Difficulties of Grade 12 ABM Students in Fundamentals of Accountancy,

Business and Management Subject on Calaca Senior High School

Julie Ann Noche

ABM 1205

© January 2022
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With deepest gratitude and appreciation, the researchers would like to thank to

the following individuals and groups who helped and contributed to the success

of this study: First, to our Almighty God for giving us knowledge and wisdom to

face all the struggles and challenges, for providing us the opportunity and

capability to proceed successfully, and for guidance and protection to do work.

Without Him, this study is not possible. I would like to give our gratitude to our

research teacher.

To our parents, for their support and guidance, for understanding us and giving

us strength to aim our dreams and finish our study, for their continued financial

support that made our rough ways easier to reach this end.
 Chapter I

The Problem and the Background

I. Introduction

Chapter 1.1 Background of the Study

Fundamental of accountancy business and management is an

introductory course in accounting, business, and management data analysis that

will develop students' appreciation of accounting as a language of business and

an understanding of basic accounting concepts and principles that will help them

analyze business transactions. Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business and

Management’s main goal is to teach students the basic concepts and principles

of bookkeeping as an introductory level towards Accounting, career. Not only to

Accounting career but also to help incoming college students who will take

courses that are related to Business Administration, Management and

Commerce. In a study conducted by Urquiza and Usabiaga (2015) stated

that the main objective of Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business, and

Management is to help students understand the fundamental accounting

concepts and principles as well as to develop the capability to perform the basic

accounting functions: the recognition, valuation, measurement and recording of

the most common business transactions and the preparations of accounting

statements. Learning professional subjects in accounting is not like reading a

novel, memorizing, or even like just mastering the accounting terms (Mercado et

al., 2016). That is the reason why the subject is challenging in nature. It is
considered as one of the difficult subjects of Senior High School and one of the

major subjects and building blocks of ABM strand. Mostly, the students have

failed to understand the lessons due to the complexity of the said subject. Lack of

liberal education in English and Math should also consider in these situations

because the nature of the subject is analysis and comprehension of a given

situation.

Students find it hard to understand the lessons. Some are struggling to

use worksheet, and some did not understand the accounting cycle. The

financial statements, which are crucial in making economic decision of the

business, also find it difficult by the students since they are still struggling to

understand the basic foundations of accounting. Whiles ever al foreign and local

literatures existed in the context of basic accounting, none of these deal with the

difficulties of Grade 12 ABM students in Fundamentals of Accountancy,

Business, and Management. However, some studies focused primarily on

learning styles and lecturing issues of the teachers but difficulties of students in

every lesson on basic accounting were not indicated on these studies. In the

view of this situation, the main objective of the study is to explore the different

lessons in Fundamentals of ABM that the students might be difficult to

understand with. Furthermore, this study is intended to be used by students,

primarily the incoming ABM Senior High students, as a preparation for the

subject so that they can decide early if they will continue taking up the ABM

strand. To meet the previously mentioned gap in this paper, the researchers
decided to get data from the current ABM students of the Calaca Senior High

School.
Chapter 1.2 Statement of the Problem

The study aims to help the Grade 12 ABM Students on what kind of

lessons they are difficult to understand with. This paper will serve as a guide to

ABM teachers especially the new people in teaching career.

• To identify the struggles of Grade 12 – ABM students regarding FABM subject.

• To quantify student’s comprehension towards FABM topics.

• To determine different coping strategies that students used in

understanding the FABM subject.

Chapter 1.3 Significance of the Study

The study will be beneficial to the following:

STUDENTS. This study would help them adapt different strategies to develop a

better understanding of FABM subject.

ACADEME. This study would serve as guide for them to know what part of the

topic that students find it more difficult and help them to enhance and develop

students’ understanding in FABM subject.

FUTURE RESEARCHERS. This study would generate new knowledge that

could serve as the basis for further studies.

Chapter 1.4 Scope, Limitation and Delimitation

The respondents of this study are Grade 12 ABM students of

the Calaca Senior High School. This paper is designed to be used by incoming

ABM students of the said university. So, the scope of this paper is only inside of

the premises of the Calaca Senior High School. This study is weakened due to

lack of other information from outside sources of UPH – Molino. To address this,

future studies should focus on all the universities in the Philippines to get more

data
Chapter 1.5 Hypothesis

There is many significant difficulties of Grade 12 ABM students in

Fundamentals of Accounting and Business Management.

 Chapter II

Review of Related Literature and Studies

Chapter 2.1 Related Literature

It is vital to address the importance of Fundamentals of ABM to identify

the significance of the subject in ABM strand. According to Gadiano et al. (2017)

Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business, and Management introduce basic

accounting principles, accounting concepts, and accounting terminology. This

subject teaches the rules of debit and credit which allow performances in

accounting to be done successfully. It serves as the foundation of knowledge

of every ABM student. There are several existing foreign and local studies

conducted that focuses primarily on the significance of basic accounting in Senior

High. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (2016) announced that

they have partnered with state CPA societies to increase the number of high

school educators trained to teach higher order accounting courses across the

country. Rankin et al. (2003) cited in (Kwarteng, 2019) argues that high school

accounting can be beneficial to the performance of students in first-year

university accounting since there is a close association between the high school

and university accounting curricula. It is important to realize that

accounting education often starts earlier, at the high school level. Understanding

how high school accounting affects the development of accounting students can

help further the development of accounting education programs (Marinaccio,

2017). Papageorgiou (2017) further emphasizes the correlation of academic

performance of accounting students in college who took Grade 12 accounting

and the other college students who didn’t took Grade 12 accounting. He

explains that there was a very high significant difference in the students.
Chapter 2.2 Research Literature

Learning professional subjects in accounting is not like reading a novel,

memorizing, or even like just mastering the accounting terms. In other words, it is

very challenging (Mercado et al., 2016). Some related studies also focused in

performance of students in basic accounting by means of studying their

satisfaction, learning style, and also their common problems which links to

different struggles of accounting students primarily in Grade 12. According to

Laguador et al. (2014) Learning professional subjects as an accounting student

is a big challenge. Accounting students use different kinds of strategies in order

to excel in their professional subjects. They use learning strategies. Learning

Style is correlated with student’s satisfaction because it determines if his/her

strategy in studying produces the expected outcome such as higher grades and

effective learning. If the student is not satisfied. with his/her efforts, he/she might

choose a different learning style in order to derive a better result in his/her

studies (Mercado et al., 2016). A study of Arganda et al. (2014) suggests that

effective study habits and proper timemanagement should consider in taking

accounting course. In terms of learning style, moststudents are satisfied through

the aid of books. Making use of various teaching aids likewhiteboard, visual

aids, accounting manual, practice sets, etc. makes students

satisfiedregarding the teaching strategy of the professor (Mercado et al., 2016).

Student’s emotion is a second variable that affects an academic

performance ofstudents. According to Gadiano et al. (2017) students’

performance in Accountancy,Business, and Management strand can be

affected by positive emotion, engagement,relationships, meaning, and

accomplishment. These five elements shape the wellbeing of thestudents as they

study. The way these elements move within their lives affect their thoughts,

motivation and preferences. Institutional factors and parental socio-economic

factors affect students’ academic performance in accounting (Ifeoma et al.,

2017). The lecturers and teachers are the third and most important variable in the

academic performance of students. Existed foreign and local related literatures

indicates two variables, teacher’s presence and their capabilities. According

to Akpanobong and Asuquo (2015) teachers’ quality plays a significant role in

shaping and enhancing students’ interest in Financial Accounting. Students’

achievement in Financial Accounting at the secondary school level relates

directly to the quality of the teachers handling the subject. Mbugua et al. (2012)

cited in Ifeoma et al. (2017) stated all the factors affecting the academic

performance of students. Under staffing, inadequate teaching/learning materials,

lack of motivation and poor attitude by both teachers and students as factors

influencing academic performance of students. Kwarteng (2019) in his study

revealed that teachers’ inability to completely handle the entire topics in the

curriculum for reasons of having difficulty with some of the topics implies

ineffectual lesson delivery. Instructor’s lectures were not clearly delivered

or imparted, and their incomprehensible teaching techniques are some

causes of the academic problems encountered by the Grade 12accounting

students (Arganda et al., 2014). Mercado et al. (2016) indicated that

the professors should give more problem-solving exercises in order to improve

the practical skills of the students especially if they are exposed to a program that

involves applied skills like Accountancy. Every learner comes to the class with an

expectation of meeting a friendly teacher. If the teacher presents himself as an

expected friendly stimulus, interest is aroused in the learner with the consequent

attention to what is presented in the class (Akpanobong and Asuquo 2015).

Chapter 2.3 Synthesis

While several foreign and local literatures existed in the context of basic

accounting in Grade 12, none of these deals with the difficulties of Grade 12

ABM students in Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business, and Management.

However, existing related literatures focused primarily on learning styles

and lecturing issues of the teachers but difficulties of students in every

lesson on basic accounting (Fundamentals of ABM 2) were not indicated on

these studies. Some related literatures were 5 years old and the knowledge

needs to be updated to ensure the accuracy of information in the academe. To

sum it up, it is important to have basic accounting like Fundamentals of ABM 2 in

Senior High for those who will take Accountancy as their course in college. The

subject itself are focused on the basic principles and bookkeeping practices

Learning professional subjects like accounting needs to have a lecturer or

teacher that has experience in the field of Accountancy. Teachers need to be

approachable and effective in teaching because they are the most important

variable in student’s academic performance. If the teacher is inefficient and not

friendly, then their students will be most likely to follow that. Students should

have its own learning strategies to help them in basic accounting.

 Chapter III

Methodology

The research procedure that was used in this study is

presented in the following sections: Research Design, Research Site,

Respondents of the Study, Data Collection, Data Analysis, and Research

Instrument.

Chapter 3.1 Research Design

This study would use descriptive research design under

quantitative research. The purpose of descriptive research is, of course, to

describe, as well as explain, or validate some sort of hypothesis or objective

when it comes to a specific group of people (McNeill, 2015).

Chapter 3.2 Research Environment

This study would be conducted in the Calaca Senior High School, which

is one of the most densely populated school in Calaca Batangas in terms of SHS

student enrollees. The Institution is one of the most well-known universities in the

Philippines. It aims achieve its objective of maintaining and sustaining excellence

in education. For the past 45 years, the university is continually providing high

quality education through enhancing its educational programs and services.