mumbai-based NGO, Pratham, began an independent national level

rural education status survey called the ASER (Annual Survey of Education Report).

According to, Nehru and Raghupati (2011) the latest ASER report (2010) shows that

primary education standards have not shown many improvements in learning outcomes in

reading and mathematics in spite of the many innovations and changes brought about by

the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan since 2001. There have however been improvements in

enrolments, reduction in drop out rate, improvements in infrastructure facilities in schools

but there has also been a reduction in already low standards due to the well-intentioned

anti-retention practices followed by the RTE Act, 2009. The need for clear delineation of

learning outcomes and better pedagogical practices and assessments has been emphasized

by educationists (Kingdon, 2007; Yadav, 2007).

Pedagogy, the science of teaching, involves instructional methods, materials and

learning activities directed by these. Just as the national policy and programs have been

constantly reviewed to improve educational services to India‟s children, the pedagogical

practices too have undergone radical transformations recently. Traditionally, the lecture

methods of teaching were in use at all stages of schooling where the teacher was

considered the giver of information and students as the passive recipients of information.

The major instructional materials were textbooks that were written for specified age

groups and for particular subjects. The major learning activity was listening and writing

from the textbook or from the blackboard.

This paradigm has been changed in the newer methodology of activity – based

learning which was piloted in a few schools in Chennai and in now being implemented in

the entire state of Tamil Nadu. Here the teacher is considered as the facilitator and the

students are self-learning through the medium of a detailed array of learning cards

(Anandalakshmi, 2007). Other methods such as cooperative learning have also been

suggested as alternatives to lecture method (Sirohi, 2006). Insights into the developing

http://www.indiaedu.com/education-india/elementary-education.html


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brain‟s learning processes and the growing child‟s learning needs provides great potential

to create effective pedagogical practices.

Quality issues in our education system have been raised by many educationists

(De et al., 1996; Kingdon, 2007; Yadav, 2007). These include poor infrastructure

facilities, motivation and commitment of teachers, respect for the child‟s time in school.

In addition, the philosophies that guide our pedagogical practices also need to change.

According the Ramesh Babu (2007), presently, conformist pedagogical practices are

being followed and these just reinforce a status quo among the younger generation. What

is needed for education to be an agent of social change is a philosophical change from

conformist to critical pedagogy and this can improve quality of education.

Individual differences and cognitive needs

Individual difference among students in a classroom is a well-known fact.

Understanding of these individual differences has increased tremendously due to

advances in the fields of psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In addition, cultural

backgrounds and socio-economic backgrounds pre-dispose students to different

privileges and create differences in academic advantages. Some of these factors are

parental education, attitudes towards education, and parental support to academics, all of

which determines student‟s time spent on academic activities at home and influence their

overall academic achievement. It has been shown that students from „other‟, „OBC‟, and

„SC‟ categories differ in their learning achievement at each of the elementary grades

using ABL methodology (Vijay Kumar, Venkatesan, Kannappan & Sekhar, 2009).

Further, different learning behaviours such as active, passive and off-task have shown

differences in learning achievements at different grades (ibid). In addition, there are

natural attentional and learning ability variations in the developmental stages of 5-11

years of age. The cumulative effect of these factors leads to differences in individual

needs for learning effectively.

It has been shown that there are sensitive periods in learning during development.

During these times, learning is high. It is important to be able to provide rich learning

environment during this period. Howard Gardner (1983) has described that students differ

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in their intelligences and that there are at least seven different types of intelligences.

Further, according to the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST, Inc), students

belong to a range of abilities for learning different skills. This understanding was based

on information gleaned from the fields of neuroscience and psychology. Based on this,

the center promoted the paradigm of universal design for learning, which asks

educational planners to proactively plan for this wide range of learning needs. They say

that by doing so, it is possible to include students with disabilities and also serve the

individual needs of the student population (Rose, Meyer, Strangman & Dalton, 2002).

The process of learning comprises of three components – information input,

information processing and expression of information or knowledge. In each of these

components, students show differences. For example, in information input, which also

means the way students receive information to be learnt, some students could be visual

learners while others could be auditory or kinesthetic learners. In terms of information

processing, some students may use top-down processing or bottoms-up processing. This

depends both on the learner as well as the nature of skill or knowledge to be learned.

With respect to expression of knowledge or skill learned, some students may be better at

writing, some at drawing or verbalizing (Rose, Meyer, Strangman & Dalton, 2002). It is

important that the instructional methodology proactively plans for such differences to

achieve high quality educational experiences and learning outcomes for all students.

Activity-based-learning

According to the Wikipedia, “learning is acquiring new knowledge,

behaviour, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing

different types of information”. Further, it is a ” process that brings together cognitive,

emotional and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing or

making changes to one‟s knowledge, skills and world view (Illeris, 2000; Ormorod,

1995)”. For learning to take place, it is necessary that the student understands and

engages with the information to be learnt. It is also important that the student processes

the information with higher level thinking such as comprehension, analysis, synthesis,

application, and metacognition. When this happens, the student is able to relate the

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information to any life situation, connect it with past learning, build his or her own

knowledge (Garner, 1987) and become a knowledgeable and contributing citizen as an

adult.

One important method of facilitating such engagement with information is

through activity. The dictionary definition of „activity‟, especially for elementary school

students is „work that involves direct experience by the student rather than textbook

study‟. Thus, activity-based learning, should allow students to engage with and process

information in such a way that he understands and builds his knowledge about a

particular subject. An outcome of successful learning would be that the student has

acquired the basic literacy skills and is able to apply this knowledge or skill learnt in a

relevant situation.

The idea of activity-based learning follows the constructivist educational

theory and is child-centered pedagogy. Activity-based learning may be defined as a

method of instruction, where activities of different types, suitable and relevant to specific

subjects are integrated seamlessly into the regular instructional materials and methods to

involve students in the teaching – learning or instructional processes and engage them

fruitfully (Suydam and Higgins, 1977).

In the state of Tamil Nadu, the activity – based learning method of instruction

in elementary schools was introduced as an innovation by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of

Tamil Nadu to improve the quality of teaching in government schools and promote

universal education in India. It began as a pilot project with 13 Chennai corporation

schools in 2003, was extended to 264 corporation schools in Chennai in 2004 and then

upscaled to nearly 40,000 government schools in the state of Tamil Nadu

(http://www.ssa.tn.nic.in/CurrActivities-A.htm). This method proposes to enable students

to learn at their own pace and engage in self learning, group learning and mutual learning

to a greater extent.

Traditional classroom practices have been known to have many limitations

such as large student-teacher ratio, teacher‟s role as giver of information rather than as a

facilitator of learning, fear of the teacher‟s rod, problems due to student and teacher

absenteeism, heavy schoolbags, central role of textbooks as the source of information.

Further, many rural and urban schools function with just one teacher so all students have

http://www.ssa.tn.nic.in/CurrActivities-A.htm

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to be combined into a single or few numbers of classes resulting in multi-grade

classrooms. This inadvertently posed major challenges for the teacher as to which groups

of children would she teach and when and how.

The ABL methodology has been able to overcome many of these barriers.

Initial studies by SchoolScape and SSA (2008) have shown the physical, emotional and

social environment of the schools have improved compared to prior to ABL introduction.

Improvements were also seen in the ways students were assessed and given feedback

about their academic work periodically. It is also expected to modify the role of the

teacher from that of a giver of information to facilitator of learning. It is expected to

allow teachers use their time judiciously for students in different learning levels so that

all types of learners are equally benefited. This method has been tried out in certain other

states such as Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh

In this method, the textbook is replaced by cards. These cards are prepared

from units in the textbooks. There are cards for introducing the topic, learning it,

reinforcing it and testing it. These cards include activities, both individual and group.

(Anandalakshmi, 2007). The cards are arranged in order of milestones. Four sets of

milestones have been grouped into four ladders called levels 1-4 and each ladder or level

is colour coded. Each milestone and each activity within it is represented by icons. Each

ladder for each subject is displayed on a chart in every classroom. Students are expected

to know which card they are on and get the appropriate cards from the card boxes, which

are systematically arranged with the relevant icon labels, in the classroom. Students work

either individually or in groups. Sometimes, students in higher levels help students at

lower levels. The teacher-student ratio is reduced to 1:1 where the teacher attends to only

one child at a time. A teacher-student ratio of 1:1 was found to be most beneficial for

students in summative achievement tests as compared to conventional instructions with

1:30 and mastery learning method which also has the same ratio but a more aggressive

formative evaluation regime (Bloom, 1984). Students who are absent need not worry

about portion missed during their absence since they can continue from where they left

when they return to class.

This methodology has been much appreciated and largely implemented

within a short span of time and its effectiveness on student learning needs to be studied

ABL Methodology

21

more extensively. Further, although the impact of this method on students‟ learning has

been reported as successful (Anandalakshmi, 2007; SchoolScape, 2008), certain problems

were seen to exist. Some of these were that teachers were not able to give enough time to

slow learners, and class management (V. Vasanthakumari, Dr. S. S. Rajagopalan and Dr.

R. Jayakumar, 2008).

Activity based learning entails different types of activities in different subjects as

the nature and types of learning differs for different subjects. For example, science

instruction at elementary level has been shown to involve direct experience and

observations and these have been called „activity‟ (Bredderman, 1983). But in our

system, traditionally and recently, the same methodology is used for all subjects. Before

it was textbooks and the lecture method while now it is cards and the ABL method. TO

what extent do the activities specified in the ABL methodology address the individual

differences in learning needs of students, however, has not yet been studied.

A research project was undertaken as the need for independent research in ABL

was felt by the SSA-TN (Prema, Subbiah, Ramnath & Subramanian, 2009). In this study,

the different aspects of the ABL methodology have been investigated using percentage

analysis from questionnaire that aimed at investigating the overall impact of key

dimensions of the ABL methodology. Student, teachers‟ and parents‟ views about the

merits and demerits of the method were also analyzed.

According to the study, the main tenets of the method, which were to make the

classroom more student-friendly and reduce the intimidation and domination of the

teacher, were fulfilled most of the times. The study reported on logistic aspects such as

students' frequency of replacing cards, knowledge of their card and level in the ABL

chart, learning levels, sitting according to cards, and knowing their group. It reported that

rote memorization was discouraged and children learn happily. It also found that students

were singing well and were able to dramatize well. The study applauds ABL

methodology's requirement of making students sit on mats as "Most of the children sit on

mats. Thanks to ABL approach which has helped in providing this simple cost-effective

seating arrangements.” The skills assessed through an observation schedule were

reading, writing, narrating stories, dramatization, singing, collecting information, using

low level black board, indoor and outdoor play activities, general personal hygiene and

ABL Methodology

22

knowledge on weather condition. The study also raised important concerns which were

that nearly 46% students did not perform at their grade level, memory of student's

learning was less, dull students don‟t get attention of the teacher, advanced mathematical

abilities are not given enough attention in the method teachers found it difficult to sit on

the floor all day.

Another research study on time spent by students and teachers on specific tasks,

conducted by the SSA-TN (Vijay Kumar, Venkatesan, Kannappan & Sekhar, 2009),

showed that 63% of teacher's time was spent on interaction with students and 50% of

their time was spend giving individualized attention, one third of their time was spent

with group of children and about 10% of their time was spent address the whole class.

Teacher's time was categorized as student-centric activities and this included - 'replying

questions and providing clarifications‟, „asking questions, providing feedback to

individual students', 'demonstration and use of TLM/TLE materials and helping students

with 'project work/creative work'. Of the 57% time students spent on the student-centric

activities, only about 6-7% of the time was spent on learning related activities of

demonstration and use of TLMs and help on project and creative work. Rest of the time

was spent on all other activities mentioned above. This, according to the authors was in

line with the specifications of the ABL methodology. The authors classify 'observing and

supervising student activities', 'lecturing and explaining verbally', 'writing on the

blackboard and explaining' and 'giving dictation' as 'teacher-centric activities' however it

is not clear why these would be teacher-centric as they are as important in students'

learning as „demonstrations and projects‟. The study showed less time being devoted for

the 'teacher-centric activities'. Supportive instructional activities were 'correcting

homework or test papers' and 'giving homework or assignments'.

