Attitudes of Senior High School Students towards Research: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Research is the foundation of knowledge and innovation. In the Philippine basic education landscape, “research-infused” curriculum was implemented in the senior high school to inculcate research culture among learners. Thus, this convergent parallel mixed-method study explored the attitudes of Grade 12 senior high school students towards research and its relationship to their academic performance. Papanastasiou’s (2014) Revised Attitude towards Research (R-ATR) scale was administered to 100 randomly-selected Grade 12 senior high school students to gather quantitative data. Open-ended questionnaire was utilized to gather qualitative data from ten (10) senior high school students. Data were analysed using Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient. Excerpts from the qualitative data were provided to support the statistical analysis of data. Results revealed that the students have a generally positive attitude towards research albeit the high level of anxiety that they experience. RATR scale attitude domains showed low to high degree of relationship with each other. Conversely, students’ attitudes towards research did not show significant relationship with students’ academic performance in Practical Research 2. The results yielded by this research may be used as a basis for a more efficient delivery of research-related courses in the senior high school.

Keywords: Attitudes, Research, Senior High School Students, Convergent Parallel Mixed Method Design

JEL Classification: I20