“School-Barangay Officials Learning Partnership: Eliminate Absenteeism, Ensure

Academic Achievement.”

An Action Research Paper of Mararag National High School

POLINAR, MARY GRACE A.

CANONIGO, CHARITY P.

Researchers

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 ABSTRACT

Skipping Classes, cutting classes and absenteeism among public junior and senior

high school students are the most common issues that teachers and parents are

battling today. Many factors may cause these concerning behaviour of the students

to commence. In the case of Mararag National High School, an action research was

conducted to emphasize that one of the factors that these students would rather be

absent and or skip their classes in the afternoon than focus to their education and

academic performances, was due to the sport basketball. Since the school has no

basketball court, students opted to play in the barangay hall during lunch break. If

the game intensifies, they would decide not to go to afternoon classes. Hence,

Mararag National High School linking with the barangay officials, a stakeholder,

worked together to minimize the addressed problem through an intervention in which

an assigned personnel closely monitored the barangay gymnasium and its

surroundings and strictly prohibited students to loiter around and play basketball

during classes hours. It was found that the hypothesis of the study is significant and

supported the predicted direction.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The researchers would like to give acknowledgement and gratitude to

everyone who gave support and contributed for the success of this study.

First and foremost to God Almighty who is the creator of heaven and earth,

owner of our lives, for giving them wisdom and strength in completing this task. For

the protection, good health and joy despite the hardships they faced throughout the

journey.

To the barangay officials of Mararag, Marihatag, Surigao del Sur, for their full

cooperation and support that gave way to the success of this study. Without them

this paper would be impossible.

To their Assistant School Head, Sir Eduard C. Quezada, for being supportive,

words were not enough to show their gratitude for the guidance and encouragement.

To their co-teachers of Mararag National High School, for being their constant

encourager and for imparting valuable insights which helped in the success of this

study.

And lastly but mostly, to their families, for being their source of strength and

happy pill which sustained them in their entire journey of their profession and the

hardships faced in conducting this study; For moral support, love and understanding.

Without them all the success of this would be impossible.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

I. TITLE PAGE 1

II. ABSTRACT 2

III. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 3

IV. RESEARCH CONTEXT AND RATIONALE 5

V. INNOVATION, INTERVENTION AND STRATEGY 8

VI. ACTION RESEARCH QUESTION 10

VII. ACTION RESEARCH METHOD 11

VIII. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND REFLECTIONS 13

IX. ACTION PLAN 21

X. REFERENCES 21

XI. ANNEX 22

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 CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH CONTEXT AND RATIONALE

All students, yet for one reason or another, at one time or other time want to

miss a day of school. The general tendency to engage in such willingness is referred

to absenteeism. Absenteeism is the most common yet a major and continuous

problem in all public schools throughout the country. Numerous studies were

conducted to answer question “why high school students miss classes”. Teasley

(2004), Attwood and Coll (2006), Epstein and Sheldon (2002), Korir, Charo,

et.al,(2014), through these studies inferences were drawn and found that student

with high level of absenteeism can lead to more negative effect such as low

academic performance or academic failure; Because, students will miss the

opportunities to learn the materials that enable them to succeed later in school and

fall behind their classmates in academic achievement. Mararag National High School

of Marihatag Surigao del Sur was not left to spare.

In the case of Mararag National High School, it was observed for a long time

already for every year level, most especially in Grade 11, that student’s attendance

in morning classes would be average to high but in afternoon classes it tend to drop.

That is, many students who are present in the morning classes may not be any more

present in the afternoon classes. Surveys to other students of Mararag National High

School as to why their classmates especially boys tend to be most absent during

afternoon classes showed that the cause was due to the nearby barangay

gymnasium. That is, most students especially boys would take their lunch at the

nearby gymnasium and afterwards play basketball. When the game intensifies they

would then opt not to attend their classes. The claim was further concluded through

the interviews of researchers to the residents near the barangay gymnasium.

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 Administrators and teachers of Mararag National High School have been

challenged to develop an intervention with its main goal to significantly deplete and if

possible eradicate absenteeism among their students to ensure improvement in their

academic performances since evaluation of their performances found out that those

students identified by their classmates who were always skipping classes performed

less academically.