Student activities were classified as active, passive, mechanical, class

management and off-task activities. Of these maximum time (57.91%) was spent on

active learning activities. These activities included - studying on their own, doing

assignments, peer learning, seeking clarifications, use of TLE/TLM materials and project

and creative work. Of these, only 0.5% time was spent on project and creative work and

most time (24%) was spent on studying n their own. Based on composite score of grade

level, number of milestones completed in the ladder, current milestone and percentage of

ABL Methodology

23

marks in the latest milestone, student achievement was evaluated. A satisfactory score

was decided to be when a student achieved at least 50% score on the composite score. It

was seen that progress of learning was not much in grade one but improved tremendously

in grade 2,3 and 4 and was best in grade 4.

Learning outcomes at end of class IV

Learning outcomes has been a very unclear area and it has been studied

differently in different studies. While the National Curriculum Framework, 2005,

specified that assessment of language must be skill based and not syllabus based, it also

points to the need for national benchmarks for language proficiency. The skills

mentioned in the NCF-2005 are reading, writing, listening and speech. Similarly, in

mathematics, the narrow aim is to develop „useful‟ capabilities relating to numbers and

numeracy e.g. operations, and measurement. The higher aim is to develop mathematical

thinking and reasoning ability, for logical problem solving using appropriate assumptions

and to develop the attitude for problems solving.

In order to be more specific about learning outcomes, our education system came

out with specific Minimum Levels of Learning (MLLs) for each subject, at end of each

class. In the ABL methodology, learning outcomes have been conceptualized based on

amount of instructional material covered using a composite score as a function of card

and milestone reached in the ABL methodology (Vijay Kumar,Venkatesan, Kannappan

& Sekhar, 2009). The Annual Survey of Education Report, however, considers ability to

read class I and class II textbooks as the benchmark for learning achievement (ASER,

2007). Assessments done by EdInitiatives are by far the most skill based and well tested

assessment of learning outcomes so far (Education Initiatives, 2006). But this is not free

hence is mostly used by private schools in different parts of the country.

ABL Methodology

24

Inclusion of students with disabilities in regular education

Inclusion of students with disabilities is a relatively new idea in India and

although it has found place in the nation‟s law (National Policy on Education, 1992),

efforts at many levels need to be undertaken to make it a reality for students with

disabilities. All the same, for students with cognitive disabilities, inclusion has been the

automatic (Mani, 2005) partly due to ignorance of such problems and partly due to

existing low standards of public education.

Inclusive education basically refers to inclusion of students with disabilities in

general education classrooms. In inclusive education, the education system and the

school makes adaptations in the educational practices to include the student with

disability whereas in an integrated education system, the child is mainstreamed into the

regular classroom and expected to make adaptations to learn there (Swarup, 2006). An

example of how learning difficulties can be addressed by adapting instructional materials

is in reading difficulties. Different adaptations such as providing shortened passages,

more detailed passages and graphically organized text can help students with different

types of difficulties in reading (Dyck and Pemberton, 2002). Further, assistive technology

can be used in different ways to address the varying difficulties in reading in the

classroom (Edyburn, 2003).

The concept if inclusive education originated in west and has been brought to

India through international laws and presently forms an important aspect of education of

students with disabilities in our country (Das and Kattumuri, nd). According to Das and

Kattumuri (n.d.), an educational service for students with special needs in inclusive

settings requires one special education teacher per school. All the same, the concept of

inclusion seems to be very different in our country and not properly understood by all the

stakeholders of our education system (Singal, 2006).

ABL Methodology

25

METHODOLOGY

The present research study was conducted in order to understand the ABL

methodology used in Tamil Nadu government schools with respect to the nature of

activities, nature and use of classroom time for children and teachers, inclusion of

students with disabilities in the classroom, and learning outcomes. It also aimed at

studying the learning outcomes in relation to the traditional methods of instruction at

elementary school level used in private schools.

Research questions








government schools?



RQB-1 What has been the progress of students in class IV in the ABL levels as the

school year progressed?

RQB-2: What are the learning outcomes of students in public schools in the learning

outcomes assessment test?

RQB-3 What are the differences in learning outcomes in basic and advanced cognitive


RQB-4 What are the differences between learning outcomes of class IV students in ABL


RQB-5 To what extent does ABL level effect learning outcomes in English and Maths?

ABL Methodology

26

Since the research questions seek to investigate experiences of children in the

classroom implementing a prevalent instructional methodology and the learning

outcomes of students in class IV, both qualitative and quantitative research methods have

been used in this study. Therefore this research study uses a mixed method approach.

Qualitative methods used are classroom observations, study of instructional materials,

collection of achievement data from school records, and case studies (Morse and

Richards, 2002). Learning outcomes were measured by constructing a simple oral and

written test designed to evaluate specific skills and knowledge levels. The scores

obtained from these tests were used to conduct ANOVAs to test differences and

understand the patterns of learning outcomes (Maxwell and Delaney, 2004).

Sample selection

A sample of 10 Panchayat Union Schools under one cluster resource center

(CRC) of Thondamuthur Block in Coimbatore District in Tamil Nadu was chosen for this

study. The researcher acquired required permission to conduct the research study from

the State Project Director (SPD) of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – Tamil Nadu, Chennai and

subsequently from the Chief Education Officer, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – Coimbatore

(see appendix A).

Data Collection

Demographic data

Demographic data regarding school, teachers and students was collected from

these schools in the month of October. During this visit, the researcher introduced herself

and the research project to the school heads, gave a copy of the letter of permission from

the SPD, and planned a schedule for classroom observations and tests.

Classroom observations

In the month of November, classroom observations were started. Five sessions of

45 minutes each, one for each subject, were done in each school. Initially, three

classroom observation sessions for the whole of one class session was done. One ABL

class was from 9.40 – 12.40 with a ten-minute break at 11.00. During this time, the

different activities in the class were noted and it was observed that these activities were

repeated throughout the ABL class. A study conducted by SSA (Vijaykumar,

ABL Methodology

27

Venkatesan, Kannappan & Sekhar, 2009) used a duration of 40 minutes for classroom

observation, which was broken down into ten 4-minute blocks during which observers

were asked to observe for 2 minutes and note down observations for 2 minutes. This was

a highly structured way of observation but couldn‟t gather data on the subjective

experiences and phenomenon in the classroom. Hence, the researcher decided to make

three – four slots of 15 minutes each, during which she would observe and note down

essential data as well as note down other processes in the classroom. The duration of the

observation session reduced for another five sessions to one hour and then to 45 minutes

as it was reasoned that one session of three 15-minute slots would reasonably capture the

happenings in one ABL class. The activities in 45 minutes of a two and half class period

would be representative of educational experience of the child in these classes. So if

students are not attentively working on their learning activity for even 15 minutes during

a 45 minute period of their class, then their active engagement in learning in their class

would be questionable. As a corollary to this, if on average, students spend more time

being distracted in a 15-minute period, this would mean that the method used is unable to

keep students actively engaged in learning for even 15 minutes. A detailed description of

the method of classroom observation used in this study follows.

Each classroom observation session of 45 minutes was divided into three 15-

minute slots. Three columns were made such that one column was for each 15 minute

slot. Here, the number of students who were working with cards (reading from cards,

writing in their slate, notebook or blackboard from the card), number of students who

were keeping the card in their hand but not working with it, the number of students who

were not working with cards at all (talking, walking around, fighting, sitting simply

without doing any thing), the number of students who were at the card stand for a long

time, the number of students who were with the teacher, the number of students who

were waiting for the teacher‟s attention were noted. With regards to the teacher‟s

activities, teacher‟s attention to students who needed her guidance, to students who were

away from her but were making noise and being distracted, or not attending to their

cards, the methods used by teachers for class control were noted. In addition, the use of

group time as per the ABL ladder charts and supplementary readers provided by the SSA

were also observed.

ABL Methodology

28

A total of 50 classroom observations were planned out of which 43 were

completed and 7 could not be done due to scheduling conflicts. The data analysis was

done for data from the 43 sessions, which is 86% of the planned observations.

ABL level progress data

In the month of October, the researcher visited all the ten schools and obtained the

distribution of class IV students in each ABL level in each subject from each school. This

data was collected again at the end of January and finally at the year end (end of April).

This data was from the achievement records that the teachers maintain as per the ABL

methodology. It is in the form of a huge chart that has the milestones in the columns and

a set of four rows for each child, each row for each ABL level. Teachers have to make a

tick mark in each corresponding square for a child and the milestone completed by that

child in the row corresponding to the ABL level he or she is in. The levels are indicated

by using different colours - red is for level 1, green for level 2, blue is for level 3 and

yellow is for level 4.

ABL materials data

The data for analysis of ABL materials was made by analyzing the instructions

and activities in 10 cards each in milestones 0-5 in ABL ladder or level 4, milestones 6 –

10 in level 4, milestone 11 and above in level 4 for each subject. These activities for

information input, processing and expression for each card were identified. These were

then analyzed to find the pattern of types of activities used for each stage of learning

Learning Outcomes assessments

An oral and written test was administered to all students in class IV who have

reached ABL level 4 in at least one subject. The same written test was also administered

to class IV students of two private schools following the CBSE syllabus and who were

using the traditional methods of instruction to a large extent. In addition, the private

schools were chosen because these schools offer syllabus and curriculum, which has a

reputation in the society as being the best in our country.

The learning outcomes assessment oral test was for Tamil and English and written

test had separate sections for each subject – Tamil, English, Maths and Environmental

Science. Each section carried a total score of 24 points (inclusive of orals in the

languages). The questions were made such that they were to assess specific skills. In the

ABL Methodology

29

oral tests (Tamil and English) the skills tested were reading words, simple sentences and

speaking skills of questioning and sharing ideas. In languages, in the written tests,

vocabulary, simple and higher-order comprehension and writing skills were assessed. In

maths, number concept, basic arithmetic and advanced maths in terms of word problems,

application of arithmetic to time and money were assessed. In environmental science,

basic and common knowledge in science and social science were assessed. The tests were

prepared in Tamil and in English. The Tamil version was for public schools and the

English version was for the private schools. While evaluating the test responses, care was

taken to make sure the skill tested in each question was kept in mind.

The test was first created and piloted with two public school students from

another block and the tests were shown to their tuition teacher and one public school

teacher from the block where study was conducted. The test was revised based on the

pilot responses and inputs received from the teacher and tuition teacher.

Oral tests were conducted in Tamil and English in the public schools. These tests

were not conducted in the private schools due to time restrictions, but a random sample of

five children from both the private schools were given the oral test just to see how these

students do in these tests.

Case studies

In order to address the research question on inclusion of students with disabilities

in regular classrooms, five case studies were conducted. Of these, four students attended

government schools and one student attended a private school. Of the four students two

were diagnosed with mental retardation (MR), one with Down‟s syndrome and the fourth

with muscular dystrophy. The one student in private school had visual impairment. Data

from records, if available, was obtained for each of these students. Informal interviews

with the regular education teachers in schools, special education teachers at the Integrated

Education Department (IED) center, peers and parents where possible were done.

Data Analysis

Research questions in part A were analyzed using qualitative research methods

while those in Part B, were analyzed using quantitative methods. The analyses and the

results are presented in the next section.

ABL Methodology

30

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Analysis of demographic data obtained showed that 80%y percent of the schools

in sample that participated in this study were rural and 20% were urban. All of the

schools served students from lower socio economic backgrounds, few of them including

students from lower middle socio economic backgrounds. The caste-wise distribution of

the student population in the sample in this study was BC-43.78%, MBC-21.12%, SC-

20.19%, ST-1.55% and DNC-0.3%. On an average, about 55% of the total number of

students in the schools, availed of the mid-day-meal scheme while about 68% of students

in class IV availed of the mid-day-meal scheme. The average age of students in the

sample was 9years.

Parental education levels on an average were upto 6th

standard for both mothers

and fathers. It must be noted here that there were few cases where students were not able

to provide their parents‟ levels of education. This has been treated as missing data and

hence those cases were excluded for obtaining the averages. Further, on an average, 23%

students in class IV attended preschool programs of LKG and UKG, while most of the

rest attended balwadis and directly went to class I.

The research questions in this study address two major aspects of our education

system in relation to the ABL methodology. These are educational experiences in the

classroom and learning outcomes.



Classroom time constitutes the most important time for a child in the classroom.

Learning experiences in the classroom are therefore extremely important experiences for

the child as they directly and indirectly influence their learning and their motivation and

ability to learn. The direct influences of classroom experiences are those facilitated by the

instructional methods used while the indirect influences are the social, emotional and

psychological aspects of the classroom that influence learning in the classroom. Part A is

addressed using a set of research questions that seek to understand the educational

experiences in the classroom through analysis of the instructional materials used by the

ABL method and direct observations of the ABL classes.

