The Effect of Modern Technology in the Academic Performance

 

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Everything in this world is subjected to change, whether it’s huge or small. These changes have its corresponding effects, either good or bad. And technology is a concrete example of those things that are currently undergoing a huge change.

In the present time – the Age of Modern Technology, where almost everything is high-tech, fast, easy and in progress. Modern technology is simply an advancement of old technology. Modern world is unimaginable without things such as electricity, computers, vehicles, and much more. The youth have unprecedented access to modern technologies and use them in expected and unexpected ways. Teens all over the world are growing up in a world in which the internet, cellphones, text messaging, television and video games, and other technologies dominate their communication and are an integral part of everyday life. Children are immersed in a world abounding with information .

The number of mobile phone users in 2018 is 5.135 billion, up to 4% year-on-year. On the other hand, internet usage in the Philippines remains on a growth trajectory with seven million users added over last year. Internet penetration now stands at around 63 percent out of 105.7 million Filipinos. Moreover, more than half of the population, or 61 million, access the internet using a mobile device, according to The New 2018 Global Digital suite of reports from We are Social and Hootsuite.

Along with the changes and betterment of technology are the people who instantly adapt to these changes. And for a generation of young people, technology does have a significant role in their social and educational lives. Technology is an integral part of most adolescents’ lives, hence it is important to understand the impact it has on academic achievement.

With the advancement of this modern world, study habits have also changed. Unlike the older generation; they only rely on educational materials such as books, notes, articles and solve problems manually just to study their lessons. Now, in just one click, you got all the things you need. Gone are the days of slaving over a book in the library, and taking down notes on paper to find information. The availability of modern technology makes finding information easier, it makes knowledge more available not only to students but to everyone, and exposes them to a much wider variety of subjects. Overall it is really serving its role in terms of academics and education.

The researchers aim to investigate on how modern technology affects the academic performance of students knowing that technology has a lot to offer in terms of education.

B. Research Paradigm

C. Statement of the Problem

The problem of this study is to evaluate the effects of technology to the Isabela National High School grade 11 students’ academic performance for the school year 2018-2019. 

Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions:

1. What are the advantages of technology in the academic performance of the students?
2. What are the disadvantages of technologies in the academic performance of the students?
3. What is the significant difference in the effect of technologies of respondents when grouped according to profile?

 

D. Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of technology to the students’ academic performance. Specifically, the study is designed to:

1. Investigate the differences in the academic performance of students if modern technology or traditional method is used in teaching and learning process.
2. Compare the academic performance of students in group 1 (learning process of students using modern technologies) and group 2 (traditional method of studying).
3. Identify the appropriate or inappropriate technology used by the teachers and students as tools in their teaching and learning process that might affect the academic performance of students.

 

F. Significance of the Study

The researchers view the study to be significant to the following:

Students: This study will enhance the understanding of students regarding the effects of technologies in their studies.

Community: This study will benefit the community by spreading awareness and helping them to control their usage in technology.

Teachers: The results of this study will help the teachers to see whether using technologies as one of their way of teaching is more effective than using the traditional (chalk and board) method.

Researchers: It can increase the researchers’ knowledge regarding the benefits and the researchers can establish a better understanding about the effects of technologies to the academic performance of the students.

Future Researchers: This research shall also provide basis for future references and shall help the future researchers to have a broader investigation in the future.

G. Scope and Delimitations

Our study only focuses on the effects of technologies to the academic performance of the students of Isabela National High School Senior High. We will interview few students from different strands of grade 11 to see the effects of technology to their academic performance.

However, the researchers will only gather data limited to our skills, intellectual capacity, knowledge about the study and personal connections. Related studies and literature also considered in the process of the study as a basis for analyzing our study.

H. Definition of terms

Advancement - development or improvement.

High-tech - employing, requiring, or involved in high technology.

Academic Performance – the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their short or long-term educational goals.

Technology - the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter of the paper addresses related literature and studies concerned about relevant information about the effect of modern technology in the academic performance of grade 11 students of Isabela National High School. It is subdivided into specific categories regarding the said topic for easy comprehension. It shall help the reader to further understand the project.

RELATED FOREIGN LITERATURE AND STUDIES

According to Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, worldwide economic trends are flattening. In education, however, opportunities for learning are actually expanding or opening up through a myriad of emerging distance technologies .

Christensen  states that needs-based technology integration education is shown to have a rapid, positive effect on teacher attitudes, such as computer anxiety, perceived importance of computers, and computer enjoyment. This type of education is shown to have a time-lagged positive effect on the attitudes of students as well.

Global penetration rates of mobile devices are driving the evolution of e-learning to mobile learning but research on the impact of m-technologies on the learning process is still limited. Mobile devices are finding their way to the classroom, and educators need to qualify the m-learning hype to construct sound pedagogy. Research to date warns of a new mode of teaching, as learners become nomads no longer bound by the confines of a classroom. Mobile technologies create an experience that is seamless and life-long, bridging informal and formal learning spheres into a continuum available anywhere, anytime. M-learning demonstrates potential through its ability to create a culture of collaboration that engages the student in active learning. This paper delves into the details of how mobile technologies impact the learning process, providing educators a holistic view of current research, along with design considerations of how to align mobile technologies with appropriate pedagogies .

Williams, Grimble, Irwin, and Marilyn stressed that high school students often use online databases and the Internet in the school library media center (SLMC) to complete teachers' assignments. This case study used a survey to assess teachers' awareness of electronic resources, and to determine whether their directions influence student use of these resources in the SLMC. Participants were teachers from an Indiana high school. Findings revealed that teachers encourage student Internet use in the SLMC, but most do not direct students to use databases. Teachers consider information from electronic databases to be more reliable and focused, but they say the Internet is faster, easier to use, and has a greater scope of information. Findings, conclusions, and recommendations reported should not be generalized beyond the local environment for this exploratory study.

