ASIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY Vol. 2 (2), July 2012: 204-210 ISSN (Print): 2249-7374 Website: http://www.tspmt.com RESEARCH ARTICLE A Study of the Stress of New Evaluation System Adopted by Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad, on Secondary level students Archana Sharma and Akhilesh Singh A.P.S. Teachers Tanning College, Agra Email: archana_rawatsetia@yahoo.com Received: 9 th Feb. 2012, Revised: 28 th April 2012, Re-revised: 15 th May 2012, Accepted: 25 th May 2012 INTRODUCTION India is a developing country where literacy rate is merely 64.8% in which male literacy is 75.2% & female literacy is 53.7% only. In State wise data we see that there is a huge gap between Kerala (90.90%) and Bihar (47%) literacy rate (India 2010). To overcome such situation, our government spends a good percentage of GDP on education every year. Education has now become a concerned subject for both Government as well as Educational Institutions. In Education teacher imparts knowledge of various subjects which is useful to students, on the other hand students grasp that knowledge attentively and try to learn & implement it in their life. This knowledge helps the students to take right decisions in different situations of life. Such teaching & learning process needs evaluation, so exams are conducted to know: 1. whether the students have understood the knowledge imparted to them? 2. whether students are able to retain the information given to them? 3. whether they are able to recall the information at right time in right sequence? 4. whether the behavior of students is modified or not? Today Evaluation system has become so complex that it results in stress & depression, some time such depression increases so much that the students commit suicide. Such cases of suicide due to secondary level examination stress are reported in Uttar Pradesh since last two decades. So to control such situation of depression New Evaluation System is implied by the Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad, Allahabad (U.P.Board) for secondary level students in the year 2010. New Evaluation System is adopted with a view to reduce suicidal cases due to evaluation stress and to motivate students to face exams with vigour and courage. The Uttar Pradesh Government said that it will replace the normal marking system of class Tenth board exams with a new Grading system. Chief Minister Mayawati told reporters at a press conference here The Grading system for the class 10th board exams will come into effect from the 2010-11 academic session. Grades from A to E2. The grading of students would also take away the frightening judgmental quality of marks obtained in a test leading to a stress free and joyful learning environment in the school. JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM India has a glorified past with multi-directional achievements in the field of education. In Ancient period near about 7 th Century B.C. we had various renowned Universities Like: 1. Taxila 2. Vikramashila 3. Nalanda But now era has changed; India stands far behind in education as compared to developed countries like U.S.A., U.K., Japan, Germany, and France etc. Indian has low literary rate of 64.68% in which Uttar Pradesh has only 56.27%. (India 2010). To minimize such difference in the field of education, every organization, institution like NCERT, NCTE, AICTE & Governments of Centre & State level are driving their potential towards eradication of illiteracy in India. They are trying to impart qualitative education to the students of every state, for this, educational standards are increased. Increased standards
need good tools for Evaluation of education. This Evaluation work is done by taking examinations each year at each class interval. Studying about the students of X standard we come to know that in the time of qualitative education, it has become too hard to get good marks due to complex and tough competitions so the students face different types of stress & strain in this adolescence age with anxiety of examination. Some time such stresses increase so much that they get depressed and commit suicide. These Stresses can be: 1. To get passing marks in Board exams. 2. To face board exams for the first time. 3. To get first position and highest percentage in comparison to pass out students 4. To satisfy their family members by their achievements. ` So keeping such causes of stress of X standard students in mind, our researchers studied for a long period of time and proposed Grading System instead of Marks, Percentage of Marks and Divisions so that the cases of stress and depression as well as suicide can be minimized. Some of the studies done in the past related to stress of Evaluation are as follows:- Table1: Showing Some Researches done on Stress in students. S.No. 1 Year 2 2008 3 2009 4 2009 Name Of The Researcher 2004 Chattopadhyay, R Rao, AbhaSubba Richards, Daniel Paul Davies Cynthia A. Research Problem Impact of depression, anxiety and stress during examination on natural language pattern of female students. Academic Stress and Adolescent Distress: The Experience of 