ISSN 2321 3361 © 2020 IJESC

Research Article Volume 10 Issue No.10

Factors Affecting the Students Performance in English; a Special

Reference to the G.C.E (O/L) Students in Vavuniya District in Sri
Lanka
Sathiyathuma. J1, Karthika. S2
Assistant Lecturer1, 2
Advanced Technological Institute, Vavuniya, Sri Lanka1
Advanced Technological Institute, Jaffna, Sri Lanka2

Abstract:
This study examined the factors affecting student’s performance in English based on a study conducted in Vavuniya among the North
and South zone students. The sample consisted 187 students selected from the target population of 2419 students who were
participated in General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level’s (G.C.E. O/L) in 2015 by using cluster sampling method. The data
were collected through structured questionnaires. As the main technique of data analysis, a multiple regression model has been
employed to quantify the impact of different factors affecting the student performance. The multiple regression results indicate that
communication skills, learning facilities and proper guidance are significant independent variables in explaining variation on student’s
performance in English language in the G.C.E(O/L) examination, but other independent variable family stress is insignificantly
associated and negatively effect on student’s performance in Vavuniya District in Sri Lanka.

Keywords: Learning facilities, proper guidance, communication skills, family stress, student’s performance.

I. INTRODUCTION importance of English language for enhancing educational

Background of the research
In Sri Lanka, all the schools, located island-wide, follow a
common national curriculum for each subject. In terms of
English, the curriculum is designed by the Department of
English of the National Institute of Education (NIE). The NIE
often obtains the services of experts in the field to develop the
English curriculum and to write text books in that subject. They
also develop teacher manuals that are used by the teachers in the
entire country. Currently, English is taught as a second language
at all levels of education. But the significance given to it at each
level is different. Up to grade eleven, it is a compulsory subject
who is tested at the Ordinary Level (O/L) Examination (final
exam for secondary school) conducted in all provinces of the
country by the Department of Examination, Sri Lanka. With
recent educational reforms, teachers also conduct school-based
assessment for English, which often contain group and
individual assignments. The importance of English language as a
school subject derives mainly from its effective value to the
larger Sri Lanka country. English is the official language of
administration and commerce. Above all, Salami (2002) had
emphasized the importance of the use of English language in
improving communication among the various ethnic groups in
Nigeria. He further highlighted the need for improving the
quality of spoken and written English language among school
children. However, one of the current educational problems of
public interest is that of poor level of achievement especially in
public examinations (Kolawole, 1998; Dele & Koolawole,
2002). This problem of underachievement among school
children has persisted in English subject (Ivowi, Okebukola,
Oludotun, & Akpan, 1992; Falayajo, 1997). In recognition of the
attainment as well as for improving communication ability of
citizens, the government had made it as a core subject. It is also
compulsory for students to have credit in English language
before entering the higher education. This also explains why
many parents go off their way to see that their children pass at
credit level or above in English language. Sri Lanka’s
proficiency in English remains poor, having declined
significantly in the last 30 years. English language skills not
only enjoy strong demand in the national labour39999 market,
but also it opens up job prospects in the global economy.
According to the Department of Examination statistics, about 70
percent of school candidates continue to fail in English at the
GCE (O/L) examination each year in Vavuniya District.
However, this means that in Vavuniya district 30 percent of the
candidates Pass in English. In this 30 percent students have a
chance to enter the University or they can follow any other
Higher National studies in Sri Lanka. Therefore, rest of the 70
percent students may eliminate from the more valuable
opportunities. Such as Higher National Diploma, College of
Technology, College of education and private or government job
opportunity. For that reason, other district peoples can easily get
the chance to work in Vavuniya District. So, our young
generation is affected by unemployment. It happens as a result
of poor English competency. So, we need to find the solution
about this problem. Therefore, this study seeks to find out the
factors effect on students’ academic performance in Vavuniya
District.
Research problem
According to General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level’s
(G.C.E O/L) examination, statistics students’ performance in

