chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Rationale of the Study

The expanse of a student’s learning in school can be determined by the grades he earns in a certain period of time. If a student gets high grades, it is concluded that they may also have learned a lot while low grades indicate lesser learning. However, many studies, such as the study done by the students from Xavier University which focuses on “The Effect of Study Habits on the Academic Performance of Freshmen Education Students in Xavier University, Cagayan De Oro City, S.Y. 2008-2009” (Bagongon, C., Badlipan, C., 2009), found out that there are also several factors that affect a student’s grades. No single factor can be definitely pointed as an instrument to predicting grades. It has always been an interplay of so many factors – gender, IQ, study habits, age, year level, parent’s educational attainment, social status, number of siblings, birth order, etc. In fact, almost all of existing environmental and personal factors are a variable of academic performance.

High school students have poor study habits in general because there has been little done to require good study habits. Educational standards are on the rise, and there have been so many requirements on teachers’ success, that they have learned how to make students successful on standardized tests without requiring them to learn how to acquire information on their own.

According to Ozer Tayiz (2009), an expert author in Ezine Articles there are three simple steps to develop good study habits. The first is becoming aware of your habits. He pointed out that all progress starts with awareness first. If a person would want to improve his finances, he would probably be recording his regular income and expenditures and review it more often. If a person would want to improve his diet and nutrition, he will be first writing down what he will be taking in each day. Often, awareness itself will result in a good amount of progress. Once everything is on paper, and out there under light, a person cannot help but stop doing some of the bad choices he once did, but were not aware of until now. The next step that Tayiz considered is to start small with miroactions. Once a person will become aware of his current situation, the best thing he will be doing next is to tend to go all out on a change. Like for example when someone becomes aware that he is eating too much fast food but not enough raw fruit and vegetables, and he decide to go raw vegan cold turkey. That kind of sudden change is too hard to continue for most people. Therefore most people fail at it and then totally give up on improving their diet. Therefore, it is better to start with small changes at first. To eat less fast food, and more fresh fruit and vegetables, it is best to eat an apple a day before anything else. This kind of small actions are more easy to achieve. And soon, the person will be finding out that he can now take bigger actions comfortably, without any stress. The last step would be persisting the change made for at least one month. Habits do not happen overnight. It is important to persist at least for a month. Then it will become a habit, and a person will be doing it without any effort or thought.And as he develops more and more good habits, he will be more successful in every area of his life.

For most high school students, if given a standardized test that has facts and information that they have been indoctrinated with in class, they will be successful with little studying required. They may even know how to read a passage and find the right answer according to the test they are taking. Discrepancies and concerns are seen, however, when they take a national standardized test with a different format from their state test. A student who receives high, commendation marks on their state test may not even rank in the twenty-fifth percentile nationally. As parents and teachers, this problem needs to be addressed.

Teachers have been forced in many ways to subscribe to this teaching methodology because it produces results on paper. What it does not do is produce students who will be global learners who seek to discover information through proper channels.

It is quite common knowledge to associate good grades with good study habits. But some habits might not be as productive unlike some certain practices. because there are factors that might be hindering the productivity and efficiency of the student while studying. It might be also that a study method might not be ideal for a certain person while it might be useful for another. However, at this point in time, the researchers would like to make a comparison of the study habits of honor and non-honor students, specifically the 4^th Year students of the University of the Philippines Cebu – High School.

Statement of the Problem

After determining the specific topic of the study, the researchers were able to come up the following questions that are needed to be answered:

1. What are the studying methods of the honor students? The non-honor students?

2. What are the attitudes of the honor and non-honor students towards studying? Why?

3. Do the honor or non-honor students have tutors?

4. Do the honor or non-honor students do other activities like eating or listening to music while studying?

5. Do the honor or non-honor students take notes during classes?

6. How many hours or minutes do the honor or non-honor students spend in studying during their free time? Before exams? Before sleeping?

7. Do honor or non-honor students prefer studying alone or in group? (with tutor,parents, friends, etc.)

8. What preparations do the honor and non-honor students do either before/after studying?

Statement of the Objectives

This research intends to do a comparative study on the study habits of honor and non-honor students. To be able to answer this problem, the study sets the following objectives:

1. To figure out the differences of the studying methods of students that attribute to their success.

2. To determine the attitude of students towards studying.

3. To learn if tutors affect a student's efficiency in learning.

4. To find out if other activities that a student do while studying affect their studying efficiency.

5.To know if the students' note-taking in class affect their studying efficiency.

6. To calculate on the number of hours that students set aside in studying.

7. To verify if studying in group or alone affects efficiency in studying.

8. To discover the preparations of the students prior to studying.

Significance of the Study

The researchers believe that the students, not just from UPC – High School, will bebenefitted from the findings of this study since the study provides basis for awareness and better understanding of how their current study habits affected their academic performance. Likewise gives them a more focused and clear perspective on how the specific behaviours related to their studies influenced study habits. Consequently, this awareness also gives a much deeper understanding of their selves as students considering that the high school life is typically beset of developmental adjustment demands.

On the other hand, this research would also benefit the teachers. The results of this study would help them learn the preferences of certain students as well as studying techniques that are most suitable to their behavior, motivation and metacognition. In this case, they will be able to improve their study habits in achieving a goal of excellent academic performance.

This research can also benefit the parents. By knowing what study habits make studying productive, they can encourage their children to use these practices so that at least, they are able to become involved with their child’s learning.

For the DepEd, throught this study, they will be able to get a clearer picture of what to change or retain in their future educational programs. This will help them know how different elements affect the learners, like and to formulate activities for the benefit of the learner.