12th Standard Students in Chennai, India. Examining and Addressing Academic Stress at a suburban High School. The communicational relationship between Assessment types and Grading. Research Findings Students of higher level of depression and anxiety during examinations use more negative sentences. Researcher found that their deep rooted depression, anxiety and stress forced them to use these kinds of sentences and languages. Analysis suggested that parents were involved in their child's education in five ways - they had specific expectations for achievement, they put pressure on their children. These findings suggest that academic stress and adolescent distress is indeed a significant problem in Chennai, India. Findings were, how there existed differences and consistencies both within the sample and between subsamples. The influence of time on initiative. The results identified a significant and positive relationship between the Assessment type teachers believed to communicate student performance effectively to parents and the Assessment type most often used in assigning Grades. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The objectives were as follows 1. To study the level of Examination Stress among secondary level students of U.P. Board. 2. To compare the level of Examination Stress among: i. The secondary level students of the Government and Government aided schools of U.P. Board. ii. The secondary level students of the Government and Self financed schools of U.P. Board. iii. The secondary level students of the Government aided and Self financed schools of U.P. Board. 3. To compare the level of stress among the Male & Female students of secondary level. ~ 205 ~
HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY H01. There is no significant examination stress among the secondary level Students. HO2. There is no significant difference in the scores of examination stress of the students of Government and Government aided schools. HO3. There is no significant difference in the scores of examination stress of the students of Government and self financed schools. HO4. There is no significant difference in the scores of examination stress of the students of Government aided &self financed schools. H05. There is no significant difference in the scores of examination stress of male & female students of secondary level. VARIABLES OF THE STUDY The variables were as follows: 1. Independent variable : Evaluation system 2. Dependent Variable : Stress METHOD Descriptive survey method had been used as it was concerned with the present situation and it attempts to determine the status of the phenomena under investigation. POPULATION Selection of the population is the integral part of research. For the present research students of 11 th standard of Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (U.P Board) Were Considered. Stratified random sampling had been used for selection of Government, Government aided and self financed schools. Following schools were selected to fulfill the objectives of the present research and to compare the level of Examination stress. Table: 2. Exhibiting Population Distributing Units in Different schools of U.P. Board Government School Government Aided Self Financed Government Inter College (boys) 65 Girls Government Inter College 57 RBS Inter college 53 Queen Victoria Inter College. 45 Shakumbhari Inter College 51 Ch. Biri Singh School 45 SAMPLE UNITS The simple random sampling method had been used by the researcher for the selection of the sample of secondary level students of different schools in the present research. Stratified random sampling was used for selection of Government, Government aided and self financed schools. Table: 3. Exhibiting Sample Distributing Units in Different schools of U.P. Board. Government School Government Aided Self Financed Government Inter College (boys) 25 Girls Government Inter College 25 RBS Inter College 25 Queen Victoria Inter College 25 Shakumbhari Inter College 25 Ch. Biri Singh School 25 ~ 206 ~
TOOLS EMPLOYED Bisht Battery of stress scale to access the level of stress in Adolescents was used Bisht Abha Rani (1987). The questionnaire was given to subjects and they were instructed to read all the questions carefully and mark the column that describes their experiences during the examination and examination days. Subjects were asked to complete all the information such as Name, Age, Class, Gender, stream, marks obtained in previous year given on the first page. MAJOR FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 1. Comparative Study of Evaluation stress among Government, Government Aided and Self Financed schools: The above table shows that mean value of evaluation stress scores obtained by students of Government was 154.18, Government aided students was 148 and Self financed school students was 147.24 which shows that the students of Government schools of U.P. Board had higher degree of mean value than the students of Government aided and Self financed schools. The S.D. of three groups was as follows: Government was 3.74, Government aided was 3.732 and self financed was 4.077. For comparing