ABL Methodology

31



For this research question, first, activities in ABL cards were identified, for e.g. „do‟,

„read‟, „talk‟ or listen‟ etc. Since learning is understood as comprising of three essential

aspects, information input, information processing, and skills/knowledge expression, the

activities were categorized into which aspect they fell. Thereafter, percentage analysis

was done to study the types of activities that supported each aspect of the learning

process.

Each milestone has a group of 9 – 14 logos each of which represented a particular

type of activity and is given in a ABL card. These logos were repeated in the milestones

and new logos were introduced as the milestones proceeded upwards. A chart for each

ABL ladder or level for each subject was hung on the walls of the classroom. In these

charts, the ladder began from the bottom, with milestone 0 or 1 and went upwards using

the logo icons with the last milestone on the top of the chart. The total number of

milestones in each ladder in each subject is given in Table A1-1. There are totally about

260 milestones and a corresponding approximate 2600 ABL cards.

Table A1-1: Number of milestones in each ABL ladder or level in each subject.

Subject ABL level 1 ABL level 2 ABL level 3 ABL level 4

Tamil 16 16 16 18

English 12 12 12 12

Maths 12 16 19 17

Science 13 13 13 14

Social Science - - 14 15

The activities in each level or ladder incorporated games, drawing and colouring,

and interesting stories, which could help engagement of students in the learning activity.

Students and teachers in eight of the ten schools sat down on floor mats while in two of

the schools there were little tables and chairs for students (donated by some people or

agency) and chair and a table for the teacher. In one of the eight schools where students

ABL Methodology

32

sat on the floor, short tables were provided for writing and the teacher had a table and

chair.

In order to understand the types of activities that supported and facilitated

learning in each subject, the activities in level 4 were categorized into according to the

those that supported receiving information or information input, processing information

and expressing information. This is shown in table A1-2 below.

Table A1-2: Activities in the ABL methodology according to how they support learning.

a. Tamil

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00act

do

dra

w

liste

n

not

observ

e

pla

y

read

searc

h

see

show

talk

thin

k

write

Tamil

input activity percent

processing activity percent

output activity percent

Subject Activity

Input activity

percent

Processing

activity percent

Output

activity

percent

Tamil act 0.00 3.33 0.00

do 0.00 16.67 0.00

draw 10.00 10.00 7.50

listen 10.00 6.67 0.00

not clear 0.00 0.00 5.00

observe 0.00 0.00 0.00

play 3.33 0.00 2.50

read 56.67 20.00 12.50

search 0.00 3.33 0.00

see 20.00 3.33 10.00

show 0.00 0.00 10.00

talk 10.00 16.67 37.50

think 0.00 13.33 0.00

write 3.33 10.00 2.50

ABL Methodology

33

b. English

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

70.00

80.00

90.00

act

do

dra

w

liste

n

not

observ

e

pla

y

read

searc

h

see

show

talk

thin

k

write

English total = 31




c. Maths.

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

70.00

act

do

dra

w

liste

n

not

observ

e

pla

y

read

searc

h

see

show

talk

thin

k

write

Maths total = 29




subject activity

input activity

percent

processing

activity percent

output

activity

percent

English act 0.00 0.00 3.23

total = 31 do 0.00 3.23 0.00

draw 0.00 0.00 0.00

listen 6.45 6.45 0.00

not clear 0.00 0.00 3.23

observe 0.00 0.00 0.00

play 3.23 3.23 3.23

read 80.65 45.16 0.00

search 0.00 0.00 0.00

see 16.13 12.90 0.00

show 0.00 0.00 0.00

talk 0.00 6.45 54.84

think 0.00 19.35 0.00

write 0.00 3.23 35.48

subject activity

input activity

percent

processing

activity percent

output

activity

percent

Maths act 0.00 0.00 0.00

total = 29 do 34.48 20.69 34.48

draw 0.00 0.00 0.00

listen 0.00 34.48 0.00

not clear 0.00 0.00 0.00

observe 0.00 0.00 0.00

play 0.00 0.00 0.00

read 41.38 3.45 0.00

search 0.00 0.00 0.00

see 20.69 0.00 0.00

show 0.00 0.00 0.00

talk 0.00 0.00 0.00

think 3.45 41.38 0.00

write 0.00 0.00 65.52

ABL Methodology

34

d. Science

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

70.00

80.00

90.00

act

do

dra

w

liste

n

not

observ

e

pla

y

read

searc

h

see

show

talk

thin

k

write

Science total = 29




e. Social Science

0.005.00

10.0015.0020.0025.0030.0035.0040.0045.0050.00

act

do

dra

w

liste

n

not

observ

e

pla

y

read

searc

h

see

show

talk

thin

k

write

Social

Science

total = 30




Data in the tables (a-e) in Table A1-2, have been collated to present the activities

in the decreasing order of occurrence as shown in table A1-3. In table A1-3, the activities

in italics are those that occur less than 10.5 percent times which amounts to 3 to 4 cards

subject activity

input activity

percent

processing

activity percent

output activity

percent

Science act 0.00 0.00 0.00

total = 29 do 0.00 27.59 10.34

draw 0.00 0.00 0.00

listen 0.00 0.00 0.00

not clear 0.00 0.00 0.00

observe 0.00 6.90 0.00

play 0.00 0.00 0.00

read 82.76 37.93 0.00

search 0.00 0.00 0.00

see 13.79 13.79 0.00

show 0.00 0.00 10.34

talk 0.00 0.00 55.17

think 0.00 10.34 0.00

write 0.00 0.00 20.69

subject activity

input

activity

percent

processing

activity

percent

output

activity

percent

Social Science act 0.00 0.00 20.00

total = 30 do 23.33 16.67 0.00

draw 0.00 6.67 0.00

listen 0.00 0.00 0.00

not clear 0.00 0.00 30.00

observe 0.00 0.00 0.00

play 0.00 0.00 0.00

read 30.00 0.00 0.00

search 0.00 0.00 0.00

see 16.67 13.33 0.00

show 0.00 0.00 16.67

talk 16.67 43.33 26.67

think 0.00 6.67 0.00

write 0.00 3.33 3.33

ABL Methodology

35

in this sample of 29-31 cards per subject at ABL level or ladder four. The activities that

occur between 10.5 and 50% times (about 4 to 15 cards out of ~30) are shown in regular

font. Activities occurring between 50% and 75% (about 22-23 cards out of ~30) are

shown in bold font and those occurring more than 75% times are shown in bold and

underlined fonts.

It can be seen from this table that „reading‟ is the most used activity for input of

information for English, Science and Tamil and is used moderately in maths and social

science. Most of the activities are used moderately for processing while for output of

information, „talking‟ and „writing‟ are mostly used activities.

Table A1-3: Activities in descending order of occurrence for the three processes in

learning in each subject.

Subject Input activity Processing

activity

Output activity

Tamil Read, see,

draw/listen/talk*,

play/write.

Read, do/talk,

think,

draw/write,

search/see

Talk, read,

see/show, draw,

not clear,

play/write

English Read, see, listen,

play

Read, think,

see, listen/talk,

do/write

Talk, write,

act/not

clear/play

Maths Read, do, see,

think

Think, listen,

do, read

Write, do

Science Read, see Read, do, see,

think, observe

Talk, write,

do/show

Social Science Read, do,

see/talk

Talk, do, see,

draw/think,

write

Not clear, talk,

act, show, write

Note: * activities occurring in the same percentage are separated by „/‟. Activities that

occur less than 10.5 % times are shown in italics, 10.6% - 49% as normal font, 50% -

74% in bold font and those more than 75% times are shown in bold font and underlined.

ABL Methodology

36

Many times, the output activities was „not clear‟ and this was because the card

required the student to read and understand the card and did not have any specific

expression of learning. Many cards related to the life experiences of the children and the

milestones included drawing and story dramatization cards etc that supported engagement

of students in the learning activity.



This research question was investigated using classroom observations. The ABL

classes were of four student compositions. In the first one, all four classes (I-IV) would

be combined. In the second, classes I and II would be combined and classes III and IV

would be combined. In the third, classes I and II would be combined and classes III and

IV would be separate. In the fourth composition, one and a half classes would be

combined into one ABL class. That is, class I and half of class II, second half of class II

and half of class III, second half of class III and class IV would be combined together.

Although the plan of composition of ABL classes would be done based on the number of

teachers and the class strengths in classes I to IV, many times this composition would

default to students from all classes in one ABL class due to teacher absence.

A total of 50 classroom observations were planned such that five observations,

one in each subject, could be done in each of the 10 schools. But due to scheduling

conflicts, only 43 observations could be done, which is 86% of the total number planned

(see table 2A-1). The data presented here, comes from this 86% of classroom

observations conducted. The general classes observed were done, as at that time, teachers

were absent on account of census and election duties.

Table A2-1: Number of classrooms observations done in each subject area.

Tamil English Maths Science Social

Science

General Total

Number of observations 9 8 10 9 7 2 45

ABL Methodology

37

The ABL classes were similar in all subjects except in one case where the

students worked on math games in math class. In general, the phenomena seen in the

ABL classes were that of student independence and teacher guidance to single or small

groups of students. It was expected that the students would note down in their notebooks

the logos for a milestone at the start of that milestone. Then the student would go up to

the card bins shelves and pick the appropriate card, and work on it. The student was

supposed to study the card himself or herself first. Teacher‟s help could be sought if the

student needed it. Then, the student was supposed to write what he/she learned in the

slate first and show their teacher. The teacher corrected the students‟ work and then they

wrote it on the black board and then the notebook. Students showed their work in their

notebook to the teacher. After the teacher checks and signs the notebook, the student

would move on to the next card. The class strength of the observed classes ranged from

14 to 36,which typically included at least two classes.

In seven of the schools, the students sat on the floor on mats, in one school there

were only short tables for the students who sat on the floor and in two schools, there were

small tables and chairs. Either way, they sat in groups of 3 to six or seven students spread

around in the classroom. The group closest to the teacher was always the younger ones

who were in the initial milestones while those at the corners of the class were the students

who were in the higher milestones. The assumption was that at the higher milestone

stages, students would be able to work and learn independently.

Student related phenomena

In any ABL class, a typical 45-minute observation saw on an average of about

one-third of the students „working‟ on their cards and engaged in learning, either directly

or indirectly for about 10-15 minutes. Very few students, (about 2-6) per class were seen

continuously writing from their card during most of the 45-minute session. This

„working‟ was either, reading, reading to peers, listening the card being read by peers,

writing from the card to a slate, or notebook or blackboard, listening to the teacher

explain the card either individually or with a group of peers or writing in their workbook.

Some students, (about 3-5) in most classes observed, were continuously searching for

their card. When the student takes more than 5 minutes to nearly 15 minutes, it was seen

that the reason was that the required card was missing from its place. So, the student was

ABL Methodology

38

searching for it. When the student had taken more than half hour at the card stand, it was

learnt from the teacher that the student was one of slow learners, who showed no interest

and had to be reprimanded and reminded to start his or her work. It was seen that

sometimes the teacher was able to notice such students while sometimes the teacher

would not notice them. Yet other times, the teacher would notice, yell at such students

and then both would just continue what they were doing.

A third category of students would keep the card in their hands, but would be

doing some other things instead of learning. A look at the students‟ eyes and actions

would indicate that the student was not at all engaged in card. These actions were looking

around, looking at the neighboring student‟s work, fiddling with the card, speaking to a

friend or two in extremely low voice, drawing in note book, slate or work book even if

the card didn‟t say to draw. The fourth category of students would be standing and

walking around trying to get their cards from friends, get some stationary etc, or waiting

for the teacher‟s attention. In some classes, it has been observed that a queue of at least

10 students were waiting for nearly 10 – 15 minutes for the teacher‟s attention. While in

queue, they tend to get distracted and they tend to distract other students who work with

their cards. At such times, the general noise in the class was observed to increase and

needed the teacher to intervene.

About 5-7 students write on the blackboard and a similar number of students write

on their slate. These students were seen to be typically copying from the cards. On a

couple a sessions, when such students were asked by the researcher to read out what they

wrote, the students were not able to read. This was seen especially in English. Sometimes

it was seen that the teacher reprimanded and told the student to rewrite what he or she

had written on the blackboard just because it was small and not visible from across the

room. Often students (about 1-3) were found at the ladder chart, writing down the logos

for the milestone they were to start. This would take them between 5 – 15 minutes.

