Motivational Strategies Used by Grade 1 Teachers in Tagaytay City District and Their Implication to Learners' Academic Performance

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Motivation is one of the determining factors for academic performance of the students especially in the primary grades. With the beginning of kindergarten, students shift from full time dependence on family members to independent learners in the classroom. Therefore, it is important to encourage students to be independent thinkers, learners, and ultimately students. The issues of motivating students in education and its impact in the academic performance are considered as an important aspect in effective learning.

METHODS

The descriptive method was used to define the motivational strategies. It concentrates on 5 macro strategies. A questionnaire checklist and the academic performance of the learners were used for data collection. Twenty-nine teachers across sixteen different teaching sites responded to a set of questionnaire with the data collected through quantitative analysis of the effect of motivational strategies of individual teaching site.

RESULTS

The respondents' rating for motivational strategies in terms of proper teacher behavior; recognizing teaching efforts; creating pleasant classroom climate; make learning tasks stimulating and promote group cohesiveness and group norms were interpreted as very great extent while the performance of the learners for the first and second rating period achieved satisfactory. There was a significant effect between teachers' motivational strategies and the learners' academic performance.

DISCUSSIONS

The results demonstrate the need for the teachers to not limit their motivational strategies to what they are used to. They must keep them relevant to the learners' learning styles. They must integrate more hands-on activities to apply creative twist to traditional course content and engage learners' deeper level.