Teaching Styles, Attitude and Academic Performance of Selected Grade 8 Students at Tagaytay City National High School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The study is concerned with the teaching styles, attitude towards Science and academic performance of randomly selected Grade 8 students at Tagaytay City National High School.

The preliminary step to effective planning in teaching Science is to identify the students’ interest or attitudes towards the subject. Proper diagnosis of the strengths and weaknesses of the students would guide the teachers in selecting appropriate strategies on how to teach Science more effectively.

METHODS

A total of 335 from randomly selected Grade 8 students at Tagaytay City National High School were involved in this study. The descriptive-correlational research method was used in this study. Questionnaires were the primary instruments used in data gathering. The instrument used in this study was patterned from the questionnaires made by the different authors to suit the purposes of the study. Expert validation was done to determine the validity and reliability of the instrument. This study used frequency, percentage, mean, chi-square test, biserial correlation coefficient, and contingency coefficient to analyze the data.

RESULTS

Findings indicated that: the majority of the respondents perceived democratic teaching styles; the attitude of students towards biology was a "highly favorable" and academic performance of students was " ̃satisfactory" as rated by their teachers.No relationship was found between the demographic profile of the respondents as to age, sex, parents' educational attainment, and parents' occupation and attitude towards Science. These findings suggest that the demographic profile of the respondents do not affect the students' attitude towards Science. Moreover, no relationship between academic performance and teaching styles was found. These findings may imply that whether the teachers are autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, and indifferent, the students' academic performance may not be affected by the teaching styles employed by their teachers.

DISCUSSIONS

The relationship between academic performance and the attitude towards Science was found significant. This finding implies that the student with high achievement in Science has developed a positive attitude towards the subject.

The findings of this study may serve as a reference for further researches that are relevant to teachers and students.