Many times, during school visits, it was seen that students were tasked with

sweeping the corridors and classrooms, watering the plants, cleaning the premises after

short break or lunch break, washing of teachers‟ lunch boxes and even washing urinals

and water tanks. Other distractions for students that were seen was bad smell from

urinals that were close to the classroom, due to which the windows would be kept closed

ABL Methodology

39

reducing the light in the class. This was difficult especially as there would be power cut

in the middle of the school day. Sometimes, the smoke from the kitchen was blown

towards the classroom filling the classroom with smoke, making it difficult for the

students to concentrate. Yet another time, there was a college function held in the school

playground, which was not very big and was in between the classrooms. The mikes were

loud and the teacher got called to be an audience for the function. Hence the class went

without any lesson and the students were all looking out of the window.

All of the schools in the study had supplementary readers but they used them in

different ways. Some teachers would give the books during the blank card time, some

after lunch before the start of the afternoon session, some would give when ever

convenient. There seemed to be no specific pattern of use followed although the teachers

claimed that they give them to the students. At certain times, the students read out the

books to the researcher. All the books were colour coded according to the ABL levels. In

Tamil, students could most of the time read according to their level but in English,

students in level 4 were not able to read even level 2 or sometimes even level 1 book.

The social values supported in the ABL classrooms seen were ability to

communicate with peers and teachers. There were incidences of class control and lack of

tolerance for simple chatting noise in the class, but on the whole, the class seemed to be

more of a lively enterprise were all students could talk to express their needs to peers and

the teacher. The students seemed to be free with their teacher and friendly in most cases

although corporal punishments such as hitting the child with a stick were also present.

Psychologically, the students seemed to be engaged in learning activity when in a group

than individually although few students always worked from their cards continuously.

Whether this is more than in the traditional method used before is hard to say, as there is

not data from the latter to compare with.

Students who were in ABL level IV cards also were seen to seek help from the

teacher to read and understand instructions especially in Maths and the Sciences. This

indicates that their reading abilities were not ready enough to expecting independent

study from them. Many students who were idling in the class seemed to be disengaged

except when the teacher would call out to them or ask them some question. This is

indicates a lack of challenge or interest or sense of direction and motivation that is much

ABL Methodology

40

needed for learning. At the emotional level, the students seemed to be happy to be in

school. Some students were playing throughout the time of the observation session. At

the elementary age level, student‟s love to play and when there is not much restriction

from the teacher (for a variety of reasons) they get to play continuously, they are happy.

Teacher-related phenomena

The teacher would typically be seated on the floor on a mat as the students, except

in three schools where the teachers also had desks and chair. The teacher was seen to

attend to one or a small group of students at a time. In some classes, it was seen that the

teacher was repeatedly teaching the same thing to many students. The teacher seemed to

be aware of the queue of students waiting for her attention but due to time taken for each

student, she was not able to immediately address each student‟s query. Further, the

teacher was mostly occupied with students close to her and was not able to give attention

to students in the back of the class. In some observation sessions, it was noted that for the

whole 45-minute period of observation, the group of students at the back, who were busy

playing or making noise went unattended.

Distractions that were noted for the teachers included being called by another

teacher for some collection-related matter, any other lesson unrelated matter, cell phone

calls and subsequent phone conversations, clerical work required to be completed in

limited time. Many times the teacher would be busy with some clerical work to be

completed and attend to students on an ad hoc basis. Whenever the classroom got noisy,

which was a common phenomenon, the teacher would try and control the class by

yelling, beating the child who gets caught and in some cases threatening to send the child

to the principal. The different activities and phenomenon that were observed in the

various classrooms observations were classified into three categories of (i) directly

learning related activities, (ii) indirectly learning related activities, and (iii) learning

unrelated activities (see table A2-2).

ABL Methodology

41

Table A2-2: Types of activities and phenomenon observed in the ABL classrooms

Activity Directly learning related activity Indirectly learning related activity

Learning unrelated

activity.

Student Reading, writing in slate, note

book, black board, work book,

activity in the card such as

counting, observing picture,

drawing, reading

supplementary reading

materials.

Talking with teacher regarding

card, talking about the card

related topic, motivated to learn

in class, searches for card, gets

the correct card and follows the

steps of completing each card

and moving to the next by

oneself, reading supplementary

reading materials.

Searching for card,

talking, looking around,

talking with friends,

fighting, standing and

walking around, sitting

simply,

Teacher Teaching or instructing one

student or a small group,

teaching a topic.

Speaks nicely, and welcomingly

to students, makes students feel

comfortable, asks students about

what breakfast they had, doing

group activities, quizzes before

beginning the class.

Shouts, hits the child,

bangs desk, speaking on

the phone, speaking to

another teacher about

something unrelated to

the class, doing clerical

work.


government schools?

Here, the accounts of experiences of students with disabilities will be presented

through the case studies that were conducted. Each of the case studies includes informal

interviews of parents, students them selves, siblings where possible, peers, and teachers.

Four students‟ case studies were conducted. The details of students are shown in table

A3-1.

Student 1, who attends private school, was identified with severe visual impairment when

in kindergarten. She belongs to the middle class household. She had had a sudden retinal

detachment that went undetected and was not operated in time due to which she lost her

vision. She can only see extreme shades of light now. Since she went to a private school,

she was referred to the Avinashilingam University Department of Special education and

ABL Methodology

42

went to the special school there for some time. Here she learned Braille and to use screen

readers. She returned back to private school at class V and had a scribe help her with

homework and studies at home. At school, she has a friend who is always by her side and

she pays attention to everything that is being taught in the class. She has above average

intelligence and a good memory according to her teachers. She is included in the

classroom activities and her teachers and peers are very supportive of her. Her parents are

able to help her come to school and return home everyday and also support her studies in

a variety of ways at home.

Student 2 attends a public school. He was studying in a private school. He belongs to a

lower middle class household. His education in the private school was supported

financially by his grandmother‟s pension money. When his grandmother died, the money

stopped coming and therefore, he started attending public elementary school from class 3.

He was identified by the teachers as not being normal in his walking and was referred to

the Integrated Education Department (IED) at the block center of the SSA. There he was

diagnosed with muscular dystrophy (early stages) and was recommended to come to the

center two times a week for physiotherapy treatment. He attends school in class V during

all days except two days in the afternoons when he goes to the center for treatment. He is

cognitively normal and is able to understand and learn well. His parents, teachers and

peers are very supportive. His peers help him in school by sharing with him notes and

other information he misses when he goes for treatment.

Student 3 started attending public school from age 5. She belongs to a lower class

household. At birth, she did not cry and was kept under observation in UV box for about

2 weeks. Then after a lot of medication, she started crying. Her mother feels that the

many medicines that she was given just after birth has caused some problems in her

brain. She was identified as not have the normal course of development during her first

and second standards and was referred to the IED. Here, she was diagnosed as having

mental retardation and recommended to go for two days to the block IED center every

week. Due to lack of direct transport facilities for the students and as the parents have to

go to work daily to support the family; she is not able to go to the center. She gets special

ABL Methodology

43

education services from special education teacher only when the special education

teacher for her school visits her school once in two or three weeks. Nevertheless, due to

counseling provided by the special education teachers to the regular education school

teachers and peers, she has started talking properly, communicating her needs. But she is

unable to read and write. She can copy and write letters but she cannot even write the

alphabets of the language in the correct order on her own.

Student 4, also diagnosed with mental retardation, joined a public school in class I. When

she was in class II, she was identified as requiring assessment by the teachers and was

sent to the IED. Presently in class V, she has been in IED for three years now. She is the

class the entire school day, she talks to other children, writes in Tamil. She writes the

alphabets when seen but when asked to reproduce on her own, she is unable to do so. She

can communicate her needs. She has a brother in her same class but different division and

he helps her with her homework. Her parents married with-in the family. Her major

cognitive problems are in attention & concentration, command & request, memory and

eye-hand coordination.

Informal interviews with the peers, teachers and parents (when possible) revealed

that the students were supported to the extent possible. The special education services

provided by the IED was during two days in the week when the students identified with a

disability were recommended to visit and spend their day. Here, the special education

teacher would work with the student or physiotherapy would be provided as needed.

Presently, there are five special education teachers for the entire block, which has nearly

55 schools. With two days to be spent in the IED center, the teachers have three days for

school visits. Thus one special education teacher visits one school‟s student/s once a

month or once in fortnight.

ABL Methodology

44

Table A2-1

Student Type of school

attended

Nature of

disability

Present age

group

Educational

services

availed

Student 1 Private Severe visual

impairment

9-12 Yes, privately

Student 2 Public Muscular

dystrophy

9-12 Through IED

center, SSA

Student 3 Public Mental

retardation

9-12 Through IED

center, SSA

Student 4 Public Mental

retardation

9-12 Through IED

center, SSA



In order to assess the learning outcomes at the end of fourth level or ladder of

ABL, first, the progress of students to ABL level four during the academic year was seen

using three time points of October, January and April (research question B-1). Then,

learning outcomes in specific skills and knowledge areas was assessed using a learning

outcomes assessment test (see appendix B) and the results in this test was analyzed to

study the patterns on achievements of students public schools (research question B-2 and

B-3). The test was also administered to students from two private schools that followed

the CBSE syllabus and are considered among the best schools in the area. This was done

to understand how students in ABL level four achieved in comparison to private-CBSE

board students and the results are studied in research question B-4. Finally, in order to

study the effect of instruction in the different ABL levels on the learning outcomes in

English and Maths, the differences in scores of students at each ABL level found in this

population of students who took the test were studied in research question B-5.

Research Question B-1 What has been the progress of students in class IV in the ABL

levels as the school year progressed?

ABL Methodology

45

To address this question, data on distribution of class IV students across the four

ABL levels (ladders) in each subject was analyzed to see the trend of progress of students

from one level to the next at three time points during the academic year. Teachers keep

records of student‟s progress in ABL cards from milestone to milestone and ladder to

ladder at the end of each month. Table B1-1 shows the percentage of class IV students

(N=317) who reached ABL ladder or level at three time points in the year – October,

January and April. The percentage of students in ABL level four at these three time

points was calculated and compared to see the progress of students to ABL level 4. It

must be mentioned here that most of the students who were reported to be in ABL level

four had just began level four or were in one of the first few milestones (out of nearly 12)

even at the end of the year.

Table B1-1:

Subject Boys (n=148) Girls (n=169) Total (N=317)

Oct Jan* April Oct Jan* April Oct Jan* April

Tamil 50.68% 64.57% 64.86% 57.40% 68.79% 71.01% 54.26% 66.79% 68.14%

English 22.97% 36.22% 37.84% 18.93% 33.33% 42.01% 20.82% 34.70% 40.06%

Maths 42.57% 62.20% 56.08% 29.59% 63.83% 55.62% 35.65% 63.06% 55.84%

Science 55.41% 70.08% 66.89% 47.93% 70.92% 72.78% 51.42% 70.52% 70.03%

Social Science 51.35% 70.08% 60.81% 39.64% 69.50% 65.09% 45.11% 69.78% 63.09%

* - Data for one school (n=49 – boys 21, girls 29) was not available hence the

percentages have been calculated on the total number of boys, girls and total for that time

point.

Figure B1-1 is a graphical representation of the progress in the number of students

reaching level four of ABL. Here, the blue bars represent percentages of boys, pink bars

that of girls and the green bars show the percentages of the total numbers of students.

Light, medium and dark shades for each of these colours are for the time points of

October, January and April respectively.

ABL Methodology

46

Figure B1-1: Graphical representation of progress of students to ABL level IV at three

time points of the year 2010-2011.(blue bars –boys, pink bars – girls and green bars –

total)

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

Tamil English Maths Science Social Science

Boys Oct

Boys Jan

Boys April

Gilrs Oct

Gilrs Jan

Gilrs April

Total Oct

Total Jan

Total April

It can be seen from this data, that the numbers of student in ABL level IV is

increasing steadily for the languages from October to January to April. In general, the

percentage increase reduces from Jan to April as compared to Oct to Jan. Secondly the

initial percentage of students in level IV is low for English as compared to Tamil. For

Maths, however, it was seen that, while the percentage of students in ABL level IV

increased from Oct to Jan, it reduced during Jan to April. This pattern was also seen for

science and social science although for girls, the percentage did not drop in science.

