Social and Emotional Competencies of the Grade 11 Senior High School Students: Basis for Proposed Personal Enhancement Program

Abstract

Adolescence is the stage of development when an individual changes physically and psychologically. Adolescence is the stage where one's identity is established, one's career is planned, and one's philosophy in life is formed. As a result of the dramatic changes brought about by puberty and the new challenges from society, adolescents usually experience a number of confusions, anxieties, self-doubt, and crises. The primary purpose of this study was to identify the level of social and emotional competencies of the Grade 11 SHS students in terms of (1) interpersonal and (2) intrapersonal functioning, (3) stress management, (4) adaptability, and (5) general outlook in life. The results of the study were utilized as the basis in formulating a personal enhancement program leading to improvement of the students' social and emotional competencies.The participants in this study were Grade 11 Senior High School students of St. Mary's College, Quezon City for school year 2018-2019. The researchers employed a purposive non-probability sampling to gathering a total of 77 students composed of 34 female and 43 male subjects. The BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version was used as the main instrument in obtaining the social and emotional competencies of the subjects. Frequency and percentage distribution and measures of central tendencies, specifically the mean was utilized to store, analyze and interpret the data. The respondents' profile reveals that there were 43 (55.84%) male and 34 (44.16%) female students from STEM, HumSS, ABM, and GAS strands who participated in the study. The majority of 35.06% of students came from the STEM strand. Results of the assessment reveal that both male and female students were in the Effective Functioning Levelas indicated in the overall mean scores of 95.86 and 89.71, respectively. Further, when students were grouped according to strand, data show that ABM, HumSS and GAS students fall under the Effective Functioning Level with 98.48, 92.75 and 91.29 mean scores, respectively. On the other hand, STEM students obtained the lowest mean score of 89.37 or Area for Enrichment Level. Moreover, results show that when grouped according to gender and strands, students’ Interpersonal, Intrapersonal and Stress Management Skills fall under the Effective Functioning Level as indicated in the mean scores. Likewise, adaptability of both genders and students in STEM, HumSS and ABM fall under the Effective FunctioningLevelwhile students’ adaptability skills in GAS fall under the Area for Enrichment. Results on the general mood indicate that male students are in the Effective Functioning Level while female students fall under the Area for Enrichment. Meanwhile, general mood of students in the STEM strand fall under the Effective FunctioningLevelwhile students in HumSS, ABM and GAS were in the Area for Enrichment.The social and emotional competencies of the participants composed of their ability to understand oneself and others, cope with the daily demands of life, adjust to changes and outlook in life were assessed in order to provide a background for the development of a holistic and comprehensive personal enhancement program. Generally, the participants manifested effective functioning in most areas of their social and emotional competencies. However, their optimism level or general outlook in life was noted as an area for enrichment. With this, the researcher develop a personal enhancement program focusing on the enrichment of the students' social and emotional competencies, especially their level of optimism.