STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING RESEARCH OUTPUTS: A STUDY

RELATED ON THE EXPERIENCES OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OF

DIFFUN NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

A Research Paper

Presented to:
Faculty and Staff
Diffun National High School
Senior High School
Diffun, Quirino, Philippines

In Partial Fulfilment
Of the Requirements in
Practical Research II

Presented by
Mervin J G. Dela Cruz
Princess Jane A. Lagat
Edgar L. Furoc

April 2021
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Diffun, Quirino

Chapter I
The Problem and Its Background

Rationale

Writing is a fundamental skill that every student must learn. It fosters our ability to

explain and elaborate our ideas to ourselves and to other people. In the article of The Graide

Network (2019), there are countries benefits in having a strong writing skill such as it enables

the student to have an effective communication, allow learners to demonstrate their

knowledge throughout the curriculum and to express their ideas and concerns to satisfy one’s

needs for better personal understanding. Indeed, students who are capable to master skills in

writing early on, struggle less in overall academic performance.

Learning how to write brief paragraphs and essays is one of the most challenging

experience for students. However, if kids do not attempt to learn and enhance the skills of

writing at a young age, they will face difficulties in coping up and dealing with lessons in

higher education in their later life.

Moreover, in order to write something, we should consider the kinds of writing from a

target audience or purpose point of view. Like creative writing, academic writing, and even

journalistic writing. Furthermore, academic writing includes research paper or thesis, essays,

reports and so on. As a matter of fact, the difficulties in writing commonly find in academic

writing, especially in making research paper.

Everything that we enjoy today is brought by research. It is where an individual is

doing a careful study in order to preserve and improve the quality of human life. At some

point, if you ask a lot of people, they may say that writing a research paper is a challenging

and demanding task. But with enough and proper practice in school, it could be much easier

as you get used to it. In the article published by the University of Minesota Libraries: Writing
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for

success (2011) explains that researching and writing a long paper requires a lot of study,

time, effort, and organization.

According to Anderson (2017), majority of the students still failed to develop writing

skills even after finishing school. The reasons for this are numerous including lack of writing

practice, improper development of analytical and cognitive skills, lack of vocabulary, poor

grammar, and weak argumentations. Similarly, in the study of Asia Pacific Journal of

Multidisciplinary Research (2018), findings show that the students have difficulties in writing

academic essays such as lack of variety of ideas, incorrect usage of words and inadequate

knowledge in terms of subject verb agreement.

In order to help address the concerns regarding writing difficulties and research output

faced by the learners, the researchers decided to explore the challenges experienced by the

students as they stated writing research papers and other academic writings. Also, this study

would like to focus on the factors and reasons affecting the poor writing performances of

Senior High School students.

Statement of the Problem

This study will be presented to explore the difficulties encountered by Senior High

School students in writing Research Output. Specifically, it sought to answer the following

questions:

1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of:

1.1. Age

1.2. Gender

1.3. Educational Attainment

1.4. Religion Affiliation

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1.5. Civil Status

2. What are the difficulties they have encountered while conducting research?

3. How do the students assess the research support services provided by:

3.1. School Administrators

3.2. Research Advisers

4. Is there any significant difference on the extent of difficulties encountered by the students

in preparing their research report when they are grouped by their profile?

Statement of the Hypothesis

The hypothesis below shall be tested:

1. There is no significant difference on the extent of difficulties encountered by the

students in preparing their research report when they are grouped by their profile.

Theoretical or Conceptual Framework of the Study

The study is premised on the three stages of research preparation as identified and

introduced by Tan (2007). The three stages include Groping, Developing, and

Accomplishing.

The groping stage occurred in two phases: (a.) when the student researchers were

getting involved regarding the expectations and requirements of the research course and (b.)

when they had to search for related refereed studies to guide them in problematizing and

conceptualizing their research problems. It was in this stage the fear and challenges were the

prevalent experiences.
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T h e D e v e l o p i n

information treating the data that the students under study were confused, motivated, and

inspired.

The Accomplishing Stage is on the completion of the research projects of sharing the

actual results of the study through panel defense activity.

These stages were presented in the study of Tan (2007) where it can e found the

different undertakings or difficulties by the students in fulfilling their research requirements.

