RATIONALE

Changes in many aspects of the people’s lives and in the community was the effect of the emergence of
the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest study of Huckins (2020, in McNiff 2020) revealed that Coronavirus pandemic had
an immediate impact on the mental health of students. The study recorded spikes in depression and
anxiety at the beginning of the pandemic in early March, just as the school pushed students to leave
campus and begin remote learning.

Saavedra (2020) commented that the pandemic the whole world is experiencing right now is
potentially one of the greatest threats in global education, a gigantic educational crisis. He
supported his claim saying that as of March 28, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic is causing more than
1.6 children and youth to be out of school in 161countries. This number is close to 80% of the
world’s enrolled students.

Students and teachers at all levels of education are transitioning from classroom to computer as the
number of confirmed Covid-19 cases continues to rise. Not every subject lends itself to a
smooth transition to distance learning, as students and instructors have discovered. Distance
learning has presented challenges to teachers trying to adapt to lecturing online (O’Keefe, 2020).The
same had happened in the Philippines. The pandemic required a lot of adjustments and
transitions as students are continuing education not inside the classrooms, but at their
own homes. Various challenges also confronted the implementation of this shift from face-to-
face learning to distance learning. In fact the opening of classes had been delayed twice to give
schools ample time to prepare for this shift. Despite the delays, many students and teachers still
struggled to keep up with the preparations needed for the distance learning.

According to Perez (2020), teachers are worried that modular distance learning will not work to
some of the students because aside from they can’t read and comprehend on their own;
their parents are also not capable of guiding them because they too are not capable of reading with
comprehension as well.

In view of this condition, the researchers decided to conduct this study to identify the challenges of the
students in the distance learning and determine the coping mechanisms that the students employed
to cope with these struggles. In addition, from the results of this study, the researchers hoped to
design an intervention that can ease the students’ struggles. They aimed to implement this intervention
in the of this school year to give students more time to survive the new normal.

References:

(Calo, Rey M; Flores, Genex G; Bustamante, Ruem L. (2021). Students’ Struggles and their Coping
Mechanisms in the New Normal. Napolan National High School. The unprecedented emergence of the
COVID-19 Pandemic has caused the Department)