TRAIT FACTORS OF WORKING STUDENTS: ITS IMPLICATION TO ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Key terms: working students, coping skills, personal traits, motivational goals, academic achievement

BUENVENIDA, Harold GELLE, Zesil Gay GRABATO, Lina LIBUTAQUE, Rolando

INTRODUCTION

The Philippine government puts a high value in education as a powerful force towards growth and development.

This was manifested in the recently approved budget for the year 2011 where education sector gets the biggest part of the pie (Tan, 2010).

McInnes and Harltly (2002) posited that it has become a common practice for college students to learn and earn if not earn and learn. This phenomenon is multiple, complex and international. Sembrano (2010) reported that there about 2.7 million college students in the Philippines where about 8% of which are currently juggling work and study.

Harrison (2011) singled out that those students who combined work with tertiary study are significantly less likely to complete their courses than those who do not work.

In the Philippines half of the working students are found to graduate. Factors such as increasing tuition rates and higher commodity prices were the main reasons why working students drop (Sembrano, 2010).
Many studies confirmed that the academic achievement of working students is directly affected by the nature of their works (Perna, 2010, Ramota, 2005, and Orszag et al, 2001). Orszag et al. (2001) found out that those working students on-campus with limited number of hours appeared to have a positive effect on students performance but those who work off-campus with full time number of hours appeared to have negative effects.

Though many researchers were conducted as regards the nature of the work of working students either on off campus and its effect to academic achievement yet little have been investigated as regards their personal factors. True, that those who are on campus working students gained a positive effect on their academic performance, and while those who are off campus show little if not negative effect in their scholastic performance. Yet, little ventures were done as regards investigating the roles of personal factors of working students and its contribution to the positive or negative effect towards their academic achievement thus, this study.

FRAMEWORK

Attribution Theory of Weiner

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

PARADIGM

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

INTERVENING VARIABLE

DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Working students:

Trait Factors: Coping skills Personal traits Motivational goals Academic Achievement

Type Sex Year Level Course Taken

Fig. I Academic achievement of working students

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study will ascertain the academic achievement of working students in terms of their coping skills, personal traits, and motivational goals.

Specifically, it aims to answer the following questions:

1. What is the academic achievement of working students when taken as a whole and when grouped according to type, gender, year level, and course taken? 2. What are the coping skills, personal traits, and motivational goals of working students when taken as a whole and when grouped according to type, gender, year level, and course taken?

3. Are there significant differences in the academic achievement of working students when grouped according to type, gender, year level, and course taken?
4. Are there significant differences in the coping skills, personal traits, and motivational goals of working students when grouped according to type, gender, year level, and course taken? 5. Are there significant relationships between working students academic achievement and their trait factors such as coping skills, personal traits, and motivational goals?

HYPOTHESES

1. There are no significant differences in the academic achievement of working students when grouped according to type, gender, year level, and course taken. 2. There are no significant differences in the coping skills, personal traits, and motivational goals of working students when grouped according to type, gender, year level, and course taken. 3. There are no significant relationships between working students academic achievement and their trait factors such as coping skills, personal traits, and motivational goals.

SIGNIFICANCE

 University administrator Office of the student affairs Future researchers

DELIMITATIONS

This study will be limited only to working students enrolled for the SY 2011-2012 as identified according to working student type such as on- and offcampus.

METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH DESIGN: descriptive correlational

LOCALE OF THE STUDY: a private University in Iloilo City

RESPONDENTS: working students; first year to fourth year enrolled for AY 2011-2012 SAMPLING DESIGN & SAMPLE SIZE DETERMINATION: stratified random sampling technique

MATERIALS & INSTRUMENTATION: Personal Trait 16 PF by Catell Coping Skills Ayers & Sandler Motivational Goals Neville

SOCIAL PREPARATIONS, ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS & CONDUCT OF STUDY: Letter of Permission from University Head or President Letter of Permission from OSS Informed Consent Conduct of the Study

DATA PROCESSING & ANALYSIS:

Descriptive: Frequency Percentage Mean SD

Inferential: t-test ANOVA Pearson correlation coefficient