Page 16 - GS_Journal_2015

GS Research Journal

income is 5,000 Php and below, whose fathers and mothers are high school graduates, and
employed in menial jobs. Most of the students have moderately positive attitude towards
learning, slightly extensive learning practice, very satisfactory teachers’ influence, “conducive”
learning facilities. Generally, the respondent-students test performance in Science IV (Physics)
is only average, positively skewed, meaning that the scores tended towards the lower values,
and platykurtic, a “little flatter” than the normal curve. The levels of difficulty of the respondent-
students in Science IV (Physics) in the different areas are, namely: a) Knowledge OWM= 0.4083
(difficult), b) Comprehension OWM=0.3768 (difficult), c) Application OWM=0.4125 (moderately
difficult), d) Evaluation OWM=0.6938 (not difficult), e) Analysis OWM=0.2625 (very difficult)
and Synthesis OWM= 0.2094 (very difficult). There are no significant differences in the levels
of learning difficulty of the respondent-students across the variables, namely: a) sex, b) GPA,
except in the area of application, c) monthly family income, d) highest educational attainment
of fathers, and mothers, e) occupation of fathers, except in the area of evaluation, f) occupation
of mothers, g) attitude towards learning, except in the area of synthesis, h) learning practices,
i) teachers’ influence, j) learning facilities.
The following are the conclusions drawn in this study: 1) the respondent-students
are typical high school students in a national high school, situated in a semi-rural area; they
vary a bit across the variable categories, but tended to concentrate around the categories with
lower values; 2) The differences of the performance of the respondent-student in this study are
extreme. Thus, despite the fact that their performance is rated as average, their performance
is still differs from each other; 3) The respondent-students had levels of learning difficulty in
cognitive areas in Science IV (Physics), where higher order thinking skills (HOTS) are needed,
namely: analysis and synthesis. Significant differences in the levels of learning difficulties are
observed only in specific cognitive areas such as: difficulty in application across occupation
of fathers GPA, difficulty in evaluation across occupation of fathers, and difficulty in synthesis
across attitude towards learning.
The following recommendations are forwarded: 1) Teachers should provide activity-
oriented lessons in Physics to encourage positive learning attitude among students. Teachers
should provide make-up classes or cooperative learning to those students who are not performing
well in the class in order to improve their performance in every test given. More emphasis should
be given to lessons involving higher order thinking skills (HOTS).Teachers should also provide
students opportunities to improve their learning practices by involving them in class discussions.
They should also include formative evaluation in every lesson as feedback mechanism to guide
them in helping students to overcome learning difficulties in Physics. Other studies should be
conducted on students’ learning difficulties in Physics, using more variables and wider scope,
under the auspices of reputable graduate schools.

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