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EFFECTIVITY OF STRATEGIC INTERVENTION MATERIAL FOCUSED ON

SATURATED AND UNSATURATED SOLUTIONS
TO GRADE 7 SCIENCE STUDENTS

An Action Research

KARL JOSE N. IBARRIENTOS

October 2018
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Introduction

As a school of thought, pragmatism is primarily anchored in the belief that

learning is best achieved by doing or experience. In the present, Philippine educational

system is greatly influenced by this philosophy as manifested by the integration of

practical activities in the learner’s material to facilitate them in their acquisition of

knowledge pertaining to specific learning competency, particularly in science and

mathematics. Despite the efforts to lead every learning in attaining mastery of learning,

it was found out in the recently concluded first quarterly examination for school year

2018-2019, that Grade 7 science students of Sto. Tomas National High School have

shown low academic performance in one particular learning competency as evidenced

by the recorded frequency of errors (FOE).

Out of 1398 Grade 7 students who took the exam at the same day and at the

same time frame, 879 or 62.92 percent of the students got Item No. 12 wrong. This

item was stipulated in the questionnaire in this manner,

“12. When making a jell-o, you accidentally use twice as much jell-o powder as

the recipe calls for. You stir and stir, but you cannot get all of the jell-o to

dissolve. This is because the solution is?

1. Supersaturated 2. Saturated 3. Unsaturated 4. Concentrated”

The above question was included in the Division Unified Test in Secondary

Science Grade 7 to evaluate the understanding of students in the learning competency

pertaining to the investigation of the properties of saturated and unsaturated solution.

Thus, this is also considered as the least-learned competency for the first quarter of

school year 2018-2019.

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Moreover, in 2017, it was also reported that the same learning competency was

deemed the least-learned among Grade 7 students in another secondary school within

the municipality of Sto. Tomas.

With this data, it is inevitable that further instructional efforts are required to

address a growing concern on the challenge faced by Grade 7 Science students

towards a particular learning competency, hence, Strategic Intervention Material (SIM)

aimed at assisting low-performing students in enhancing their mastery to the focus

learning competency are developed and introduced.

Corresponding the administration of a Strategic Intervention Material, is the

need to conduct a research to test the effectivity of a learning material. More

specifically, this action research will test the effectivity of the administered Strategic

Intervention Material focused on saturated solution and unsaturated solution to Grade

7 Science students.

Research Questions

This action research would like to answer the following questions:

1. What intervention material should be used in the experiment?

2. Is there a significant difference in the Pre-test scores and Post-test scores

of Grade 7 students who utilized the strategic intervention material?

Research Design

This action research initiated by the researcher to test the effectivity of a crafted

strategic intervention material as an intervention to address the instructional needs of

Grade 7 students towards a least-learned competency, will utilize the Pre-Test Post-
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Test type of experimental research. This type of research is a quasi-experiment where

participants re studied before and after the experimental manipulation.

Sampling

The participants of this action research were purposefully chosen with the

objective of administering the intervention to students from the section with highest

percentage of frequency of error for Item No. 12. There are 49 students in the section

recorded with highest percentage of error in the abovementioned item. These 49

students were the participants of the research conducted..

Research Instrument

The instrument used is the researcher-made questionnaire based on the least-

learnt competency. The set of questions stipulated in the Pre-test and Post-test are

uniform.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researcher observed the following steps in the conduct of this action

research project:

1. Analysis of Frequency of Error. The researcher utilized data in analyzing

the competency which needs enhancement. The top mean error was

selected as basis for the design of intervention material. The data was

acquired from the frequency of errors recorded per section from the Division

Unified Test in Secondary Science Grade 7

2. Intervention Making. The researcher designed a material to be used in

enhancing the least-learned competency.

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3. Selection of Participants. Since this is a classroom-based research, the

researcher purposefully chose the section with the highest percentage of

errors for the Item representing the least-learned competency.

4. Administration of Pretest. Pretest was administered to all 49 participants

in order to generate baseline data for analysis.

5. Experimentation. The crafted strategic intervention material which includes

interactive activities was administered to the participants.

6. Administration of Posttest. After the time frame, the students underwent

posttest to see if there were progress in their achievement.

7. Analysis. Data were then tabulated and analyzed using statistical concepts.

Data Analysis

Statistical treatment and tools will be considered, and the use of SPSS 20

software will be of great help in the analysis of the test responses from the participants.

In the light of quantitative data analysis, the following statistical tool will be used:

Paired (Dependent) t-test. This will be used to test the effectiveness of the

strategic intervention material administered to the participants. Paired t-test is used to

test if the means of two paired measurements, such as pretest/posttest scores, are

significantly different.
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Results and Discussions

This portion presents the results of this research and the answers of the

research questions previously presented.

The Intervention Material

The intervention material used in assisting Grade 7 Science students to

enhance their mastery of the least-learned learning competency includes a guide card

and set of activities crafted based on the properties of saturated and unsaturated

solutions. Please see attached material.

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The Significant Difference in the Pretest and Posttest Scores

The mean of the pretest and posttest results of the 49 participants are

presented in the table below.

TABLE 1
Mean Score of the Pretest and Posttest Results of Participants

Mean Score Standard Deviation

Pretest 2.7755 1.71106

Posttest 7.4082 1.55347

The mean score of 49 participants to the pretest is only 2.7755 over 10 item

test. Whereas, after the administration of the intervention material, the pretest mean

score was more than doubled in the posttest mean score of 7.4082 over 10 items test.

In addition, Paired t-test was used to test if there is a significant difference

between the score attained by the participants in pretest and posttest, the results are

presented in the table below.

TABLE 2
Paired Differences and t-value

PAIRED DIFFERENCES
Sig (2
Mean Std. Std. Error 95% Confidence t df tailed)
Deviation Mean Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
Pair 1 -4.63265 1.76416 0.25202 -5.13938 -4.12593 -18.382 48 0.000
Pretest-Posttest

The pretest score and the posttest score presented in Table 1 has standard

deviation of 1.76426 as shown in Table 2. Using paired sample test of the scores, it

yielded a significant value (p-value) of 0.000, which is less than 0.05, therefore, it can

be concluded that there is a significant difference of means before and after

administering the strategic intervention material. That is, the strategic intervention

material is also effective based on the result of the students’ test.

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Recommendation

Strategic Intervention Materials (SIM) should be readily available to all schools

and accessible for all teachers and students. As a strategy in facilitating learners in

their acquisition of knowledge towards all learning competencies, SIM must be

integrated in the curriculum to enhance its inclusivity in responding to the diversity of

learners, hence the ultimate goal of Philippine education, “Education for All”.

Future researchers may pursue the same conceptual framework used in this

study, but emphasis will also be given to other factors that may have had effects on a

learner’s mastery of learning, such as age, nutritional status, and reading ability.

To all teachers, it should always be remembered that every learner deserves

quality and excellent education regardless of their background and diversity.

Prepared by:

KARL JOSE N. IBARRIENTOS

Action Researcher

Reviewed by:

REY A. MANGARIN
STNHS Research Coordinator

Noted by:

AILEN G. INOC LOLITA V. NOVELA

Science Coordinator Head Teacher I

Recommending Approval:

DR. ASER M. SAMSONA EVELYN GRACE H. LABASAN

Principal IV Education Program Supervisor-Science