Christian Living in Relation to Performance

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Review of Literature

III. Methodology

IV. Findings:

V. Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations

References

ABSTRACT

This descriptive research used the correlational survey method. The data-gathering instruments were questionnaires, validated through item analysis. Test was administered to gather the data for this study. The results of the test in Christian Living as well as in English, Mathematics, Science and Health, and EKWAP were used. There were 83 junior students and 104 senior students who were considered subjects of the study. The data were analyzed using mean, point biserial r and Gamma coefficient. Findings revealed that majority of the students in private schools belonged to the Roman Catholic Religion. Level of performance of students in Christian Living was very good. The level of performance of students was also very good in all academic subjects namely: English, Mathematics, Science and Health, Edukasyong Kagandahang Asal at Wastong Pag-uugali (EKAWP). It was also revealed that female students performed better than male in Christian Living as a subject. On the other hand, religion and level of performance of students in Christian Living and academic performance indicates no relationship.

Keywords: Academic performance, Christian living, In-depth Analysis, Roman Catholic, Private schools

I. Introduction

Plato is credited with the statement, "God is not responsible for the actions of those having free will". That is an apt quote from a secular mind to strengthen the tenets of the freedom of religious choices allowed by God (Gardener, 2014).

It would seem that the responsibility of education belongs to the Church, or to religion, if you will. The Church is committed as a mother to inculcate in the minds of the children a measure of faith that should anchor them through life. Where the home has done a good job, teachers and schools have an easier time educating the child and, by extension, the nation.

In fulfilling its educational responsibility, the Churches, through the ages, have been the custodians of the sense of values that transcends personal and immediate needs; protect and transfer cultural legacy of past generations and provide the most potent reason for human existence.

Out of the bosom of religion has come the most consistent philosophical, practical and enduring legacy of a moral society. It is in the repository of catholic schools and teachers that the greatest grace and kindness are to be found. And it is within our religious diversity that our schools have emerged. The Philippine education system must teach our future citizens to guard rigorously the variety of faiths that make up this nation, hence this study.

Statement of the Problem

This study was conducted to determine the Christian Living in relation to academic performance of students among private schools in Aklan. Specifically, the study sought answers to the following questions:

1. What is the level of performance of students in Christian Living?
2. What is the performance level of students in the academic areas such as:

a. Engish
b.EKAWP
c. Mathematics
d. Science and Technology

3. Is there a significant relationship between Christian Living and level of performance of students in all academic areas as a whole?

Significance of the Study

The findings of this study may be significant to the following beneficiaries.

The Private School Administrators. The results of this study would provide baseline data to ASU on the formulation of sound realistic and viable policies and programs for the enhancement of faculty performance. Results of the evaluation would also determine the faculty’s’ strengths and weaknesses so as to help the school plan appropriate intervention. The results of this study may serve as a basis for identifying the specific category of academic preparation and other personal and school factors that would lead to a more efficient and effective performance of the faculty. This will provide them basis in strengthening and enhancing the faculty performance and professional development to increase the morale and effectiveness of faculty in the teaching process. Likewise, result of this study could be used in designing educational activities such as trainings, seminars, and workshops for faculty to retool and enhance their teaching capabilities.

Faculty. The results of the research will provide feedbacks on the faculty’s strong and weak points, thus enabling them to correct and remedy the deficiencies for the success of the university. Likewise, the findings of this study could provide faculty with insights on how to improve their performance in order to produce quality outputs. These may serve as there guide in the choice of appropriate instructional materials, teaching strategies, and techniques that would result to quality outputs. Further, these would enable prospective faculty realize their needs so they could efficiently equip themselves for the service. Furthermore, this study will furnish an objective and just basis for various personnel action such as promotion, transfer, increase in pay, and dismissal or termination.

Students. The students will be benefited since it is assumed that the administrators have a bearing on the performance of the faculty members, who in turn, will deliver good services to the students.

Community. The result of this study will be beneficial to the community since this will serve as feedback mechanism against the performance of the faculty. Likewise, this study will provide an avenue for the review of the program that shall serve as an empirical basis for the updates of the curricula/program of instruction of the schools. This way, the community will be benefiting from the university a prestigious name which they can be proud of. The results of this study may also be of great significance to the local government unit, non-government organization since, through this study, they may identify the faculty who performs excellently and to promote to the community in their respective places that this university is an academic pillar of excellence.

Researchers. The findings will provide them with related studies and relevant information about the faculty performance evaluation and will serve as their basis in conducting another research.

II. Review of Literature

Factors Influencing Students ‘Academic Performance.

A number of studies have been carried out to identify and analyse the numerous factors that affect academic performance in various centres of learning. Their findings identify students’ effort, previous schooling (Siegfried & Fels, 1979), parents’ education, family income (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996), self motivation, age of student, learning preferences (Aripin, Mahmood, Rohaizad, Yeop, & Anuar, 2008), class attendance (Romer, 1993), and entry qualifications as factors that have a significant effect on the students’ academic performance in various settings. The utility of these studies lies in the need to undertake corrective measures that improve the academic performance of students, especially in public funded institutions. The throughput of public-funded institutions is under scrutiny especially because of the current global economic downturn which demands that governments improve efficiency in financial resource allocation and utilization. Although there has been considerable debate about the determinants of academic performance among educators, policymakers, academics, and other stakeholders, it is generally agreed that the impact of these determinants vary (in terms of extent and direction) with context, for example, culture, institution, and course of study.

