Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1963

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

English

Abstract

This thesis is a part of a three-part research program devised to study the role played by as yet unidentified factors in students’ backgrounds which affect their performance in English. The purpose of the program was to discover, isolate, and describe the premised factors; and to prepare the material concerning them that may be communicated to the college and to the people of the state, the form of the prepared material to be typical but anonymous profiles of students prepared by their backgrounds for success or for failure in college freshman English. This thesis specifically looks at the selected students’ later evaluation of these factors. This thesis, is an analysis of the evaluations made by top-ranking and bottom-ranking students of those factors in their backgrounds connected with performance in English. These students were enrolled at South Dakota State College in the fall of 1962. High school and home environments have already been analyzed. The present study shows what the students have to say about these environments and the factors they emphasize as having a negative or a positive effect on their performance in English. It is hoped that the findings presented here will be of aid for South Dakota State College English teachers in understanding the causes for some of the problems their students have, and will eventually stimulate some desire in non-academic circles for affecting a positive change in factors associated with a negative effect on English usage.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

English language -- Study and teaching -- South Dakota

Description

Includes bibliographical references

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

83

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