Attitudes of Senior High School Students toward Research: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Research is the foundation of knowledge and innovation. In the Philippines’ basic education landscape, a “research-infused” curriculum

was implemented in the senior high school to inculcate research culture among learners. Thus, this convergent parallel mixed-
method study explored the attitudes of Grade 12 senior high school students towards research and its relationship to their academic

performance. Papanastasiou’s Revised Attitude towards Research (R-ATR) scale was administered to 100 randomly-selected Grade
12 senior high school students to gather quantitative data. An open-ended questionnaire was utilized to gather qualitative data from
10 senior high school students. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Pearson Correlation Coefficient. Microsoft©
Excel and IBM© SPSS were used to facilitate the statistical analysis. Excerpts from the qualitative data were provided to support the
statistical analysis of data. Results revealed that the students had a generally positive attitude towards research albeit the high level of
anxiety they experienced. R-ATR scale attitude domains showed a weak to a strong degree of relationship with each other. Conversely,
students’ attitudes toward research did not show a significant relationship with students’ academic performance in Practical Research
2. The results yielded by this research may be used as a basis for more efficient delivery of research-related courses in senior high
school.