Research Question B2: What are the learning outcomes of students in public schools in

the learning outcomes assessment test?

The overall sample size with respect to school type and gender is shown in table

B2-1 The number of students in each of four ABL levels in each subject at the time of

testing are shown in the table B2-2. This is the sample of students who were tested

because they have reached ABL level 4 in at least one subject.

ABL Methodology

47

Table B2-1: Distribution of students by gender and school type.

Boys Girls Total

Public 84 117 201

Private 55 25 80

Total 139 142 281

Table B-2: Subject wise and ABL level wise distribution of students who took the test.

Table B2-3 shows the mean scores for each area of learning outcomes tested.

Here it can be seen that the highest mean score was in Tamil, followed by environmental

sciences and then Maths. The least mean score was in English. The percentage of grand

total for all public school students who took the test was 49.33%.

Table B2-3: Mean scores and standard deviation for each subject and total on learning

outcomes assessment test for public school students.

Tamil total

(out of 24)

English total

(out of 24)

Maths total

(out of 24)

EVS total

(out of 24)

Grand total

(out of 96)

N 201 201 201 201 201

Mean 14.08 8.38 12.14 12.75 47.36

Mean

Percentage

58.67% 34.92% 50.58% 53.13% 49.33%

Standard

Deviation

6.1 5.63 6.39 8.71 23.5

ABL

Level

Tamil English Maths Science Social

Science

B G T B G T B G T B G T B G T

1 5 1 6 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

2 0 4 4 8 19 27 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0

3 5 9 14 33 52 85 13 23 36 9 17 26 13 34 47

4 74 103 177 41 46 87 71 92 163 75 100 175 71 83 154

Total 84 117 201 84 117 201 84 117 201 84 117 201 84 117 201

ABL Methodology

48

RQB3 What are the differences in learning outcomes in basic and advanced cognitive


Since it was seen that each public school differed in the ways they implemented

the ABL methodology, the achievement patterns in the schools was analyzed to see it

there was any significant differences among schools. Gender differences were also tested.

The sample used for data analysis in this research question was students in public schools

only. Further, for each subject area, only the test scores of those students who were in

ABL level 4 in that particular subject were used. The mean scores for each skill category

and their standard deviations are shown in table B3-1

Table B3- 1: Learning outcomes of ABL level 4 students in each skill area tested

Skill N Mean Total score Mean Percentage

Std. Deviation

Tamil_BRS 177 8.901 12 74% 2.9257

Tamil_AVS 177 1.12 4 28% 1.310

TAM_WR 177 1.60 4 40% 1.544

TAM_SP 177 2.93 4 73.25% 1.291

Eng_BRS 87 6.48 14 46.29% 4,36

Eng_ARS 87 0.44 2 22% 0.831

Eng_Wr 87 0.28 4 7% 0.67

Eng_Sp 87 1.33 4 33,25% 1.420

Maths_BS 163 8.51 14 60.79% 3.920

Maths_AS 163 3.54 10 35.4% 3.232

SC 167 6.37 12 53.03% 4.619

SS 149 7.25 12 60.42% 4.437

There were 177 students in ABL level 4 in Tamil out of a total of 201 students

who took the tests. The mean score in basic reading skills in Tamil (reading words,

simple sentences, vocabulary and simple direct comprehension) was 8.901 (+/- 2.93) out

of a total score of 12. In advanced reading skills (inferential comprehension) the mean

score was 1.12+/-1.31 out of a total score of 4 (table B3-1). To analyze these learning

outcomes further by seeing if there is any difference between boys and girls and between

schools, two way ANOVAs, first with Tamil-BRS as dependent variable and then with

Tamil-ARS as dependent variable were performed.

ABL Methodology

49

Figure B3-1. Graphical representation of mean scores basic reading skills in Tamil of

boys and girls in each school Estimated Marginal Means of Tamil_BRS

Non-estimable means are not plotted

PU School code

10987654321

Estim

ate

d M

argin

al M

ean

s

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

GENDER

F

M

P U School code

Table B3-2 shows the results of the two way ANOVA using gender and school as

the two factors and score on Tamil_BRS as dependent variable indicate that there is a

significant interaction of school and gender indicating that the differences in mean scores

for boys and girls is statistically significant across the schools (F8,158 = 2.56, p<0.05).

Table B3-2: Two – way ANOVA for Basic Reading Skills in Tamil

Source

Type III Sum

of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Partial Eta

Squared

Corrected Model 483.117(a) 18 26.840 4.144 .000 .321

Intercept 7611.808 1 7611.808 1175.163 .000 .881

PU_SCHOO 253.821 9 28.202 4.354 .000 .199

GENDER 14.546 1 14.546 2.246 .136 .014

PU_SCHOO * GENDER 132.481 8 16.560 2.557 .012 .115

Error 1023.403 158 6.477

Total 15530.250 177

Corrected Total 1506.520 176

a R Squared = .321 (Adjusted R Squared = .243)

ABL Methodology

50

Analyses of learning outcomes in advanced reading skills in Tamil showed that

the interaction effect of gender and school and the main effect of gender are not

significant. This is shown in table B3-3 and also graphically in figure B3-2.

Figure B3-2: Graphical representation of mean advanced reading scores of boys and girls

in each school.

Estimated Marginal Means of Tamil_AVS

Non-estimable means are not plotted

PU School code

10987654321

Estim

ate

d M

argin

al M

ean

s

5

4

3

2

1

0

GENDER

F

M

PU school code

Table B3-3: Two – way ANOVA showing main effects of gender and school and

interaction effect of gender*school on advanced reading skills score in Tamil.

Source

Type III Sum


Corrected Model 179.525(a) 18 9.974 12.880 .000

Intercept 185.018 1 185.018 238.926 .000

PU_SCHOO 91.435 9 10.159 13.120 .000

GENDER .029 1 .029 .038 .846

PU_SCHOO * GENDER 6.667 8 .833 1.076 .382

Error 122.351 158 .774

Total 522.250 177



ABL Methodology

51

The main effect of school was significant (F9,1=13.12; p< 0.05). The adjusted R squared

was 0.549 ~ .55 indicating that school accounts for 55% of the variance seen in advanced

reading skills even when students have reached ABL level 4 in Tamil.

Similar results were seen for writing and speaking skills in Tamil and are shown in tables

B3-4 and B3-5.

Table B3-4: Two-way ANOVA table for means scores on Tamil-writing

Dependent Variable: t-wr

Source

Type III Sum



Intercept 340.227 1 340.227 268.059 .000

GENDER 1.388 1 1.388 1.093 .297

PUSCHCD 151.513 9 16.835 13.264 .000

GENDER * PUSCHCD 15.922 8 1.990 1.568 .138

Error 200.537 158 1.269

Total 872.000 177



Table B3-5: Two-way ANOVA for mean score on Tamil-speaking

Dependent Variable: T_SP

Source

Type III Sum



Intercept 815.641 1 815.641 505.451 .000

GENDER .072 1 .072 .045 .833

PUSCHCD 28.870 9 3.208 1.988 .044

GENDER * PUSCHCD 7.676 8 .960 .595 .781

Error 254.963 158 1.614

Total 1815.000 177



ABL Methodology

52

Two-way ANOVA analyses on means scores for specific skills in English, Maths

and some basic content knowledge in science and social science showed that in all the

areas except advanced reading and writing in English and advanced maths skills, the

effect of school was statistically significant (see table B3-6, 9,10, 12 and 13). This effect

is highlighted in the respective tables. In the advanced reading and writing skill in

English and in the advanced maths skill (see tables B3-7, 8, 11), there was significant

gender by school interaction, which indicated that boys and girls scored differently across

the ten schools.

Table B3-6: Two-way ANOVA table for mean score on eng_basic reading skills

Dependent Variable: E_BRS

Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.


Intercept 2047.277 1 2047.277 290.087 .000

PUSCHCD 672.651 7 96.093 13.616 .000

GENDER 5.687 1 5.687 .806 .372

PUSCHCD * GENDER 34.298 6 5.716 .810 .566

Error 508.137 72 7.057

Total 5284.250 87



Table B3-7: Two-way ANOVA table for mean score eng-advanced reading skills

Dependent Variable: E_ARS



Intercept 7.181 1 7.181 32.361 .000

PUSCHCD 13.221 7 1.889 8.511 .000

GENDER .621 1 .621 2.799 .099

PUSCHCD * GENDER 3.801 6 .633 2.854 .015

Error 15.978 72 .222

Total 76.000 87



ABL Methodology

53

Table B3-8 Two-way ANOVA table for mean score in eng-writing

Dependent Variable: E_WR



Intercept 1.552 1 1.552 57.494 .000

PUSCHCD 7.553 7 1.079 39.964 .000

GENDER .223 1 .223 8.249 .005

PUSCHCD * GENDER .793 6 .132 4.896 .000

Error 1.944 72 .027

Total 45.250 87



Table B3- 9 Two-way ANOVA table for mean score on eng-speaking

Dependent Variable: E_SP



Intercept 162.287 1 162.287 141.359 .000

PUSCHCD 78.781 7 11.254 9.803 .000

GENDER 1.166 1 1.166 1.015 .317

PUSCHCD * GENDER 4.897 6 .816 .711 .642

Error 82.660 72 1.148

Total 328.000 87



Table B3- 10 Two-way ANOVA table for differences in mean score in maths – basic

skills.

Dependent Variable: M_BS



Intercept 4662.991 1 4662.991 404.156 .000

PUSCHCD 445.626 8 55.703 4.828 .000

GENDER .692 1 .692 .060 .807

PUSCHCD * GENDER 141.933 7 20.276 1.757 .100

Error 1684.490 146 11.538

Total 14301.960 163



ABL Methodology

54

Table B3- 11 Two-way ANOVA table for difference in means score in maths –advanced

skills Dependent Variable: M_AS



Intercept 801.431 1 801.431 190.543 .000

PUSCHCD 724.830 8 90.604 21.541 .000

GENDER 7.026 1 7.026 1.670 .198

PUSCHCD * GENDER 87.175 7 12.454 2.961 .006

Error 614.081 146 4.206

Total 3738.750 163



Table B3- 12 Two-way ANOVA table for difference in mean score in science

Dependent Variable: SC_TOT

Source

Type III Sum



Intercept 3054.775 1 3054.775 384.739 .000

PUSCHCD 1842.368 8 230.296 29.005 .000

GENDER .019 1 .019 .002 .961

PUSCHCD * GENDER 21.114 7 3.016 .380 .913

Error 1190.979 150 7.940

Total 10308.000 167



Table B3-13: Two-way ANOVA for mean scores on social science

Dependent Variable: SS_TOT



Intercept 3892.564 1 3892.564 371.828 .000

PUSCHCD 1403.865 8 175.483 16.763 .000

GENDER 1.283 1 1.283 .123 .727

PUSCHCD * GENDER 28.073 7 4.010 .383 .911

Error 1381.873 132 10.469

Total 10742.500 149



ABL Methodology

55

It was observed that in some schools the girls to boys ratio was very high and

could have resulted in the gender differences observed in the significant interaction

effects. Since school was a factor that showed significant differences in most learning

outcomes, it was decided that the overall mean scores of all ten schools would be

compared to find which ones were significantly different from each other. It was hoped

that this would allow finding out if the differences among schools was random or

specific.

Table B3-14: Shows the mean grand total scores of each school for students who have

reached ABL level 4 in at least one subject.

School significantly

different from

Mean grand total

(with oral)

Std Error of mean School

1 62.275 4.661 2,3,4,6,8,

2 41.750 4.041 1,3,5,6,7

3# 48.372 2.704 1,2,5,6,7,

4 42.579 4.433 1,5,6,7,

5 63.406 5.211 2,3,4,6,8

6 30.838 3.032 1,2,3,4,5,7,10

7 80.133 8.788 2,3,4,6,8,10

8 36.406 5.211 1,5,7,

9 * 68.667(a) 9.826 -

10 50.000 7.768 6,7 a Based on modified population marginal mean.

Table B3-15: Schools in the sample categorized as high, average and low performing

schools.

* School 9 had only three students and therefore was not compared statistically. But the

mean score falls in the range of higher scoring schools.

