Challenges Encountered by Grade 12 Students of Taal Senior High School in Writing a Research Paper: Basis for Proposed Action Plan

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Most of the time, research work is found to be tedious and very tiring work to do; however, teachers and students cannot get away from this because it is an academic requirement. In the K to 12 curriculum, senior high school students have to take the subjects Practical Research 1, Practical Research 2 and Inquiries, Investigations and Immersion. In all of these subjects, the students are required to produce a research paper -either qualitative or quantitative. Hence, this paper aimed to determine the challenges encountered by the students in writing a research paper and to propose an action plan for strengthening students' engagement in research and for developing a research-driven environment.

METHODS

The researchers used the descriptive method of research. The respondents of the study were the Grade 12 students of Taal Senior High School. There were a total of sixty respondents identified using random sampling method. A questionnaire was used as the data gathering instrument while the weighted mean was used as the statistical tool to treat the data.

RESULTS

Based on the results of the study, it was found that the students are aware not only of the practicality but also of the difficulty of conducting research. The student-respondents strongly agreed that it is difficult to write a research paper because of financial problems, unavailability of resources and time constraints. It was also revealed that the students encountered challenges in writing each chapter of a research paper, specifically in providing good research problem or questions and writing questionnaire. This is said to be attributed to the inadequacy of books, journals, and theses also perceived by the respondents as a challenge. Moreover, the respondents agreed that the lack of skills in performing appropriate statistical treatment of data is also one of the challenges they faced when conducting research.

DISCUSSIONS

The results demonstrate the need for an action plan that will help students improve their skills in research writing. The researchers proposed a research writing seminar-workshop for the students. The main goal of the seminar is to prepare the students for research project requirements. It will focus on three topics: 1.) formulating research questions or statement of the problem, 2.) questionnaire as a data gathering tool and 3.) statistical tools in research.