Students’ learning preferences A match between students’ learning preferences and instructor’s teaching style has been demonstrated to have positive effect on student's performance (Harb & El-Shaarawi, 2006). According to Reid (1995), learning preference refers to a person’s “natural, habitual and preferred way” of assimilating new information. This implies that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Scholars, who promote the learning preferences approach to learning, agree that effective instruction can only be undertaken if the learner’s learning preferences are diagnosed and the instruction is tailored accordingly (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, & Bjork, 2008).

Age and Gender as Determinants for Academic Performance. The influence of age and gender on academic performance has been investigated in a number of studies with widely differing conclusions. Most of the differences in reported findings are due to varying contexts such as subject of study, age and gender interactions. Research has shown that men perform better than women in certain settings while women outperform men in other settings (Haist, Wilson, Elam, Blue, & Fosson, 2000). Borde (1998), on the other hand, found no evidence of academic performance being influenced by gender. Based on an analysis of close to two million graduating students, Woodfield and Earl-Novell (2006) found that female students outperformed male students and attributed this partly to female students being more conscientious and thus less likely to miss lectures. With regard to the issue of student age, recent changes in educational policies around the world have led to an increase in the number of mature-age admissions in educational institutions.

Type of Educational Institution.

It is also assumed that children learning outcome and educational performance are strongly affected by the standard and type of educational institution in which students get their education. The educational environment of the school one attends sets the parameters of students’ learning outcomes. Considine and Zappala (2002) quoted Sparkles (1999) showed that schools environment and teachers expectations from their students also have strong influence on student performance. Most of the teachers working in poor schools or schools having run short of basic facilities often have low performance expectations from their students and when students know that their teachers have low performance expectations from them, hence it leads to poor performance by the students. Kwesiga (2002) approved that performance of the students is also influenced by the school in which they studied but he also said that number of facilities a school offers usually determine the quality of the school, which in turn affect the performance and accomplishment of its students. Sentamu (2003) argue that schools influence educational process in content organization, teacher and teaching learning and in the end evaluation of the all. All these educationists and researchers agreed with this principle that schools put strong effect on academic performance and educational attainment of students.

III. Methodology

The Research Design

The descriptive-correlational research design was used in this study. This research design is appropriate for studies which aim to find out what prevails in the future conditions (Ardales, 2009). Correlational research design according to David (2009), attempts to determine whether and to what extent is the degree of a relationship that exist between two or more quantifiable variables. The purpose of correlational research is to establish relationship or to use relationship in making predictions. Relationship investigation typically studies a number of variables believed to be related to major and complex variables.

Likewise, Calderon and Gonzales (1993) defined descriptive research as a purposive process of gathering, analyzing, classifying and tabulating data about prevailing conditions, practices, beliefs, process, trends and cause-effect relationship and then making adequate and accurate interpretation about such data with or without the use of statistical methods.

Respondents:

The respondents of the study were the junior and senior high school students of private schools in Aklan, Philippines.

Instruments

In this study, a survey questionnaire and data mining or documentary analyses were used in the research.

Data Gathering Procedures

A written permission to conduct the study was secured from the office of the school heads. Upon approval of the request, the researcher personally administers the questionnaire to the identified respondents. Retrieval of the questionnaire was done afterwards.

The gathered data were then tabulated, analyzed, and interpreted using the appropriate statistical tools.

Analysis of Data

The data gathered were grouped, categorized and entered into data sheets and processing was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

The statistical tools used in this study to analyze the data were the descriptive statistics such as:

Frequency pertains to the number of times a particular event appears per unit time.

Percentage refers to the rate or proportion per hundred. In this study, frequency distribution and percentage were used to determine the classroom management and teaching effectiveness of faculty.

Weighted Mean refers to the sum of all numbers divided by the number of occurrences.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical issues were considered by the researcher in conducting the study. These are necessary for the purpose of securing the privacy of the respondents.

IV. Findings:

LEVEL OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN CHRISTIAN LIVING

Table 1 presents the level of performance of junior students in Christian Living. As indicated in the table, 22 or 8.69 had “outstanding” academic performance in Christian Living with ratings of 91 to 95. The majority of them, 35 or 65.23 percent had “very good” performance in Christian living, (86 to 90). Twenty four or 17.39 percent with “good” performance ratings (81 to 85) and only 2 had “fair” performance. As a whole, the junior students had “very good” performance in Christian Living as a subject.

Table 1. Level of Performance of Junior High School Students in Christian Living

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Table 2 gives the data on the level of Performance of senior students in Christian Living. There were 25 or 8.69 percent whose level of performance was “outstanding” (91 to 95). The majority of them, 38 or 65.23 percent had “very good” performance ratings (86 to 90) and 14 or 17.39 percent obtained “good” performance in Christian Living. Only 2 or 8.69 percent obtained “fair” performance.

Table 2. Level of Performance of Senior High School Students in Christian Living

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LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE OF JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE ACADEMIC AREAS

Table 3 shows the data on the level of performance when all subject areas were taken as a whole. Forty or 48.19 percent junior students obtained “outstanding” performance. Twenty one of them or 25.30 percent had “very good” performance, while 16 or 19.28 percent had good performance. Only six of them had “fair” performance. Based on the result it could be deduced that the junior students had very good performance in all academic areas.

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