It can be seen from tables B3-14 and B3-15 that there was a clear pattern of

difference in learning outcomes among the schools tested and these schools could be

Higher scoring schools Average scoring schools

Low scoring schools

1,5,7,9* 2, 3, 4,10 6,8

Mean score ranges from 60 – 80 out of 96 (62% - 83%)

Mean score ranges from 40 – 50 out of 96 (41% - 52%)

Mean score below 37 out of 96 (38%)

ABL Methodology

56

categorized as high scoring, average scoring schools with 40% schools in each of these

categories and low scoring schools with 20% schools in this category.

Further, if the proficiency in each skill area can be considered as constituting

four levels – very low (0 – 25%), low (26 – 50%), medium (51 – 75%) and high (76 –

100%), then the percentage of students falling in each proficiency level in achievement of

basic and advanced skills in reading in the languages of Tamil and English and in Maths

are different. This is shown in Table B3-16.

Table B3-16: Percentage of students in each proficiency level in basic and advanced

skills in languages and maths

Proficiency Levels

Skill Area Very Low (0-25%) Low (26-50%) Medium (51-75%) High (76 – 100%)

Tamil BRS 6.21% 11.86% 25.99% 55.93%

Tamil ARS 63.28% 18.08% 7.34% 11.30%

Eng BRS 29.89% 29.89% 16.09% 24.14%

Eng ARS 78.16% 0.00% 0.00% 21.84%

Maths BS 13.50% 15.34% 39.88% 31.29%

Maths AS 43.72% 17.79% 19.02% 14.11%

It can be seen from the above table that in Tamil, most of students in ABL level

IV have acquired basic reading skills which include reading words and simple sentences,

simple vocabulary and direct comprehension and are in high proficiency level. All the

same, most of them have not been able to acquire advanced reading skills with include

higher order inferential comprehension and are in the very low proficiency level. In

English, while half of the students in ABL level IV are below – medium proficiency

levels (below 50%) in basic reading skills, most of them are at very low level in advanced

reading skills. In mathematics, the highest percentage of students are at medium level in

acquisition of basic mathematical skills which include number concepts and arithmetic

operations but in advanced skills, which include word problems and application of

operations to money and measurement, most of the ABL level IV students are at very low

proficiency level.

RQB4 What are the differences between learning outcomes of class IV students in ABL


ABL Methodology

57

In our country, education, which is a fundamental right, has been stratified based

on socio-economic status of the students to such an extent that even basic education of

good quality, one which enables students to acquire and develop important cognitive

skills is denied to those belonging to lower socio-economic strata. While stratification of

education should ideally be based on needs of students, such a social-economically

mooted stratification results in maintaining status quo of the socio-economic hierarchies

in the society. While hardships and struggles for progress are an inevitable part of life,

the deliberate processes contributing to the same through inequitable educational services

by our schools need to be removed. Education of high quality must be provided in our

government schools irrespective of the socio-economic and cultural background of the

student. Such a good quality education can be conceived of as one where the student, at

the end of class IV has acquired high levels of proficiency in basic and advanced reading

skills and mathematical skills.

Private schools, which cater to the middle and higher socio-economic strata of

student population, subscribe to CBSE board syllabus and offer better infrastructure

facilities and government schools that subscribe to state board and may or may not offer

adequate infrastructure facilities all have to finally help their students build cognitive

skills and abilities. Research question B5 was written and analyzed keeping in mind the

vast differences in public or government schools and private schools.

The rationale for this question was that although it is a well-known fact that these

schools differ in so many ways, it is important to quantify and compare the educational

achievement of students in these schools. To address this question, scores on written test

on particular subject for private school students and public school students who were in

level 4 in that subject was compared. In languages, this over all score was broken down

into basic reading skills, advanced reading skills and writing skills from the written test,

in maths the scores on basic math skills and advanced math skills and in content

knowledge of EVS, knowledge in science and social science will be analyzed.

Tamil:

The total number of students who were in ABL ladder or level IV at the time of

testing was 177. There were 80 students from the much sought after private schools in the

same locality who took the same exam. Hence the total number of students in this

ABL Methodology

58

comparison was 257. The total score on in Tamil, which included basic reading skills of

vocabulary and simple direct comprehension, advanced reading skill of indirect

inferential comprehension and writing skills were assessed. The mean scores for these

two groups of students on the total score in Tamil and in each of the skill areas is shown

in Table B4-1

Table B4-1: Mean scores obtained in Tamil – overall and skill areas for public (ABL

level IV) and private school students.

School Type Tamil-total Tamil_BRS Tamil_ARS Tamil_Wr

Private 12.55 +/- 3.12 7.07 +/- 1.43 2.76 +/-1.45 2.75 +/-1.18

Public 8.2 +/- 4.41 5.48 +/- 2.38 1.12 +/-1.55 1.60 +/- 1.54

The pattern of differences in mean scores for the overall score in Tamil and in the

specific skill areas tested is similar as can be seen from the above table. In addition, it can

be seen that there is a higher variability of score in public schools students than in private

school students. One way ANOVAs for each of the above scores were performed using

school type as the factor of interest. All the ANOVAs showed that the differences in

scores between the two groups of schools were significant. The ANOVA for total Tamil

score is shown in Table B4-2 below.

Table B4-2: One way ANOVA test for effect of school type on total score in Tamil in the

written test. Dependent Variable: TW_TOT



Intercept 23727.714 1 23727.714 1443.224 .000

SCHTYP 1040.355 1 1040.355 63.279 .000

Error 4192.398 255 16.441

Total 28701.410 257



It can be seen that the school type has a significant effect on the total written score

in Tamil (F1,255 = 63.28, p<0.05). The similar result was obtained for each of the specific

skills for the individual one way ANOVAs performed. In order to test if there were

gender differences in the total Tamil scores, a two-way ANOVA was performed using

ABL Methodology

59

gender and school type as two factors of two levels each and the total score in Tamil

(written test) as the dependent variable. This test showed that there was no effect of

gender on the differences in mean scores seen in Table B4-1. The result of the two way

ANOVA including gender as a factor is shown in Table B4-3.

Table B4-3: Two-way ANOVA on total Tamil score with gender and school type as

factors.

Dependent Variable: TW_TOT



Intercept 21089.441 1 21089.441 1301.974 .000

SCHTYP 1016.445 1 1016.445 62.751 .000

GENDER 44.322 1 44.322 2.736 .099

SCHTYP * GENDER 12.424 1 12.424 .767 .382

Error 4098.105 253 16.198

Total 28701.410 257



This table shows that there is no interaction between school type and gender and

that only the main effect of school type is significant (F1, 253 = 62.75 , p <0.05). This is

shown graphically in figure B4-1.

Figure B4-1: Graphical representation of the mean total Tamil scores of private and

public school students. Estimated Marginal Means of TW_TOT

SCHTYP

PublicPrivate

Estim

ate

d M

argin

al M

ean

s

14

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

GENDER

F

M

ABL Methodology

60

School Type

English:

The total number of public school students who were in ABL ladder or level IV in

English at the time of testing was 87. The number of students in private schools was 80

and there were a total of 167 students who were included in this analysis. The mean total

scores in the written test in English of students in public and private schools are shown in

table B4-4. These scores are those of total score, and skill-wise score. The performance

on advanced reading skill in English is given as a percentage of students who score 0 and

2 on the only question that sought to assess this skill. These percentages are shown in

table B4-4b.

Table B4-4a

School Type English-total English-BRS English-Wr

Private 13.07 +/- 3.34 8.47 +/- 2.17 2.93 +/- 1.17

Public 5.08 +/- 4.50 4.50 +/- 3.47 0.28 +/- 0.67

Table B4-4b

English_ARS score 0 English_ARS score 2

Private 8.38% 39.52%

Public 40.72% 11.38%

It can be seen from table B4-4a that the mean total and skill-wise scores of private school

students was higher than those of public schools. In addition, the mean scores for public

schools showed a wider variation than the mean scores for private schools. A one-way

ANOVA was performed with school type as the factor and total score in English as

dependent variable to test the significance of these differences. This test showed that the

difference in total score was significant (F1,165 = 167.45, p<0.05) as seen in table B4-5.

One-way ANOVAs were also performed similarly to test the significance of mean scores

on basic reading skills and writing skills. The results of these tests too showed that the

differences seen in table B4-4a were significant.

ABL Methodology

61

Table B4-5: One way ANOVA to test effect of school type on mean total score in English

in written test. Dependent Variable: EW_TOT



Intercept 13728.030 1 13728.030 864.285 .000

SCHTYP 2659.503 1 2659.503 167.436 .000

Error 2620.809 165 15.884

Total 18529.750 167



In order to test for added impact of gender, a two-way ANOVA was performed

for total English written score with school type and gender as two factors. The results of

this test are shown in table B4-6. It can be seen in this table that there is no significant

interaction of gender and school type nor is there a significant main effect of gender.

There is however a significant main effect of school type (F1,163 = 161.72, p<0.05) as

seen before.

Table B4-6: Two-way ANOVA testing effects of gender and school type and their

interaction on total score on written English test.

Dependent Variable: EW_TOT



Intercept 12784.810 1 12784.810 808.148 .000

SCHTYP 2558.377 1 2558.377 161.719 .000

GENDER 37.807 1 37.807 2.390 .124

SCHTYP * GENDER 1.860 1 1.860 .118 .732

Error 2578.641 163 15.820

Total 18529.750 167



Similar results were obtained for score on basic reading skills and writing skills.

For advanced reading skills in English there was only one question, which had a correct

or wrong response. A correct response got a score of 2 while a wrong response got a

ABL Methodology

62

score of 0. Hence the numbers of students in public and private school, who got either a

correct or wrong response was counted and their percentages were compared and this is

shown in table B4-4b. It can be seen in this table that private schools have much lower

percentage of students with score 0 and much higher percentage of students with score 2

as compared to public schools.

Maths:

The number of public school students who were in ABL level IV in maths at the

time of testing was 163 and the total number of students was 243 including 80 students

from the private school. It can be seen for the table B4-7 that the mean scores for total,

basic and advanced mathematics skills is higher for private school students than for

public school students.

Table B4-7

School Type Maths-total Maths _BMS Maths _AMS

Private 19.17 +/- 3.77 12.33 +/- 1.81 6.77 +/- 2.61

Public 12.06 +/- 6.59 8.51 +/- 3.92 3.54 +/- 3.23

To test if these differences are statistically significant, one way ANOVAs were

conducted with school type as the independent variable factor and total score, score on

basic maths skills and scores of advanced maths skills separately.

Table B4-8: One-way ANOVA for effect of school type on total maths score.

Dependent Variable: M_TOT



Intercept 52110.369 1 52110.369 1540.715 .000

SCHTYP 2667.482 1 2667.482 78.868 .000

Error 8151.149 241 33.822

Total 61045.960 243



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63

The ANOVA showed that the difference in mean total score in maths is

statistically significant (F1,241 = 78.67, p<0.05). The results obtained for the total scores

(table B4-8) were replicated for the basic and advanced skills in maths.

In order to test if there were significant gender differences also among the mean

total scores of private and public schools, a two way ANOVA was performed with school

type and gender as the two factors and total math scores as dependent variable. This test

showed there was no significant interaction between school type and gender, which

means that the gender differences in mean total math scores for public and private

schools, was not statistically different. In addition, there was no significant main effect of

gender, which means that boys and girls don‟t differ significantly in their mean total

maths score. However, as before, there as a significant difference in mean total maths

score between public and private schools (F1,329 = 72.59, p<0.05).

Table B4-9: Two – way ANOVA testing effect of school type and gender on total maths

scores. Dependent Variable: M_TOT



Intercept 46945.046 1 46945.046 1378.057 .000

SCHTYP 2472.925 1 2472.925 72.592 .000

GENDER 8.907 1 8.907 .261 .610

SCHTYP * GENDER .342 1 .342 .010 .920

Error 8141.802 239 34.066

Total 61045.960 243



Environmental Science:

Content knowledge is taught in elementary school as the subject of science and

social science and is collectively referred to as environmental science. The mean total

scores in each of these subjects for private and public school students is shown in table

B4-10. It can be seen here also, that the mean total score in the subjects is much lower for

public schools than for private schools.

ABL Methodology

64

Table B4-10: The mean total scores in subjects of science and social science. (sample

sizes re indicted in the brackets).

It can be seen, here again, that private school students fare higher than public

school students with show a lesser variation than the latter. Table B4-11 shows the one-

way ANOVA that was performed to test if these differences in mean scores was

statistically significant. It can be seen here that the differences were statistically

significant as F1,245 = 25.19, p<0.05.