In addition, adhering to the theory that “the higher the attendance the

better the performance”. Researchers initially claimed that keeping those students

away from playing basketball during classes’ time would increase their attendance

then this would lead to the improvement of their academic performances.

As what former DepEd Secretary Florencio Abad once said “The problem of

Education is everybody’s problem. As building literacy is our collective responsibility,

so too is improving the quality of our schools, our collective responsibility. We must

build bridges between the school and the home. We must build bridges between the

school and the community.” (2005 Educators Congress) hence, MNHS developed an

intervention with the concept of linking the School with the Barangay Officials and

together share the responsibility of overcoming this challenge.

Researchers of the study initially sent a letter to the barangay captain Hon.

Herberto Corvera addressing the said circumstance explaining the situation and

purpose for the collaboration. They then approached the Barangay office afterward

and talked with the Barangay Captain together with some officials to ask for

assistance. The meet up concluded with a plan. That is, the officials would assign

personnel to guard the premises of the barangay gymnasium during classes’ hours.

The personnel would strictly prohibit students to play basketball and from loitering

around the premises when lunch break is over.

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 The study was designed to be quantitative since data to be used was the

students’ attendance before and after the intervention. To further test the effect of

the intervention to the students’ performance the researchers used the students’

grades before and after the intervention.

Researchers chose the entire class of Grade 11 – Newton students as their

sample for this study since absenteeism during afternoon classes was mostly

observed in their class.

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 CHAPTER V: INNOVATION, INTERVENTION AND STRATEGY

During one of the faculty and staff meeting and planning the addressed

problem was one of the highlighted agenda. They planned and proposed for an

intervention which was linking the school with the barangay officials. A collaborative

work of school and community for the benefits of the students and promote

academic achievements through eradicating absenteeism among these students

who always play basketball in the nearby gymnasium even classes time.

A personnel arranged by the barangay official was assigned to guard the

premises of barangay gymnasium. The personnel would then strictly prohibit

students to play basketball and from loitering around the premises when lunch break

is over.

One of the researchers, as she is the first period afternoon class of Grade XI-

Newton students, the test sample, was then assigned to closely monitor and keep a

daily attendance of the students throughout the process. This study took place for

one whole month of January 2019. In order to verify the significant effect of the

intervention to the students’ attendance and academic performances, researchers

compared the one month attendance of the students prior to intervention (November

2018) against their attendance for one month during intervention (January 2019).

Students grade before intervention (3 Quarter) against during/after intervention (4

quarter).

Researchers foresee some potential problems may come in the run of

implementing the intervention. Like, the intervention might be strictly implemented

only for a few days and then everything may come back to the same situation again.

This potential problems lie in the hands of the assigned personnel who will strictly

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supervise the barangay gymnasium and its premises and to the hands of the

researchers. Hence, to avoid such thing to happen one of the researchers would go

from time to time to the barangay gymnasium to check and observe if the

intervention is still strictly implemented.

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 CHAPTER VI: ACTION RESEARCH QUESTION

Before coming to the conclusion of students playing basketball in the nearby

barangay gymnasium was one of the major causes of students skipping classes in

afternoon, which would eventually lead to failed grades. Thus, the intervention was

then implemented to test and to provide answers to the following:

1. Does students skipping classes in the afternoon is significantly caused by

playing basketball in the nearby gymnasium?

2. Is there a significant difference between the students’ attendance before

intervention and after intervention?

3. Is there a significant difference between the students’ performance/grade

before intervention and after intervention?

4. Is there a positive significant effect caused by the intervention to the students’

attendance?

5. Is there a positive significant effect caused by the intervention to the students’

attendance?

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 CHAPTER VII: ACTION RESEARCH METHOD

A. Research Design

The researchers designed their research to be a quantitative research

considering that they were using a numerical data. They used basic inferential

statistics to draw inferences and conclusion about the sampled data. That is,

researchers wanted to inquire if there is a significant difference made by their

intervention. Hence, researchers used paired t-test to perform a statistical analysis

about the paired data.