Significance of the Study

This study will be conducted to explore the difficulties encountered by Senior High

School students in writing Research Output. With the help of conducting and finding a

solution, the following will be benefited by this research.

Students. This study will help the students to gather information for them to become

aware on the difficulties they may encounter on writing and conducting research outputs.

They will be able to establish steps on how to overcome this difficulty.

Teachers. They will be able to understand our burden as students that they may be

able to adapt and meet the needs of students especially in extending deadlines.

Parents. It will be beneficial for them because as a parent they just want the best for

their children. They will help and give some encouragement to their children.

Future Researchers. They can use the findings of the study as their basis of doing

deeper related research.

Scope and Delimitation

This study will be conducted to explore the experiences of Senior High School

students regarding the difficulties they have encountered in writing Research Output. It is

delimited on the grade 12 HUMSS 2 Students of Diffun National High School. It focusses in
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understanding the difficulties encountered by the students and the researchers and influences

their research outputs.

Chapter II
Review of Related Literature and Studies

This chapter deals with related literature and studies regarding difficulties

encountered by Senior High School students in Academic Writing particularly in doing

Research Output.

Academic Writing

Academic writing which includes research is a mental and cognitive activity since it is

a product of the mind. The image of an individual working alone in a quiet environment has

furthered the view of writing as a mental and cognitive activity. However, as has been

pointed out, “writing can be understood only from the perspective of a society rather than a

single individual” (Burke, 2010, p. 40-41).

Basics in Doing Research Outputs

Writing research outputs is expected to address an intellectual community in which

the students engage in active learning. Some basics or rules must be established. Using

information to one’s advantage is a key part of learning. Success at the postgraduate level

depends on the students’ ability to access, evaluate, and synthesize the words, ideas, and

opinions of others in order to develop their own academic voice. When presenting what they

have learned, it is therefore vitally important that students are able to show clearly what they

have drawn from others and what is their own (Bristol Business School, 2006, p. 3). A

student must be honest about how much ownership he/she can claim over the ideas formed,
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the

answers found, and the opinions expressed (Bristol Business School, 2006, p. 3). The student

must follow certain rules to ensure good academic writing, including punctuation guidelines.

Difficulties in Research Writing

Research is a vital component of academic endeavor. Writing the research paper is not

as overwhelming as some may initially think. The research paper essentially is a search on

work that has previously been studied by usually an expert in the field. The only task that is

required of you is to unearth their work. Even though this task may seem simple, many

students encounter problems organizing and writing the research paper because they fail to

research the general topic before they decide on a thesis statement; they fail to provide an

appropriate thesis statement; they fail to provide a connection between the thesis statement

and all of the topic sentences in the paper; they fail to support the paper with adequate

information that is relevant only to the topic of the paper; or they fail to correctly cite their

sources. Evident to this was the implementation of the K to 12 Program as it was a response

towards the result conducted by the Department of Education.

It was shown in the different studies that there are different issues concerning

difficulties in doing research. Common issues faced by the researchers include language

problem and skills (Evangelista & Hernandez, n.d.; Yalcin, 2017; Sadeghi & Khajepasha,

2015; and Ho, 2013), developing stage or choosing a research topic (Easterby-Smith et al.

cited in Anson & Smith, 2004; and Wang & Yang, 2012), resources and general guidelines

and services (Martin and Khan, 2017; Ho, 2013; and Wadesango, 2014), and research reports

and requirements (Sarkar, 2014; and Komba, 2016).

According to David E. (n.d.), lexical difficulties mean having difficulties with words.

Any problem related to words is called a lexical difficulty. A good percentage of students
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have difficulties in using the right words in the right places. This, in turn, has a direct effect

on their sentence structures. As a result, their research outputs is filled with errors.

Difficulty in Managing Time

Time is not a limitless resource, and it passes away, leaving nothing but sadness

behind. On this basis, students fail to keep track of their time, which ultimately hinders them

from generating qualitative content over a short period of time. Even, almost all of the time,

the student has to make hundreds of papers. In such a situation, when the time resource is

used up, students would not be able to transform all or any of their paper projects on time. In

order to combat this condition, the student must use time management techniques to measure

his success in terms of time.