Table B4-11: One-way ANOVA showing the effect of school type on total science score. Dependent Variable: SC_TOT



Intercept 12926.275 1 12926.275 805.987 .000

SCHTYP 402.672 1 402.672 25.108 .000

Error 3929.265 245 16.038

Total 17311.250 247



Similar results were obtained for social sciences and here too, the differences in

mean scores between private and public schools was found to be significant (F1,227 =

13.81, p <0.05) as seen in table B4-12. In both thee cases, there were no significant

differences in mean scores among boys and girls (results not shown).

School Type Science

(N=247)

Social Science

(N=229)

Private 9.09 +/- 2.22

(n=80)

9.26 +/-2.66

(n=80)

Public 6.37 +/- 4.62

(n=167)

7.25 +/- 4.44

(n=149)

ABL Methodology

65

Table B4-12 : One-way ANOVA showing the effect of school type on total social science

score.

Dependent Variable: SS_TOT



Intercept 14189.862 1 14189.862 927.789 .000

SCHTYP 211.172 1 211.172 13.807 .000

Error 3471.800 227 15.294

Total 18163.500 229



Research Question B5: To what extent does ABL level effect learning outcomes in

English and Maths?

Since the ABL methodology is created in such a way that students move along the

ladders developing their skills and competencies, there should be significant differences

in learning outcome of students in each ABL level. This reflects the discriminatory ability

of the instructional methodology. Further, in the population of students tested, the subject

in which there was maximum variability in ABL levels was English (table B5-1)

followed by Mathematics (B5-3). Hence, in this research question, the effect of ABL

level on learning outcomes is tested.

Table B5-1: Means scores and standard deviation of total score in English for students in

each of the four ABL levels who took the test. Dependent Variable: E_TOT

EngABLlvl Mean Std. Deviation N

1 .000 .0000 2

2 8.352 5.1419 27

3 8.582 5.1564 85

4 8.391 6.1731 87

Total 8.383 5.6312 201

ABL Methodology

66

Table B5-2: one-way ANOVA for test of effect of ABL level on total score in English.

Dependent Variable: E_TOT

Source

Type III Sum



Intercept 1144.674 1 1144.674 36.383 .000

ENGABLLV 143.959 3 47.986 1.525 .209

Error 6198.044 197 31.462

Total 20467.500 201



Figure B5-1 Estimated Marginal Means of E_TOT

EngABLlvl

4321

Estim

ate

d M

arg

ina

l M

ea

ns

10

8

6

4

2

0

Table B5-3: Mean and std dev of total score on maths for students in different ABL levels

in Maths. Dependent Variable: M_TOTAL

MathsABLlvl Mean Std. Deviation N

2 12.500 4.9497 2

3 12.472 5.6175 36

4 12.056 6.5862 163

Total 12.135 6.3881 201

ABL Methodology

67

Table B5-4 One way ANOVA for effect of ABL level in math on total math score

Dependent Variable: M_TOTAL

Source

Type III Sum


Corrected Model 5.382(a) 2 2.691 .065 .937

Intercept 2567.979 1 2567.979 62.340 .000

MATHSABL 5.382 2 2.691 .065 .937

Error 8156.274 198 41.193

Total 37759.710 201


a R Squared = .001 (Adjusted R Squared = -.009)

Figure B5-2 Estimated Marginal Means of M_TOTAL

MathsABLlvl

432

Estim

ate

d M

argin

al M

ean

s

12.6

12.5

12.4

12.3

12.2

12.1

12.0

The results of this analysis indicate that the progression of students along the

ABL levels or ladders in English and Maths is not clearly related to attainment of

learning outcomes. Nevertheless it points to an aspect of the methodology, which needs

to be explored further.

ABL Methodology

68

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The pedagogical innovation of ABL methodology and its implementation has

proved many things. First, when the government has a will to create a large-scale change,

it can definitely do so. Secondly there are ways to solve the socio-culturally related

problems faced by government school students such as absenteeism due to variety of

reasons and increase and improve access and quality of education. All the same, it is very

important to realize that there could be more than one ways to address these problems.

The research findings about the educational experiences and learning outcomes as

revealed in this study have been discussed below.

Educational Experiences

The main aspects of educational experience that have been focused upon in this

study are the nature of activities in the ABL methodology, nature of activities in the ABL

classroom and the experience of students with disabilities in the ABL classrooms, which

are supposed to be inclusive in nature.

The activities in the ABL instructional materials that support learning in all three

aspects of the learning process appropriately were analyzed in research question A1. Here

it can be seen from table A1-3, that reading was the predominant activity used for

information input and information processing while talking and writing are the most-used

activities for expression information. This does not seem to take adequate consideration

for the individual differences in each of these learning processes.

Classroom observations in this study were done in about 80% of schools in the

same location which is a more denser sample size as compared to previous studies that

covered larger areas but only 20 to 40% of schools in the total area covered. Such a

denser sampling allowed the study to capture variations in implementation of the ABL

methodology and study the benefits and challenges of the same. The data obtained from

classroom observations showed that the major learning related activities was students

studying on their own which reinforces the observations by Vijay Kumar et al. (2009).

However, this was seen to be done be very few students for the entire observations

session of 45 minutes while the majority of students were actively engaged in their own

ABL Methodology

69

learning activity for a period of even lesser than 15 minutes. Further, during the self study

time of all students – both those who consistently worked on their own cards and those

who inconsistently did so, the major activity was writing. They were writing in their

notebooks, slates, workbooks, or the blackboard. Whenever, after an observation session,

the researcher asked the student to read out what the student had written, the student was

not able to read it. Only one or two of nearly 10 students who were asked were able to

read what they had written. This is a cause of concern as it shows that students are using

direct copy for writing rather that reproducing what they can read and needs to be

attended to.

It was found that a good proportion of time during a 45-minute duration was spent

on looking for ABL cards. This indicates that expecting students of 5-11 age group to be

systematic about 2000 odd cards is probably not very realistic. This is the age group

where the interest to play supercedes self control and self direction and discipline has to

be nurtured judiciously rather than just thrust them with the enormous responsibility of

arranging so many cards properly at the end of each class session. Ideally, this re

arrangement is not a big problem as if each student replaces their card properly, but in

reality, this has not been seen to happen. Sometimes, the smaller children keep the cards

in the wrong box and yet other times, students drop the cards in just any bin to run out of

class during break time. This is not a very uncommon phenomenon for this age group and

can definitely be seen even in traditional classrooms although in the latter the number of

items to be kept properly is much lesser and hence the chaos. Another problems faced by

students sometimes is that two students reach the same card and one has to wait for the

other and waste time.

Most of the students in the sample observed were found to begin looking in their

cards initially and then drifting away into other learning unrelated activities. Some of

these students seemed bright while others seemed dull or slow. The former probably lost

the challenge for learning while the latter probably found the card too difficult. There was

always a group of students who evaded the teacher‟s attention throughout the 45-minute

session. Whenever the teacher would attend to this group, they would attend to their work

for a few minutes and revert back to their previous activity. It was observed that the

teacher was always preoccupied with one student or a small group and was not able to

ABL Methodology

70

pay attention to the students at the back of the class. This seems to be just similar or

probably worse than a traditional classroom where teachers were at least able to see the

backbenchers and direct them to some work and include them as the teacher had the

opportunity to be more responsive to the entire class. Unfortunately, there is no data on

such matters in a traditional classroom.

All schools had supplementary reading materials but they were seen in use very

few times during the course of observations. When the teachers were asked, they

mentioned that students were given the books after lunch hour, during blank card time,

when they had to wait for their card or after the last ABL class was over. However,

during the few times that supplementary readers were used that were observed, it was

seen that most of the students in a particular ABL level were not able to read readers of

that level. This again is a cause of concern regarding development of independent reading

abilities. Certain other though-provoking observations are enumerated below and need

reconsideration.

- A lot of blackboard writing is emphasized in the method. It was seen that students

spend a lot of time on rewriting in response to the teacher‟s instructions to write

big but at the end of it, they cant even read whey write. This is because they write

by directly copying from their card. This phenomenon questions the extent to

which writing on the black board as it is done now, supports learning. It also

questions to the way the black board for students should be used. Is it to be used

for students to write for the sake of writing on the black board like the teacher or

is it to be used a s means for enabling learning? It is imperative that the purpose

of blackboard writing is revisited as a lot of student time is spend more

productively.

- Although the ABL methodology intends to de emphasize rote learning, by making

students write repeatedly in slate, then blackboard and then note book and yet

again in the workbook, it actually promoted copy writing which is probably why

when students were asked to read out what they have written, they were not able

to read.

- A lot of time was found spent on searching for cards. Teachers typically give the

last five minutes of the class for students to arrange the cards in their bins

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71

properly but invariably this does not get done. Due to this, many times class time

is spent searching for the card. This raised the questions, is it justified to expect

that children at the elementary age group should keep track of nearly 200 cards

for each level in each subject? Isn‟t this the age when they learn to be systematic

and would loading them with such mechanical expectations be appropriate?

- It was observed that there was in general more order and better focus on work in

the classes that had small tables and chairs for children rather then when they

were seated on the floor (see photos section). It seemed on observation that sitting

on the chairs and having a work place on a table (albeit shared space) seemed to

have a motivating and engaging effect on the students and relieved the teacher of

the physical trouble of having to sit on the floor continuously which is a difficulty

thing many times at the middle age. Even teachers seemed to be better engaged

with their student‟s progress and able to give attention for all students when the

class was had tables and chairs (see section on photos).

- A lot of student time is spent on activities for keeping the school clean and

serving the teachers. It was observed in the course of this study, that many times

students are instructed to sweep the classrooms, corridors, clean urinals, water

sumps and washing teachers‟ lunch boxes. Why should students have to do all

this? Shouldn‟t all this time should be ideally spent for learning activities. While

clean-up activities have their value and should be inculcated, the way the public

school students are made to work is akin to child labour.

- Many times it was observed that teachers were busy with clerical work and being

able to only partially attend to the students. This calls for the need to revisit

teacher‟s duties and their expectations.

Inclusion of students with disabilities in the regular or general education classes

has progressed under the SSA through the Integrated Education Department of the Block.

This department has been instrumental in bringing awareness of the importance of

sending students with disabilities to school in the community. This has resulted in higher

number of students with disabilities joining schools rather than stay at home. However,

the very high school to special education teacher ratio is counter-productive to its

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effectiveness. Most of the students with mild disabilities are educated in the regular

school itself. The special education teacher visits the school periodically and counsels the

teacher and the peers to support and on how to help the child with disability learn.

Since the student is in regular school all day, the student just loiters or stays in the

class without actually learning much as the teacher‟s attention in the ABL class is

devoted to repeated individual instructions, attention to students to come to seek her help

and is unable to attend to the slow learners as well as students with disability. Secondly,

teachers, naturally, out of care, come up with ways to address the students‟ presence in

school and might not be receptive to the special educators‟ counsel as the latter is a rare

visitor to the school. This would be on the premise that what would the special education

who sees the child once in a month or fortnight advice a teacher who sees the child

everyday? The resulting non-cooperation contributes to the reduced effectiveness of the

IED center and is probably a reason for the slow progress of students with disabilities in

inclusive classes as one special education teacher for one school has been shown to be

more beneficial for inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classes

(Das and Kattumuri, n.d.).

In one of the five cases in this study, it was seen that the student got individual

attention and was thus able to progress well cognitively. Further, Das and Kattumuri

(2010) showed that when one resource teacher is present in a school for the students with

disabilities in that school, the students were benefited as they could spent a lot of time

during the week with the resource teacher. This indicates that reducing the ratio of special

educator to school would be a necessary step to make inclusive education and education

for students with disabilities effective.

Learning outcomes

In order to study the learning outcomes of students at elementary school, first the

percent of students‟ progress of class IV students with respect to reaching ABL level four

was tracked using three time points during the academic year – October, January and

April. Then, the students who were in ABL level IV were assessed for their linguistic and

mathematical skills and content knowledge in EVS using a simple, commonly

administered independent test. Using these scores, the learning outcomes of students in

class IV in public schools were studied in three major ways. First, the variations in basic

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and advanced skills were studied with in the population of public school students tested,

then the variations among schools included in the study were analyzed and then, the

learning outcomes were studied in comparison with similar outcomes for students in

private schools. Finally, as English and mathematics have been shown to be the most

underachieving subject, the effect of ABL level on learning outcomes in these areas have

also been studied.