B. Participant and/or other sources of Data and Information

Prior to the implementation of the intervention, researchers inquired to the

students from different grade level, why some of their classmates especially boys

were commonly absent during afternoon classes. Responses were consolidated and

simple inferences were drawn.

During the course of the actual implementation, data were collected from Grade

XI-Newton students which consisted of 39 students, 14 boys and 25 girls. The data

used in the research was an existing data consisted of two sets of data. The first set

of data was a one whole month attendance of the students before intervention

(November 2018) and a one whole month attendance of the students during

implementation of the intervention (January 2019). Both attendances have equal

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number of school days which is 20. The second set of data was their performance

grade before intervention (3 Quarter) and during/after intervention (4 Quarter).

C. Data Gathering Method

Before the implementation, the researchers gathered substantial information

about possible reason that may cause such behaviour through interview method and

students being asked were randomly chosen. Researchers would use vacant time or

every after class period in the afternoon to ask some questions to the students of

different grade level.

During the data gathering, researchers used a method of extracting data from

existing information and actual or recorded information during the implementation of

the intervention such as through actual checking of attendance before the first class

in the afternoon ends.

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 CHAPTER VIII: DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND REFLECTIONS

A. Discussion

In order to examine if there exist a significant difference made by the intervention

to the student’s attendance and academic performance, data gathered were

compared and for support analysed with the statistical test the t-test. Paired t-test

was used for analysis since the research data was paired or data were taken from

the same sample. Table 1.1 and Table 2.1 showed with confidence level of 99% or

α=0.01 that the mean, mode and standard deviation of the both students’ attendance

and grade during/after intervention is statistically and significantly better from the

mean of the both students’ attendance and grade before intervention.

Computation in the analysis of data through paired t-test, with α=0.01 gives us a

critical value or the tabulated t-value of -2.362. Our aim is to compute a t-(computed)

value using the t-statistic which should be less than the tabulated t-value to accept

our alternative claim that there is a positive significant increase of attendance and

academic performance caused by the intervention. And computation showed that t-

value (calculated) is -5.8149 for the attendance and -4.6115 for grade both are less

than the tabulated t-value.

Hence, we reject our null hypothesis or claim that there is no significant

difference made by the intervention to the student’s attendance and performance of

Grade XI- Newton. Therefore, with much evidence we are 99% sure that there is a

positive significant effect made by the intervention to the Mararag National High

School Grade XI-Newton student’s performance by improving their attendance.

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 B. Data Presentation Table 1.1: Descriptive Statistics for Table 1

Grade XI-Newton
Table 1: Grade XI Attendance Before and
During Intervention (20 days each) Attendance
Descriptive
Grade XI-Newton Statistics Before During
Intervention Intervention
Attendance
Student Mean 11.10 13.49
Before During
Intervention Intervention Median 12 14
1 4 10 Mode 7,12 11,15,16
2 9 10 Variance 17.88 13.26
3 7 15
Standard
4 6 7 4.23 3.64
Deviation
5 5 6
6 16 17
7 6 13 Table 1 shows the Grade XI-Newton
8 7 9
9 10 12 students’ attendance before (November
10 1 4
11 8 13 2018) and during intervention (January
12 15 16
13 7 10 2019) each set contains 20 school days.
14 7 11
15 12 15 Table 1.1 shows the descriptive statistics
16 17 18
17 14 15 of the paired data where mean of before
18 12 16
19 8 14 intervention is 10.11 is much lower than
20 9 15
21 13 15 during intervention which is 13.49. The
22 12 13
23 16 19 modes of attendance before intervention
24 15 11
25 17 19 got 7 and 12 which is much lower than the
26 19 19
modes of after which are 11, 15, and 16.
27 16 17
28 14 18
Then the standard of the attendance
29 10 17
30 13 13 before is 4.23 which is much higher than
31 13 16
32 16 16 the before which is 3.64 shows that
33 11 14
34 12 14 attendance during intervention is much
35 14 11
36 15 16 better compare to the attendance before
37 8 11
38 7 10 intervention. That is because the smaller
39 12 11
TOTAL 433 526 the standard deviation the better the set of

data is.

