Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of explicit morphological awareness
instruction on reading comprehension of secondary school students. This research project was
mainly quasi-experimental in design. To conduct this study, a total of 82 EFL learners from
MetemaYonannes Secondary School were participated. The participants were homogeneous in
terms of age (18-22), streams of study, mother tongue, and reading comprehension performance.
Grade 11th students were selected as the participants of the study through convenience sampling
technique since the researcher was assigned to teach this grade level. From this grade level, two
already existing groups (A and B) were selected on the basis of the pretest and were assigned
into experimental and control group. Reading comprehension tests and interview were used as a
data gathering instrument. The tests’ reliability were measured by Pearson product moment
correlation coefficient and were found to be acceptable .725 and .738 for the pretest and posttest
respectively. Teaching material which mainly consisted of morphological units and exercises
was prepared and used during the experiment. Independent samples t test was used so as to see if
any significant difference existed in the reading comprehension performance of the participants
in the pre and posttest of experimental and control group. The results of the pretest showed that
there was no significance difference in the reading comprehension performance of the students
between the control and experimental groups prior to the experiment. The results in the posttest,
however, showed that there was a significant difference between the control and experimental
groups in reading comprehension performance. In addition, the qualitative data showed that
participants had got some improvement from the intervention. On the basis of the findings of the
study, it was concluded that morphological awareness in the context of reading could have a
great contribution in enhancing students’ reading comprehension performance. Based on this,
conclusions and recommendations were made.