Lack of Subject Knowledge

If the student is fortunate enough just to learn excellent writing skills, he still has to

strive to compose a paper if he has no knowledge of the crux of the subject matter. Thus, he’s

back to the same old one, and the endless episode of chaos awaits his suffering. However, the

student can resolve this shortcoming by conducting sound research on the subject. This,

however, will take a lot of time and the student will have to battle his way out by spending all

his energy and effort.

Lack of Writing Skills

Writing skills is one of the difficulties in research writing as confirmed in the research

of Evangelista and Hernandez (n.d.). Based on their report, students encountered difficulties

in writing the proposal or writing the research paper itself. Furthermore, Yalcin (2017),

Sadeghi and Khajepasha (2015), and Ho (2013) showed in their studies that researchers had

language problems in the writing process. According to Ho (2013), the linguistic related
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issues hindered the research writing process of the students and it was emphasized that the

lack of disciplinary reading and writing skills posted another problem among the students.

Choosing a Research Topic

Choosing a research topic is the first and one of the most crucial stages of the research

process (Easterby- Smith et al. cited in Anson & Smith, 2004). They pointed that it is very

rare for the students to have a clear focus from the outset of their research, and many find this

lack of a clear focus to be a major impediment to getting started.

This was supported by Wang and Yang (2012). Data of Wang and Yang (2012)

showed that the students encountered difficulties in selecting a research topic including

designing the proposal research, grasping the genre of the thesis proposal, and doing a critical

literature review, but varied in their attitude toward getting support from their supervisor.

Sarkar (2014) posed issues like difficulties in getting permission from key authorities,

recruiting intended participants, and using survey questionnaires. This can be supported by

the study of Komba (2016) where the researchers find difficulty in writing all chapters which

were included in their research reports. The challenges included inappropriateness in

presenting different chapters of the reports and lack of academic writing skills as emphasized

in their article.
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Chapter III
Research Methodology

This part of the research study will discuss the research design, sampling procedure

that is being use and presented the step-by-step procedure in gathering the needed data ready

for analysis.

Research Design

We will use Phenomenological Research Design in this study because it helps us to

understand the meaning of people's lived experience within the world especially the

difficulties of the Senior High School students towards conducting their research.  A

phenomenological study explores the people’s experiences that focuses on different

difficulties that at some point maybe encountered by the researchers. Cresswell (1998) points

out that the essence of phenomenological study is the search for “the central underlying

meaning of the research participant’s experience”.

In Order to know the difficulties encountered by the students, the researchers will

also use a survey research design where the researcher will employ cross-sectional survey.

Cross-sectional survey is done where a researcher uses different categories of people (Enon,

1998) based on their knowledge and experiences (Calderon, 1993).

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However, the study will also apply quantitative research approaches. Quantitative

approach helped to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data from

the field and transform them into useable statistics.

Sampling Procedures

The study will use two types of sampling procedures which are purposive and simple

random sampling methods. Purposive sampling means that respondents are chosen based on

their knowledge of the information desired (Calderon, 1993). Moreover, random sampling

was used in choosing sample unit from the entire population of grade 12 students.

Through random sampling process students will be selected in grade 12 students

particularly the HUMSS 2 class. To avoid biasness when choosing students to be involved in

a focus group discussion, the researchers will create a poll using social media particularly the

“ Messenger” and will be posted on the group chat of HUMSS 2 and after that, the students

will vote whether it is a YES or NO. Those who voted Yes will be involved in a focus group

discussion.

Data Gathering

Before conducting this research study, the researchers will interview the adviser of

HUMSS 2 via “Messenger” who has student who are struggling in doing research outputs.

Based on the gathered votes, the researchers will ask permission from the prospect participant

if they are willing to be a part of the research study and let them answer series of research

question with the help of technology as the main source of gathering information especially

in this time of uncertainty, the COVID-19.

Ethical Concerns
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The statement of the research purpose, description of any potential risks or

discomforts, description of potential benefits and the description of confidentiality were

assured to the respondents. The researcher assured them not to reveal their identity of to

anyone other than the researcher. These findings are stored in such a way that it will be

accessible only for the research purpose so as to maintain privacy or confidentiality and

anonymity of the respondents.