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English in Vavuniya schools for the last five years average has quality of academic success, a series of variables are to be
been above 70 percent Fail (Table 1). It is higher failure rate considered (Waters & Marzano, 2006). There are some students
when we compare with other subject and other district of the who devote most of their times to their studies especially during
G.C.E (O/L) students. The According to that data only a few examination periods and yet, performed below expectation in
numbers of students are eligible to do higher studies. Therefore, their final examinations.
we can identify the Students’ performance in English Language
which has been very poor in Vavuniya District. 4.2 Communication Skills
There are two types of factors that affect the students’ academic
Table.1. Student Achievement In English performance. These are internal and external classroom factors
Year Zone Student Sat Student Fail Percentage Average and these factors strongly affect the students’ performance.
Vavuniya North
Internal classroom factors include student’s competence in
481 391 81.3%
2015 72.1% English, class schedules, class size, English text books, class test
Vavuniya South 1938 1218 62.8% results, learning facilities, homework, environment of the class,
Vavuniya North 405 369 91.1%
complexity of the course material, teacher’s role in the class,
2014 76.6% technology used in the class and exams systems. External
Vavuniya South 1843 1143 62.0% classroom factors include extracurricular activities, family
Vavuniya North 476 414 87.0% problems, work and financial, social and other problems.
2013
Vavuniya South
73.0% Research studies show the students’ performance which depends
1990 1174 59.0%
on many factors such as learning facilities, gender and age
Vavuniya North 576 501 87.0% differences, etc. that can affect student performance (Hansen &
2012 75% Mastekaasa, 2006).
Vavuniya South 2090 1317 63.0%
Vavuniya North 606 559 92.2% Learning Facilities
2011 77.7%
Vavuniya South 2234 1413 363.2% Provision of adequate learning facilities at all levels including
equipment and human resources enhances the quality and
relevance of imparted skills of learners (Lumuli, 2009).
Source: Learning involves interaction of students with the environment.
Therefore, this study proposes to find out How far the factors
Teaching and learning resources include classrooms,
affecting student’s performance in G.C.E (O/L) examination in
laboratories, libraries, playing fields, textbooks among others.
Vavuniya District. Based on this problem the following research
Indeed, physical resources go a long way in creating conducive
question is proposed: What are the important factors that affect
environment that promote effective teaching and learning. It is
students’ performance on the English Subject of the GCE (O/L)
with this in mind that the Draft Report on Cost and Financing of
examination?
Education in Kenya that Rok, (1995) identifies textbook ratio
and school facilities as some yard sticks to be used to gauge the
Objectives of the study quality of secondary school education. The students who are
The primary objective of this study is to examine the factors
actively engaged in the learning process are observed to have a
affecting students’ performance in G.C.E (O/L) examination in
positive correlation with the performance. The use of the library
Vavuniya district. Secondary objectives of this research include
positively affects the student performance. The academic
exploring the four factors that affect students’ performance in
environment is the effective variable for students and has
English G.C.E (O/L) examination; communication skills,
positive relationship with fathers’ education and grade level
learning facilities, proper guidance and family stress. Further, in
(Kirmani & Siddiquah, 2008).
this research, the degree of contribution of the said factors in the
performance of the students in English GCE (O/L) examination
Proper Guidance
will also be analyzed. By doing so, this research will
Noble (2006), students’ academic accomplishments and
recommend the effective factors to improve the performance of
activities, perceptions of their coping strategies and positive
the students in the examination of this district.
attributions, and background characteristics were indirectly
related to their composite scores, through academic achievement
IV. REVIEW OF LITERATURE in high school. The students who are properly guided by their
parents have performed well in the exams. The guidance from
Previously a lot of research has been done on this topic.
the teacher also affects the student performance. The guidance
Different researchers researched on various variables and a lot of
from the parents and the teachers indirectly affect the
different variables were studied. Our contribution to this study is
performance of the students (Hussain, 2006).
that we explore the four factors that affect students’
performance. These factors are students’ communication skills, Family Stress
learning facilities, proper guidance and family stress. This Socio-economic factors like attendance in the class, family
research will be helpful for the parents as well as the teachers of income, and mother’s and father’s education, teacher-student
the students who play a key role to guide them properly based ratio, presence of trained teacher in school, sex of student and
on their abilities. distance of school are also affected the performance of the
students. Academic success of graduate student will be enhanced
4.1 Factors Influencing Student Achievement if the optimal health related barriers are low (Raychauduri et al.,
There is a range of factors affecting the quality of performance 2010; Kernan, Bogart & Wheat 2011). Amitava Raychaudhuri,
of GCE (O/L) students. In identifying the factors affecting the et. al., (2010), found that numerous studies have been done to