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Table 2: Table 1: Grade XI Grade Before (3 Table 2.1: Descriptive Statistics for Table 2
Quarter) and After Intervention (4 Quarter)
Grade XI-Newton
Grade XI-Newton Attendance
Grade Descriptive Before During
Before During Statistics Intervention Intervention
Student
Intervention Intervention (3rd Quarter) (4th Quarter)
(3rd Quarter) (4th Quarter) 80 83
1 74 79 Mean
2 74 75 81 83
Median
3 80 81
4 87 87 74,75,83,84 81
Mode
5 73 76
6 85 86 30.51957 23.89204
Variance
7 73 78
8 78 83 Standard 5.524452 4.887948
9 73 77 Deviation
10 83 82
11 90 87 Table 2 shows the Grade XI-Newton
12 75 76
13 76 74 students’ grade before (3rd Quarter) and
14 75 79
15 87 89 after intervention (4th Quarter).
16 88 92
17 81 84
Table 2.1 shows the descriptive statistics
18 85 85
19 72 80 of the paired data where mean of before
20 74 81
21 85 91 intervention is 80 is much lower than
22 76 87
23 88 92 during intervention which is 83. The
24 83 86
25 87 90 modes of grade before intervention got 74,
26 91 91
27 75 83 75, 83, and 84 which is inconsistent and
28 79 81
29 84 88 lower than the mode of after intervention
30 80 80
31 84 81 which is 81. Then the standard of the
32 79 85
33 74 80 grade before is 5.52 which is much higher
34 84 81
35 83 84 than the before which is 4.89 shows that
36 75 88
37 82 87 grade after intervention is much better
38 84 82
39 83 80 compare to the grade before intervention.
TOTAL 3139 3248
mean 80 83 That is because the smaller the standard

deviation the better the set of data is.

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 C. Reflection

In this paper we found out that an external factor which is the nearby barangay

gymnasium where students can openly play basketball even during classes hours

contributed to the decline of student’s attendance and academic performance in

afternoon classes. One of the faculty members of Mararag National High School

then suggested that if proven one way to remedy the situation is through building

basketball court within the school premises. In this way, students especially boys

would need not to go to the barangay gymnasium during lunch break. Through this,

faculty can still monitor the whereabouts of the students and during classes hours

they will just be within the school and can be easily administered to attend their

classes.

D. Recommendation

During the course of gathering information through interviews with students, one

of the contributing factors was due to the nearby computer cafe. Many interviewed

students from lower grade level Grade 7- Grade 9 stated that their absent

classmates can be easily found in the nearby computer cafe playing computer

games. Researchers would like to recommend a study and construction of

intervention for the said matter.

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 CHAPTER IX: ACTION PLAN

The school would like to present the situation to the stakeholders, such as

during GPTA, to be their helping hand in governing the students; also to the

barangay officials and local officials if possible and plausible to ask for assistance for

the realization of the school’s basketball court.

CHAPTER X: REFERENCES

Teasley, M.L., (2004). Absenteeism and Truancy: Risk, Protection and best practice

implications for school social workers. Children and Schools.

Attwood G., and Croll, P. (2006). Truancy in secondary school pupils: Prevelance,

trajectories and pupil perspectives. Research Papers in Education, 21, 467-484.

Epstein, J.L., and Sheldon, S.B. (2002). Present and accounted for: Improving

student attendance through family and community involvement. Journal of

Educational Research.

Korir, E. K., Charo, M.B., Ogochi, G., & Thinguri,R. (2014). Students school

attendance and academic performance in Nijoro District Kenya: A relational Analysis.

Research Journals. Journal of Education.

Walpole. Introduction to Statistics, 2nd Edition.

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 ANNEX

I. FINANCIAL STATEMENT

Transportation Fee = P 0.00

Production Fee (Research Materials) = P 0.00

Bond Paper

Personnel Fee (During Intervention) = P0.00

c/o Barangay Officials

___________________

P 0.00

*No expenses were used.

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