ACTIVE LEARNING APPROACHES IN TEACHING SOCIAL STUDIES: INPUT TO AN IMPROVED COGNITIVE SKILL AND GROUP WORK INVOLVEMENT OF GRADE 7 STUDENTS

This study aimed to determine the relationship of active learning approaches in teaching Social Studies with improving cognitive skills and group work involvement of Grade 7 students of Quezon National High School. Specifically, it sought to investigate the level of respondents’ perception on the effectiveness of the different active learning approaches in terms of group projects, peer teaching and debates; the mean achievement of the respondents on the different cognitive skills in terms of remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing and evaluating; the perceived level of the respondents’ involvement in group work such as oral recitation and problem solving; the relationship between the perceived level of active learning approaches and that of the students cognitive skills and the relationship between the perceived level of effectiveness of active learning approaches and that of group work involvement. The study utilized a descriptive-correlational research design and a validated achievement test was the instrument used. The respondents of the study were 55 Grade 7 students in selected STE and SPJ online classes of Quezon National High School. The results obtained were presented in a tabular form, analyzed and interpreted using the following statistical techniques and procedures. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation were used to determine the respondents’ level of perception and to determine the mean achievement of the respondents on the different cognitive skills while Pearson r was used to determine the existing relationship between the perceived level of effectiveness of active learning approaches and that of the mean achievement in cognitive skill and group work involvement. The results revealed that that mean perception of the respondents in line with effectiveness of different active learning approaches in terms of group project and peer teaching has a qualitative index of Agree while students demonstrated a positive perception and outlook toward the classroom debate as they strongly agree to all the indicators stated. In addition, based on the findings and results of the statistical analysis, most of the respondents got a score of 9-10 on all the cognitive skills and interpreted as Excellent. Only few respondents got a score of below 5-6 which was interpreted as Good. Moreover, the respondents’ perceived level of involvement in group work in terms of oral recitation and problem solving was both statistically interpreted as Sometimes. The findings of the study farther revealed that there is no correlation between the different active leaning approaches in terms of group project, peer teaching and debate and the cognitive skills. Furthermore, the findings of the study also revealed that there was a positive correlation between active learning approaches in terms of group project and peer teaching and group work involvement in terms of oral recitation and problem solving. However, the findings of the study also revealed that there is no significant relationship between the perceived level of effectiveness of active learning approaches in terms of debate and group work involvement in terms of oral recitation but a positive correlation was revealed between debate and problem solving. From the results of the study, the following conclusions are drawn: Active learning approaches like group project, peer teaching and debate has a positive effect on the performance of the students in Araling Panlipunan as shown in the overall mean result of their achievement test. Based on the results of the achievement test, most of the respondents got a score of 9-10 on all the cognitive skills and interpreted as Excellent. Only few respondents got a score of below 5-6 which was interpreted as Good. There was a positive correlation between group project and oral recitation and problem solving. There was a positive correlation between peer teaching and oral recitation group work involvement of students in terms of problem solving. There is no significant relationship between the perceived level of effectiveness of debate and group work involvement in terms of oral recitation. But, a positive correlation was revealed between debate and problem solving. Therefore, the null hypothesis there is no significant relationship between the respondents’ perceived level of effectiveness of active learning approaches and group work involvement was partially sustained. On the basis of the findings and conclusions presented, the following recommendations are hereby offered: Teachers may be provided with training and workshops to train them in conducting classroom activities using active learning approaches and on the other modern teaching strategies. Teachers should use more active learning activities to improve students’ cognitive skills and involvement in their Social Studies lessons. This may be only being done by increasing the classroom interactions through different active learning activities. Students show interest and significant in studying Social Studies by participating actively in classroom activities, utilizing collaborative works in the classroom. Develop an active learning activities which is technology-based to cater different learning modalities in the new normal. Conduct a more extensive research on active learning with more participants and a greater variety of methods in order to get a clearer picture of the benefits of active learning. Conduct a research that could clarify on how teachers could acquire the necessary skills in order to teach their students through methods with focus on active learning.