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identify those factors which are affecting student’s academic
performance.
Based on the above empirical evidence, the following
hypotheses were developed.
H1: There is a significant effect of communication on students’
performance in English of Vavuniya district students.
H2: There is a significant effect of learning on students’
performance in English of Vavuniya district students.
H3: There is a significant effect of proper guidance on students’
performance in English of Vavuniya district students.
H4: There is a significant effect of family stress on students’
performance in English of Vavuniya district students.
V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
analysis package known as Statistical Package for Social
Science 20.0. Descriptive statistic, correlation and regression
analysis are used through appropriate statistical package.
Student performance= B0 + B1* Communication skills + B2*
learning facilities +B3 * Proper guidance + B4 * family stress+
er (Equation 01)
VI. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
In order to meet the purpose of the study, this section has five
parts for analyzing the data collected for the study. The Five
parts are: (a) data sample information, (b) descriptive analysis,
(c)correlation analysis, (d)regression analysis and (e) Hypothesis
testing.

Reliability of the scale

Reliability of total items is 0.791 in Table 02 which shows its
significance.

Table.2. Reliability Statistics

Source: Survey data

The target population were consisting of students who
participated in the GCE (O/L) examination in 2015 of Vavuniya
District. Therefore the target population consisted of 2419
students. The sample was extracted from the population. It is
near to 10 percent of the population. The sample was drawn
Cluster method by Zones. Within the cluster sample was
randomly selected according to the zone.
Descriptive Analysis
Descriptive statistics represents the calculated means and
standard deviations for the independent variables, communi
cation, learning facilities, proper guidance and family stress and
dependent variable, student performance. Study shows that mean
of communication, learning facilities, family stress and proper
guidance are 3.5918, 4.2424, 3.0909 and 2.8717 respectively,
which shows that respondent are agree that these variables effect
student performance and standard deviation for these
independent variables are 0.46106,0.38883,0.62143and 0.47544
respectively, which is shown in Table 03:

Data Sources and Instrumentation

Table.03. Descriptive statistics
The source of data for this study is primary data acquired
through questionnaire. The extent of existence for all variables
in the research area was measured on a five-point Likert scale
ranging from, strongly disagree to Strongly Agree, Ranging Mean Std. Deviation N
from 1 to 5. Secondary data will be collected from research
studies, books, journals, newspapers, and ongoing academic
working papers. Reliability of the instruments was obtained by Communication 3.5918 .46106 187
using the Cronbach Alpha. Fraenkel &Wallen (1996) argue that
for most educational research, stability of scores over a period of
two months is usually viewed as sufficient evidence of test-retest Learning facilities 4.2424 .38883 187
reliability Decision Rule to Measure the GCE (O/L) students’
Performance The mean value of these Five-point scales was 3.
[(5 + 4 + 3 + 2 +1)/5] Therefore, the following decision rules Family stress 3.0909 .62143 187
were formulated for each variable. “µ” denotes the mean score
of the respondents for each variable.
Proper guidance 2.8717 .47544 187
If 0 < µ > 1, then very poor student relationship
If 1< µ > 2, then poor student relationship Source: Survey data
If 2 < µ > 3, then moderate level of student achievement
Correlation Analysis: The Pearson correlation was conducted
If 3 < µ > 4, then good student achievement
to examine the relationship between selected variables and
If 4 < µ > 5, then very good student achievement
performances, based on each student’s performance. The results
Mode of analysis: Data from questionnaires was classified and are summarized in Table 04. It shows that association between
entered in software to analyzed using a computerized data students ‘performance and proper guidance i.e. 73% is one of

