Difficulties Encountered by Teachers in Action Research Writing

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The Research Program of Department of Education was intensified to increase the scientific approach in solving problems and issues in the classrooms. This intention was also the objective of Sorsogon City Division in their Division Research Program. From the launch of the Division Research Program, called Project SALIKSIK, the Division Research Committee has intensified training and orientations about Basic Education Research Fund, however, few teachers in the Division answered this call. Thus this research was conceptualized to find out the difficulties experienced by teachers in doing action research and the level of difficulties they experienced in each component of action research.

METHODS

The research used both quantitative and qualitative methods in analyzing and presenting the data. It further utilized a descriptive and interview method to deepen the results and findings of the study. Respondents of the study were the teachers of secondary and elementary schools in the Division that underwent the Division Action Research Orientation. This also included the teachers that were trained under the program.

In analyzing the results of the study, the researcher employed frequency, weighted mean, percentage, and ranking. Several foreign and local literature and studies that have a relation to this research were employed to strengthen the comprehensive presentation of the present study.

RESULTS

The findings of the study revealed that teacher -respondents find the following factors contributory to the difficulties in doing action research. These are the factors of financial support, time to conduct research, training for teachers about research and incentives in research. The different components of action research like defining the action research problem, writing literature, writing methodology, sampling, data collection, ethical issues, plan for data analysis, organizing time table, planning costs estimates, dissemination and advocacy, writing findings, conclusions and recommendations are all interpreted as "hard". The components of writing scope and limitations and writing references are viewed by the respondents as "moderate".The level of interests of teachers of Sorsogon City Division in doing action research is adequate. A program intervention is designed to address the prevailing difficulties experienced by teachers in action research writing in the City Division of Sorsogon.

DISCUSSIONS

There are factors relevant to the conduct of action research that contributed to the difficulty of teachers due to their inadequacy. In deepening the difficulty, there are components of action research labeled as "hard" and "moderate" by respondents. The majority of the components were interpreted as hard. Although there was this difficulty, the level of interest of teacher respondents in doing action research as revealed by the study is adequate and with this positive interest, program interventions are necessary for addressing the difficulties encountered by the teacher -respondents.