Vol.4 (1), pp.

15-18, June 2017

ISSN 2449-0806
International Standard Journal Number (ISJN)
e-ISJN: A4372-2600
Article Number: DRJA29388385
Copyright © 2017
Author(s) retain the copyright of this article
Direct Research Journal of Social Science and Educational Studies (DRJSSES)
directresearchpublisher.org/journal/drjsses/

Research Paper

Development of silent reading comprehension test: Analysis

of student’s skills of one of the State Universities and Colleges
offering agriculture program in Caraga Region, Philippines
1 2
Rosa Caybot-Plaza, MAELT * and Adelyne C. Abrea
1
Assistant Prof. II , Surigao del Sur State University-Tagbina Campus, 8308, Philippines.
2
Professor , Philippine Normal University – Agusan Campus, 8504, Philippines.
*Corresponding Author Email: [email protected].
Accepted 23 June, 2017

The study developed a silent reading comprehension skills test of outstanding reading materials and highly reliable test in
one of the State University and Colleges (SUC’s) in Caraga Region agriculture with Pearson r value of 0.99. Usability assessment
offering agriculture program using Direct Reading Thinking showed highly usable in ease of administration, scoring, less
Activity (DRTA) format. Results revealed that agriculture expense and no interference and moderately usable in less time to
instructors used the 20 popular textbooks, 20 popular general those who are involved.
references, and 15 popular serials for instruction. These
references were used in developing the test. Series of revisions,
rearranging and renumbering in the test questionnaire were done
to present the ideas in logical and comprehensive form. Key words: Direct Reading Thinking Activity, reading selections,
Furthermore, improvement of tests were done four times silent reading comprehension skills, SUC
correspond to sessions and obtained very satisfactory/

INTRODUCTION

No reading takes place without comprehension. The their learners’ needs and in designing instructional
problem of comprehension has been present long before materials suited to the learners’ need. Moreover,
the issue of poor education quality, and ways of Instructional testing is not simply done in any classroom
improving reading proficiency have become next to instruction to evaluate learners’ understanding of the
obsession among the concerns. Comprehension tests topic. It should be continuous process and an integral
have been used in almost all teaching-learning situations component of the curriculum and should be justified on
with the objective of assessing the students learning for a the basis of informative and useful feedback to students
particular task. Skilled reading comprehension involves and teachers (Bai, 1998).
the use of number of cognitive skills among which is the However, Direct Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) is a
automatic recognition of letters and words and meaning technique that encourages students to make predictions,
which is the lowermost. set purpose of reading and monitor comprehension while
Nowadays, the use and adaptations of multiple-choice they are reading. The DRTA canters on open-minded
and of other standardized tests instruments have questions about the reading experiences, students will
proliferated to aid the teachers in gathering information of become aware of their own interpretive actions during
 Direct Res.Social Sci.Edu.Studies 16

Figure 1. The Schematic Diagram of the Development of Silent Reading Test.

Table 1. Table of specification (TOS)

There were 78 textbooks titles were listed and the top 20 most popular textbooks were; Feeds
and feeding, Soil and Water Conservation Management, Aquaculture: The

reading and will therefore recognize prediction, judgment, effective, for students are engaged in a step-by-step
and evidence verification (Bermiso, 2003; Canda and process that guides them through informational test. The
Juliet, 2001). use of DRTA in Caraga region specifically SUCs’ offering
The use of DRTA to test the comprehension skills of agriculture is not observed. Thus this study was
one of the State Universities and Colleges offering conducted to develop a silent reading comprehension
agriculture program in Caraga Region may prove very skills test for SUCs’ in Caraga region using DRTA; to
Caybot-Plaza and Abrea 17

Table 3.Usability of the test

identify the different reading materials as sources for four stages namely: planning, test construction, try-out
comprehension skills tests item construction; to test item and analysis and evaluation stage stage (Figure 1).
that would measure silent reading comprehension; and to The descriptive-survey method was used in the first stage
try-out the test to determine the indices of difficulty, (Kirlinger, 1973), content-analysis of the reading
indices of discrimination, and plausibility of the distracters materials was employed in the second stage, and
of the test. content-validation of the initial draft of the test was done
in third stage while test-retest method was executed to
establish test reliability in the fourth stage. The evaluation
METHODOLOGY stage was conducted in the three campuses Surigao del
Sur State University (SDSSU) former Surigao del Sur
The developmental type of study was utilized in Polytechnic State College (SSPSC) namely : Tagbina,
developing a silent reading comprehension skills test for Lianga and San Miguel.
one of the SUCs’ offering agriculture program in Caraga The universal sampling was employed in getting the
region (Calderon and Gonzales, 1993). It is composed of number of instructor for the reading materials inventory of
 Direct Res.Social Sci.Edu.Studies 18

300 items questionnaire. This sampling method is to News, Rice Literature Update, The SSPSC Buzz, Meat
ensure the broad list of reading materials as references International, Animal Husbandry, The Philippine Journal
for test construction. Moreover, multistage sampling of Education, Sipag Pinoy, FeedTech, World Poultry, Pig
(High, average and low achievers) comprises of 67 Progress, Monitor, Cogio Bulletin and Aquaculture.
agriculture students from the three campuses and ten Table of Specification was constructed to help decide
percent of these were subgroup according to class which items to discard and retain and the researcher
standing using fishbowl method for the try-out and verified if the DRTA skills are represented by an
analysis. This stage was done in four session’s adequate number of items in the final draft of the test
equivalent to numbers of revision. (Tables 1- 3).
The accounted reading materials of the agriculture To establish reliability of the test, a retest was conducted
instructors were summarized using frequencies and to the same group of 145 students10 days after the first
ranks to determine the relative popularity of the administration. The Pearson Product-Moment Correlation
references. The characteristics of 300 items coefficient of reliability of the test was 0.99 or very high
questionnaire were categorized, tabulated and correlation between the test and retest scores. This
interpreted using the parameters; item index of difficulty, implies that the test gives a consistent rating and is
whole test index of difficulty, item index of discrimination, therefore highly reliable as a test instrument.
whole test index of discrimination and plausibility of the
distracter. Pearson product-moment coefficient of
correlation was used to determine the reliability of the REFERENCES
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serials were;Agriculture Magazine, Feed Mix, Farm News