Action Research Title:

Improving female class participation in 1 st year

Section 1 computer science students

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Contents
1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY...................................................................................................................................1
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM...............................................................................................................................1
1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES..........................................................................................................................................2
1.3.1 General Objective............................................................................................................................................2
1.3.2 Specific objectives of the Study........................................................................................................................2
1.5. RESEARCH QUESTIONS.........................................................................................................................................2

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1. Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
Empowering female students’ active participation in a classroom by creating a conducive and
inclusive way of teaching learning process should be a prior responsibility of all the concerned
bodies of a University. Denial or less attention to this issue may/can result uncountable negative
effects on many issues. To mention few among those: family development, economic development
of a country, political decision making and social welfare contribution are issues that need active
involvement of female or women as a whole. As many said, “Empowering women is empowering
a society!”. This saying is not stated only for a matter of proverbial expression, rather it is a
noticeable and mandatory task in countries like Ethiopia in which a greater responsibility is laid
upon girls to carry out a lot of activities such as baby care and household tasks more than males
especially on the rural areas. As a country we cannot achieve the growth and transformation plan if
we let down active participation and involvement of females in education.
Education plays a key role for the development of a country. Our country, Ethiopia is now
taking different measures to use education for development. Introducing active and inclusive
learning methods in all Ethiopian Universities is critical. Our University (Raya University) also
adopts active learning methods and now we are just practicing it but, as per our experience and
observation a less attention is given for female participation on a classroom basis. Despite the
traditional thinking and perception of our society and different challenges that has contributed to
the weak performance of females’ participation in education or classroom activities the
government of Ethiopia has taken and is taking different measures to achieve a better goal through
the education system. Among challenges the basic one is our female students are not active
participant in the classroom. Thus there is a strong need to create active and responsible citizens
including females that could participate in achieving core objectives. Here, because of this we need
to improve the participation of female students in the classroom by identifying and analyzing
causes that can hinder active and participatory involvement of female students and thereby tackle
those problems and set appropriate immediate solutions.

1.2 Statement of the problem

Education plays a key role to be a means for achieving ones’ own need as well as transforming
a life style of families and a countries economic development. This can be accomplished by

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implementing active and inclusive learning especially a system which allows participation of
female students in a classroom. It is unthinkable to have a prosperous and modern society without
the active participation of females in educational issues such as classroom activities at least which
can be a bench mark. Most of the time female students are considered as to be incapable of
learning and doing things alone without the involvement and support of males. This traditional
perception has gained its root for many years and influenced female students psychologically to be
inactive in a class room.
Besides, the researchers have a more than five year experience in teaching such kind of
students on average and believe that the cause for the weak participation and overall performance
of female students is not only the traditional perception. Due to this reason, now, we want to
conduct an action research on 1st year section 1 computer science female students so that by
identifying the key problems and set solutions that can enable female students to be active
participants in classroom. This in turn will contribute for the overall development of our country.

1.3 Research objectives

1.3.1 General Objective

The general objective of the study is "to improve classroom participation" of female students of
first year computer science department of Raya University.
1.3.2 Specific objectives of the Study
In line with the general objective, the following specific objectives are stated. These are
1. To assess the level of participation of female students in the classroom.
2. To identify teaching methods which encourage female students to participate in the
classroom?
3. To identify factors that hinder female students from participation.
1.5. Research Questions
The following research questions are sated as a research question:

1. What is the level of female students’ participation in a classroom?

2. How teaching method affect female students’ classroom participation?
3. Why female students’ participation becomes low in the classroom?
4. What measure should be taken to improve female students’ participation in a classroom?