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the most important factors affecting the student performance. performance due to the independent variables such as
There is degree of association between learning facilities; communication, learning facilities, proper guidance and family
communication skills and family stress with student stress.
performance are 56 percent, 72 percent and 19 percent
Table.05. Model Summary
respectively as shown in Table 4.
Model R R Adjusted R Std. Error of the
Table.04. Correlations Square Square Estimate
Correlations 1 .854 a
.729 .723 .61840
a.Predictors: (Constant), learning, family stress, communi
Propergui Communic Familyst Learn Student
dance ation ress ing perform cation, proper guidance
ance Source: Survey data
Coefficient & Hypothesis Testing
Pearso Table.06. Coefficients
n Unstandardized Standardized T Sig.
1 .379 **
.289 **
.568 **
.733**

Correla Model coefficients coefficients

tion
Properguid B Std. Error Beta
ance Sig. (2-
.000 .000 .000 .000
tailed)
Guidance .611 .073 .415 8.392 .000

N 187 187 187 187 187 Communication .324 .055 .255 5.907 .000

Pearso p
Family stress -.005 .057 -.003 -.086 .931
n
.379**
1 .022 .396 **
.566**

Correla Learning .513 .064 .386 7.974 .000

Communic tion
ation Sig. (2- Source: Survey data
.000 .766 .000 .000
tailed)
A. Dependent variable: student performance
N 187 187 187 187 187 Based on the Beta coefficients, the model shows that
Pearso communication causes 32% positive variation in student
n performance and t -value is also significant. So, accept H1 that is
.289 .022 1 .178 .198
“There is a significant effect between communication and
** * **

Correla
Familystre tion students’ performance. Learning facilities causes 51% variation
ss Sig. (2- in student performance in positive direction and t – value is
.000 .766 .015 .708
tailed) significant. Therefore, researcher accept H2 which states that
“There is a significant effect of learning facilities on students’
N 187 187 187 187 187 performance. Proper guidance reasons 61% variation in student
Pearso performance but the direction is positive. Here t-value is also
n significant. Therefore, accept H3 which states that that “There is
.568**
.396 **
.178 *
1 .724**

a significant effect of proper guidance on students’ performance.

Correla
tion Family stress causes 5% variation in the performance in negative
Learning
Sig. (2- direction and t – value is insignificant. Then, H4 “There is a
.000 .000 .015 .000 significant effect of family stress on students’ performance was
tailed)
rejected.
N 187 187 187 187 187

Pearso VII. CONCLUSION

n This study was conducted to identify the factors that influence
.733**
.566 **
.198 **
.724 **
1
Correla
students’ performance in English language at G.C.E (O/L)
Student tion
examination in Vavuniya District from 2011 to 2015. By using
performan Sig. (2-
ce .000 .000 .708 .000 the Statistical Package for Social Science 20.0 analyzed four
tailed)
factors as communication skills, learning facilities, proper
guidance, and family stress to identify effect on the student’s
N 187 187 187 187 187
performance. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested,
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). except family stress other hypotheses are accepted. It shows that
proper guidance is the most important factor effect on student’s
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). performance and other factors communication skills and
Source: Survey data learning facilities are also positively effects on student’s
performance but on the other hand family stress is negatively
Regression analysis effects on the student’s performance in English in the G.C.E
Model Summary: Model summary is shown in Table 05. Value (O/L) examination. Our finding of this study helps the Ministry
of R. Square is .729 shows that 73% variation in student of Educationa to design and implement the policies to improve

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the students’ performance and the quality of education by
changing the attitude of students towards learning, facilitating
students and improving the teaching procedures. Parents can
use the outcomes of the study to solve the students’ problems
especially financial problems and to look after them. It may also
create awareness among students about their rights and
responsibilities to achieve quality education. Further, this study
may assist in providing data and information for proper planning
and decision at the Ministry of Education, Foreign investors and
NGOs. It is also helps to increase the pass rate and
employability of students in Vavuniya District.
VIII. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
There are certain limitations of this study. Firstly, the sample
size taken in this study was very small that is only 10 percent. If
this study is being carried out again with large sample size the
result might be improved than existing study. Including more
other relative factors that affect the student performance can
improve the results.
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