the stress scores of Government and Government aided schools researcher applied t-test and the result was 7.36, which is greater than the value of t at the level of significance 0.01 and 0.05 which are 2.63 and 1.98 respectively. So we can say that there was a significant difference between the stress scores of Government and Government aided school students. On comparing the stress scores of government and self financed school students the researcher calculated the t-value as 7.92 which is greater than the table value of t at 0.01 and 0.05 which are 2.63 and 1.98 respectively so H 02 is rejected and we can say that there is significant difference between the stress scores government and self financed students. On comparing the stress scores of Government aided and Self financed school students the researcher calculated the t-value as 0.87 which was less than table value of t at 0.01 and 0.05 which were 2.63 and 1.98 respectively so H 03 was accepted and we can say that there is an insignificant difference between the stress scores of Government aided and Self financed school students. Table: 4. Showing the Mean, S.D, Skewness and Kurtosis of the Scores of Evaluation Stress S.No. Group No. 1 Govt. 50 2 3 Semi Govt. Self Financed 50 50 Group Comparison Govt. & Semi Govt. Govt. & Self Financed Semi Govt. & Self Financed Mean M1=154.18 M2=148 M1=154.18 M2=147.24 M1=148 M2=147.24 S.D. 3.74 4.732 3.74 4.077 4.732 4.077 Value 7.36 7.92.87 Standard Value 1.93 2.63 1.93 2.63 1.93 2.63 Level of Significance 0.05 0.01 0.05 0.01 0.05 0.01 2. Comparative study of Evaluation Stress among Male & Female students: On comparing the stress scores of secondary level Male and Female students of U.P. Board the researcher calculated the t-value as 1.35 which was less than table value of table value of t at 0.01 and 0.05 which were 2.61 and 1.98 respectively so H 04 was accepted and we can say that there is an insignificant difference between the stress scores of Male and Female students of U.P. Board. ~ 207 ~
Table: 5. Showing Comparative Evaluation Stress Scores of Male & Female Students S.No. Group N Mean S.D. Skewness Kurtosis ~ 208 ~ value Standard Value Level of Significance 1 Boys 75 147.34 5.43 0.311-0.314 1.98 0.05 2 Girls 75 148.47 4.93 0.306 0.019 1.35 2.61 0.01 3 Combined 150 149.83 5.18 0.287-0.168 CONCLUSION The conclusions which are drawn on the basis of findings are stated below- 1. Secondary level students of U.P. Board face Examination stress. 2. Examination stress more in the government school in comparison to government aided &self financed schools. This may because better teaching facilities & good economic background of students of Government aided &self financed schools in comparison to Government schools students. 3. Male & female students face almost equal level of examination stress. It was concluded that the examination stress score was more in Government schools than in Government aided and Self financed schools because in Government schools most of the students are socially and economically backward with having unawareness about education, teachers of government schools also take less interest in teaching them while in Government aided and Self financed, students and parents are more aware towards education as well as the teachers also teaches them properly which minimizes their stress of examination. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY Many times, a researcher fails to carry out his work as perfectly as he would like to do, due to lack of resources, knowledge and expertise. The present study also has a few limitations which could not be overcome due to lack of time and resources at the disposal of the researcher. Limitations of the present study that have come to light are 1. Due to paucity of time, the study was limited to institutions affiliated to U.P. Board only. The institutions of other Board could be included in the study to draw more reliable conclusions. 2. The study is done on two variables only i.e. Evaluation & Stress. 3. The present study is limited to Agra City only. 4. The sample size is limited 150 students only; therefore the results cannot be generalized for the whole population. 5. The study was limited to X grade. This study can be done at various Grades. 6. In the present investigation rural population failed to have place in the sample. Therefore, the generalizations of the results are limited to the urban population only. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS Research is of no value until their findings are applied for anything which may have some practical importance. Certain educational implication can also be derived from the findings of present investigation. Findings of the study may be useful for teacher, administrator, Parents, Guidance Workers, which are as follow:- 1. For Teachers: This study is of great importance for teacher, because they shoulder the responsibility of building the career of the students. This study will help the teachers to motivate students for facing the Board exams with vigour and courage. Teachers can be benefited by the
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