ULBS: An Effective intervention to increase the Achievement Level of Low Performing Grade 11 Students in Earth Science for School Year 2016-2017

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Cavite National Science High School as a Regional Science High School has a mandate of producing Science inclined students who will become Science professionals in the future. In line with this, a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) track was integrated in the system. It is expected that STEM students excel in Science subjects. The main purpose of this research study was to determine the effect of the Upper-Lower Buddy System (ULBS) on the performance level in terms of post-test and quarter grades of selected grade 11 students in Earth Science after a quarter.

METHODS

Twenty-eight students (28) were subjected to ULBS belonging to the top 14 and bottom 14 of the class. The study made use of one shot case study research design. Paired mentoring/ tutorials on the lessons tackled were conducted for a quarter. Monitoring was also done by the teacher. Incentive grades were given to the upper buddy when the lower buddy showed increase in his/her performance outputs. The outcome of the intervention was measured in terms of post-test scores and quarter grades in the subject.

RESULTS

After subjecting the students to ULBS, the post-test scores of the lower buddies had obtained a mean of 58.50 and a standard deviation of 5.39. All 14 students belonging to the lower buddies got a score above 50% in the test. The highest score is 60% while the lowest score is 52%. Parallel to this, quarter grades of the bottom 14 had a mean of 89.29 and a standard deviation of 1.38. All the lower buddies achieved a grade above 85 which is the grade requirement for Science in RSHS curriculum. The highest grade was 91 and the lowest grade was86. This indicates that they learned from the intervention utilized in developing mastery of concepts in Earth Science with the aid of ULBS. Furthermore, a low standard deviation shows that the data are clustered closely around the mean; thus, more reliable in terms of post-test scores and quarter grades.

DISCUSSIONS

The findings showed that ULBS was utilized to improve performance of students and reach the target grade for Science. It is recommended to apply the ULBS in improving the performance level of the relatively low performing students using pre-test, post-test, experimental design. Ethical issues such as consultation with parents and parental consent of respondents are also recommended for full implementation.