THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY GRADE 11 STUDENTS IN THE LEARNING COMPETENCIES OF PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1

Practical Research 1 is one of the compulsory subjects in Grade11 senior high school under the K to 12 Curriculum. Considering the fact that Grade 11 students have little to no experience about research writing, this study determined the difficulties encountered by Grade 11 students in the learning competencies of Practical Research 1 and the factors that contribute to the difficulties. Also, it further examined the significant difference in the difficulties encountered by students in terms of their sex, socio-economic status, and strand; and the proposed helpful recommendations and instructional model to respond to the identified difficulties. This study was conducted at the University of Makati, Senior High School Department, with the sample size of 474 Grade 11 student respondents and 20 teacher respondents. It is a descriptive quantitative study which employed online survey in data collection. Accordingly, the findings revealed that Grade 11 students encountered scientific and language difficulties in the 14 out of 36 learning competencies of Practical Research 1, specifically in the 1) oral presentation of the written research report, 2) finalizing the research output, 3) knowing the search process, 4) selecting relevant literature, 5) writing coherent review of literature, 6) presenting vast review, 7) synthesizing information from relevant literature, 8) relating the research findings with pertinent literature, 9) writing the research methodology, 10) planning data collection and analysis procedures, 11) utilizing materials and techniques to produce creative research output, 12) drawing conclusions from patterns and themes, 13) describing characteristics of research , and 14) creating patterns and themes from data. The specific difficulties in each of the learning competency appeared to be associated with the following factors: teaching instructions, complexity of research parts, time constraint, insufficient resources, language skills, lack of cooperation from group members, and data gathering. Moreover, it appeared that there was significant difference in the encountered difficulties of students between strands. In light of the findings, the teaching instructions and curriculum guide in Practical Research 1 must be revisited by the teacher, curriculum developers, and school to address the identified difficulties encountered by students and the factors that contribute to the difficulties. Therefore, the study proposed the utilization of direct instruction, scientific and language needs assessment, and subject integration in teaching Practical Research 1 as strategies to help students cope with the identified difficulties.