The percentages of students who have reached ABL level four in class IV at the

year end, on an average is 59.63%. The individual percentages of students in ABL level

IV for each subject at the end of the year, in April, are Tamil - 68.14%, English - 40.06%,

Maths - 55.84%, Science - 70.03% and Social Science - 63.09%. The percentages of

students in ABL level IV in Tamil, Maths and EVS are similar to the percentage of

students showing satisfactory levels of achievements in a previous study by Vijay Kumar,

Venkatesan, Kannappan & Sekhar (2009). This satisfactory level of achievement was a

minimum of 50% on a composite score obtained from the milestone levels and marks on

latest test. This shows that the progress in achievement is in line with the sequence of

cards planned for in the ABL methodology. However, whether this picture of

achievements also reflects achievements of specific cognitive skills is not clear and needs

to be seen.

Further, it can also be seen from table B1-1 and figure B1-1, that progress to ABL

level 4 in each subject during both durations from October to January and from January

to April was different. While the changes seen in languages was positive but reduced, in

Maths, the percentage of children in ABL level IV actually reduced in the second

duration. Similar trend was seen for science and social science was seen but to a lesser

extent. Some reasons for this could be that during the months of February, March and

April, the teachers got busy with census duty and later with election duty. Due to the

respective trainings followed with the actual work for these duties, the teachers had to

manage running the school by sharing classes and by sharing the work. All these could

have resulted in some attrition of learning. There was also long and frequent absentees in

the second half of the year and therefore, these numbers, which reflect the number of

students attending school as of the dates when data was collected did not include them.

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In the learning outcomes assessment in this study, the percentage of mean score

overall was 49.33% (out of a total of 96). In Tamil, Maths and EVS, the percentages was

58.67%, 50.58% and 66.56% (table B2-3), which is all above the 50% satisfactory level

of the composite score in the Vijay Kumar, Venkatesan, Kannappan & Sekhar (2009)

study. When the overall mean percentage in Tamil was broken down skill wise, it was

seen that students scored above 50% in basic reading skill, and speaking while their score

in advanced reading skill and writing was below 50% (table B3-1). Similarly, in

mathematics, mean score percentage for basic skills was above 50% while that for

advanced skills was below 50%. In EVS, the scores for science and social science were

both above 50% (table B3-1).

This shows that while basic reading skills and speaking skills in Tamil have been

developed satisfactorily, advanced reading and writing skills have not. This indicates that

instruction using the ABL methodology in Tamil and Maths was able to facilitate

learning of basic reading skills and basic maths skills while not able to help them build

the advanced skills in these cognitive areas. This possibly is due to the fact pointed out by

Prema, Subbiah, Ramnath & Subramanian (2009) that the many teachers found that

students‟ memory was not very good as they learned from the cards because advanced

cognitive skills require retention of information obtained through basic cognitive skills

(Garner, 1987).

Learning outcomes in English were not studied in the previous studies but were

analyzed in this study. Here, the mean score percentage for all the component skills tested

– basic reading, advanced reading, writing and speaking, were all below 50%. These low

outcomes in English are cause of concern. And factors causing them and that can

alleviate them need to be explored.

English and Maths are two subjects where students‟ scores were least. It was seen

that among the population of class IV, ABL level IV students tested, most variation in

ABL level was seen in English and Maths. That is, there were students in ABL levels

1,2,3 and 4 who took the English test on the learning outcomes assessment test because

they had reached ABL level 4 in any one of the other subjects. This therefore provided an

opportunity to analyze whether ABL level had any significant effect on learning

outcome. This analysis, shown in research question B5 showed that there was no

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significant effect of ABL level on learning language skills in English. Similar results

were seen for mathematics. This probably relates to the finding that ABL materials were

not including enough lessons on advanced mathematics (Prema, Subbiah, Ramnath &

Subramanian, 2009).

Deeper analysis of learning outcomes across the gender and schools were

conducted to understand the factors that had an effect on acquisition of these skills

beyond that of the methodology. It was found that basic reading skills were significantly

different for boys and girls across different schools while for advanced reading skills,

writing and speaking skills, boys and girls‟ learning outcomes were not very different

from each other but there were differences across schools. These results indicate that

some sort of implementation differences exist across schools that can result in better or

worse outcomes in reading abilities in Tamil. A second reason for this could also be that

in some of the schools, where the teachers conducted the test, the teachers had helped the

students to different extents. One example of help rendered was the teacher would read

the paragraph, and questions and explain the meaning of them same, elicit appropriate

answer from the students and help them translate the answer to English. A third possible

reason for this is that some schools were more liberal than the others in moving students

to the ABL level IV at the year end and this could have been reflected as poor

performance in the test.

The present study shows that basic and advanced levels of learning outcomes in

languages and mathematics are low for government school students a compared to private

school students in the same geographical location. Some reasons for these could be the

reduced levels of scholastic advantage afforded to government school students due to

reduced levels of parental education, higher age of beginning schooling and lack of

support for academics at home. It was seen from the initial demographic data collected

that while most of the students in private schools went to pre-school, LKG and UKG

before entering class I, very few of the public school students had that experience.

Further, many of the public school students went to balwadis or anganwadis. But these

are centers for child care and hence have not bee providing much cognitive support as the

pre-school to UKG programs outside. Further, the private schools used traditional

methods of instruction and also sometimes activities and audio-video which along with a

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more challenging curriculum of CBSE, could be putting the students at better advantage

for development of cognitive skills.

Limitations of the study

One limitation of the study, which could have played a role here is that the tests

were conducted by the teachers themselves and in some schools, they did report that

students needs some guidance or extra time for completing the tests. Therefore, the test

needs to be strengthened, teachers and students need more awareness of its importance

and the need for integrity during testing.

Another limitation is that the skills and knowledge were analyzed in this test

through only about two items. A more rigorous test would include more items to test for

development of the cognitive skills tested. Here, due to time constraint, this was not done

but it has nevertheless been able to show differences in learning outcomes of cognitive

skills.

Conclusion

The ABL methodology has been an instrument for change in many ways in our

current elementary education system. It has been able to create ways to allow students

progress in these levels at their own developmental rate, not suffer from absenteeism and

make the classroom more child-friendly. However, due to the restrictions of the way we

define primary education classes at the end and beginning of the school year, students are

being promoted to each successive class at the end of the school year, irrespective of the

ABL level they are in. This creates a problem at the end of class IV and for class V as

nearly half of the students are not able to read, do basic mathematics at class V.

It can be seen from the results of research question A1 that in most of the

subjects, reading is an important activity for information input. But the learning outcomes

analysis in research questions in part B shows that the basic and advanced reading skills

of students in level 4 in the languages, especially Tamil, is not developed to the extent

that they can independently read and comprehend what they have read. Since this

comprehension is critical to understanding the material that is to be read, it determines to

a great extent whether the student will engage with his learning independently from the

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77

cards or not. Research question A2 shows from classroom observations that most

students did not spend even 15 minutes on an average working attentively to their cards

in any subject. This indicates that although the methodology of ABL plans for a variety

of activities for learning at each stage of input, process and expression o information, and

even makes it interesting many times, something more is needed to make learning

outcomes more effective.

It is important to understand that the goal of universal elementary education of

high quality is the major focus while the methodology adopted is only a means to the end

or the process for attaining the goal. To this end, it is important to glean the merits of

different methodologies of instruction at elementary level and use them judiciously to

achieve the goal of high quality elementary education for all our country‟s children.

Towards this end, the following recommendations that arise out of this study have been

made.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

The following major recommendations arise out of this study.

1. Provisions for appointment of maid and administrative assistant in proportion to

strength of the school.

SSA has made many efforts to ensure that every school has infrastructure

standards of classrooms, buildings, kitchens and toilets. In addition, each school needs

one or two cleaner person/s (maid or aayamma) and at least one administrative assistant

so that the students can be relieved of spending a good deal of time on manual labour

which is akin to child labour and the teacher can be relieved of too much administrative

work. This way more time by teachers and students can be spent on education related

work and improve quality of learning in the public schools.

2. Strengthen the balwadi and anganwadis to nurture early cognitive development.

Most private school students have the advantage of attending pre-school

programs that are cognitively supporting while the public school students do not.

Balwadis and anganwadis need to be strengthened the with respect to their pre-school

programs and support staff. This will help make good use of the critical period of

language and cognitive development and put the students entering class I at a readiness

advantage and make their elementary education more successful. This will also facilitate

early detection of any learning problems that may be faced by any child. This relates to

operationalizing Section 11 of chapter III of the RTE Act, 2009 (early childhood care and

education).

2. Redefine curriculum in elementary education.

We know due to research in cognitive neurosciences and psychology that

students differ in their cognitive development levels and abilities at the ages 5-10.

Elementary education curriculum needs to be skill focused rather that focused in

completing particular number of units as mentioned in the National Curriculum

Framework, 2005. Further, the RTE Act, 2009, also specifies that good quality

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elementary education must be provided by the central and local authorities (Chapter III,

section 8(g) and section 9(h)). To make this possible, first of all, we need to have a set of

learning outcome benchmarks for elementary education.

In classes I and II, more stress should be laid on development of reading,

writing, listening and communication skills. In classes III and IV, this should be

continued with more materials and opportunities for development of these skills at

advanced levels. Instructional methods should be wholesome as to address different

learning needs and optimum levels of challenge.

Each method, lecture, ABL or any other method have their merits and

limitations and they must be judiciously used to attain the final goal of high quality in

education through successful educational experiences and outcomes. Supplementary

reading materials must be used within the classroom to increase reading and listening

opportunities. Subject relevant activities need to be implemented to a much greater extent

to bring about cognitive development in each area.

3. Student‟s time in school must be respected by each aspect of the education system.

(figure 1).

At the education system level, efforts must be made to ensure teachers do not

have to compromise on their classroom time. Training programs and meetings should be

planned such that sudden and frequent absence of teacher from the class is avoided. At

the level of the schools, teachers and school heads must ensure that under no

circumstance, the school time of the students is compromised. Further, teachers must be

made aware of the deleterious effects of their frequent absenteeism on student‟s

motivation in class.

Further, students must not be made to do jobs such as sweep the corridors and

classrooms, clean the water tanks, wash teacher‟s lunch boxes etc as a routine impinging

on classroom time. While such activities have a value for cleanliness as a lesson, their

overuse in government schools is testimony of the government‟s stand on child labour

and child‟s educational rights and need to be removed. There can instead be a clean up

time at the end of the school day when students tidy up the classroom and the school

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premises about once a week or so and this should be instilled in all schools irrespective of

school type.

4. Progress monitoring and responsive instruction.

Provisions have been given in the RTE Act, 2009 for assessing the ability of the

students and tailoring instruction accordingly (Chapter IV, section 24(1)(d); Chapter V,

Section 29(2)(h)). Further, the system of detention and that of anti-detention have both

shown to be detrimental to improving quality of our education system in their own ways.

Further, although continuous progress monitoring is being implemented in some schools

through regular periodic tests, instruction does not respond to their needs based on their

performance. Hence we should have a continuous progress monitoring and responsive

instruction in classroom and appropriate supports should be provided at the level of the

schools and education system.

5. Provide student-friendly seating facilities to classrooms.

It was clearly seen in this study that classrooms where students and teachers were

seated in floors had more chaos and less order than classrooms that had small chairs and

tables for students and a big table and chair for teachers. In the latter, it was also seen that

teachers were able to pay better attention to all students in the class (see photographs in

photos section.)

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APPENDIX

Appendix A: Letter of permission from SSA-TN - See attached pdf document –„Letter of

permission from SSA-TN‟

Appendix B: Learning outcomes assessment test - See attached pdf document – „CRY-

NCRRF – ABL project – Learning Outcomes Assessment – English Version‟, „CRY-

NCRRF – ABL project – Learning Outcomes Assessment – Tamil Version‟ , „Tamil oral

test‟ and „English oral test‟

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PHOTOS

Photos a& b

ABL classes with students and teacher seated on the floor

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Photos c & d

ABL classes where there were small tables for students to write on and the teacher had a

table and chair

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Photos e & f

ABL classes where students had small table and chairs and teacher had her table and

chair. The teacher was able to sit with the students in different tables to address their

needs.

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Photo g

ABL card stand that needs to be maintained by the students at the end of every class and

invariably does not, due to which a lot of time is spent on searching for cards.

effectiveness of activity – based – learning methodology ... · abl methodology 1 effectiveness...

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