Untitled

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to examine English reading comprehension ability of primary school going children in a rural village in Punjab. The purpose of the study was to study the effect of SOLE on the English reading comprehension ability of primary school going children. In the study, an experimental group and a control group was undertaken. The two groups ie experimental and control were similar in nearly all parameters except the intervention. Children in the experimental group were exposed to SOLE lab (Self Organized Learning Environments) which acted as an intervention. Whereas, the control group, had no such intervention. The study was conducted for a period of three months. The results showed that children exposed to SOLE lab: i) had significantly improved in their English reading comprehension ability; ii) School enrollment increased from 73 to nearly 116; iii) There was a drop-in absenteeism, as reported by the school principal. A summary of the findings makes the study worth mentioning as it was a joint collaboration between a Private company and a Government body. The success of which led to scaling up SOLE labs in 56 primary government schools. However, one limitation of this study is its constraint duration. It was very short however, interestingly, the results of the study has a positive impact and is very encouraging.

Exploring Students' Perspectives on the Implementation of a Self-Organised Learning Environment

“…Multiple studies have explored SOLE's effectiveness, particularly in school settings (Weisblat et al, 2019;Dangwal, 2018;Akram & Ghani, 2019). Weisblat et al (2019) conducted a two-year study in the US involving more than 500 SOLE groups across 100 classrooms.…”

“…Most of the relevant research has used computers with internet access to search for answers to SOLE big questions (Al Zakwani, 2020;Du, 2020;Dangwal, 2018). Indeed, Du (2020) mentioned that, within the SOLE approach, the technology tools that have been used are internet-enabled electronic devices such as laptops or tablets; these devices are used mainly to access the internet to help the students reach different resources to search for answers.…”

“…Initially, students tended to seek immediate answers, but they gradually learned to break down questions, communicate, evaluate resources, and sift through multiple potential answers to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. In India, Dangwal (2018) conducted a study comparing English reading comprehension among primary-school students in an experimental group exposed to SOLE, which was itself in a dedicated lab with a control group. The results indicated that the students in the experimental group showed improvement in English comprehension compared to the control group.…”