Roberson and Hagevik (2008) stated that cell phones are fast becoming an integral part of students' everyday lives. They are regarded as important companions and tools for personal expression. School-age children are integrating the cell phone as such, and thus placing a high value on them. Educators endeavor to instill in students a high value for education, but often meet with difficulty. Involving technologies such as cell phones that are held with high value to students into teaching and learning cannot help but motivate students. Thus, utilizing the cell phone as a teaching and learning tool should increase the desire of students to become fully involved in their education.

RELATED LOCAL LITERATURE AND STUDIES

ICT has proven to be beneficial in supporting career planning and assessment activities. Kim and Kim used a computer-based program called ‘My Vocational Situation’ to provide career guidance to secondary school students. Reile and Harris-Bowlsbey detailed how the Internet can be utilized by career development practitioners for counseling, training, and assessment. Even the education of career counselors can be enhanced by ICT .

However, in developing countries such as the Philippines, the practice of ICT in education, in general, and in school guidance in particular, is somewhat limited for various reasons. Foremost of these is the lack of ICT resources in schools due to a lack of adequate funding. The low per capita income of the Philippines is the major reason for the slow diffusion of ICT in the country (Baliamoune-Lutz 2003). A 2001 national survey of ICT resources in schools conducted by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology (SEAMEO INNOTECH 2001) revealed that only around two-thirds (66.1%) of all elementary and secondary schools in the Philippines had electricity; 14.3% had computers; 2.0% had Internet access; and only one out of every seven schools had teachers who were computer literate.

Other reasons for the limited practice of ICT in education in this context have been the lack of coordination between private and public technology initiatives, and limited exposure to ICT by education practitioners (including guidance counselors) during their pre-service and in-service periods (Rodrigo 2001, 2003).

Proficiency in ICT skills has been identified as one of the core competencies needed by not only school teachers (Fisher 1997; Scheffler and Logan 1999), but also guidance counselors (Offer and Sampson 1999; McCarthy 2004). But technology use by guidance counselors is a relatively new phenomenon (Van Horn and Myrick 2001). Gerler (1995) observed that the discipline had been slow in exploring how technology could be utilized to offer better services to students, parents, and teachers.

Only a few studies have investigated guidance counselors’ use of technology. Owen and Weikel reported in 1999 that around 88% of school counselors in one U.S. State alone were already using computers, but mainly for routine applications such as word processing, record keeping, and class scheduling.  Computers were also utilized for counseling-related tasks, such as interactive vocational guidance and testing, but to a lesser extent (less than 20%). No such numbers are available for guidance counselors in the Philippines, although several surveys have been conducted on the use of ICT in education in general (Rodrigo 2001, 2003).

Librero, Ramos, Ranga, Triñona & Lambert (2007) stated that cell phone now is the most widely used medium in Asia, has major educational implications. Most users, however, do not realize the cell phone's potential for education, nor even for the communication functions for which it was originally designed. Most educators still see the computer and the cell phone as unrelated devices, and the tiny cell phone more as a personal accessory, especially for young people. With falling prices and increasing functionality, however, it is virtually certain that not too far in the future all of the world's students will have a cell phone. This is sufficient reason and motivation for educators to explore the possibility of making the cell phone an important tool in the educational systems of developed and developing countries. This article describes the experience of two major projects that are studying the potential of cell phone and short message service (SMS) techniques for formal and nonformal education in the Philippines and Mongolia. The studies have yielded positive reactions from students and trainees about the potential of these techniques, and are suggesting design and logistical principles for use in educational cell phone implementation.

According to Christensen and Knezek (2008) ten years of instrument development are summarized and placed within a framework for assessing the impact of technology in education. Seven well-validated instruments spanning the areas of attitudes, beliefs, skills, competencies, and technology integration proficiencies are presented, along with data analysis examples. These instruments are proposed for use in modeling the process of technology integration, which is believed to be an important intermediary step in effective use of technology in teaching and learning.

Rodrigo (2001) noted that the Philippines is one of many developing nations that have turned to information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool to improve teaching and learning. Unfortunately, implementation suffers from several shortcomings: the absence of information on how ICT is actually used; a lack of coordination between public and private sector efforts; and insufficient teacher preparation. This paper begins with discussion of the pedagogical, social, and economic benefits that developing nations hope to gain by infusing schools with ICT. It cites national policies and programs to infuse schools with ICT, as well as parallel programs initiated by the private sector. The paper then discusses each of the mentioned shortcomings in turn.

Masagca and Londerio (2008) stressed that this qualitative study presents the difference perspectives of teacher-participants in Luzon, Philippines on the use and application of ICT in guidance counseling and the school counselor’s advocacy role. Certain property of story-telling or conversation was employed. This ethnographic technique is naturally occurring phenomenon/process of sharing and telling stories among individuals to figure out or to make sense about their world and experiences. 

A snowball sampling technique was used in the study that utilized an open-ended format to investigate the different questions and developed an interview guide rather than pre-determined schedule consisting of the three topics: 

1. uses of ICT
2. problems/issues/gaps on the use and application of the ICT or computer technology
3. innovative ways in using/applying ICT in school guidance. 

Results indicate that the teacher-participants appear to have not fully understood the over-all uses and application of ICT in education/school counseling. However, as the potential uses, the subjects generated various uses as what they have learned from their graduate courses on technology in education and knowledge management in education. The issues and problems mostly relate to the economic aspects, costs, administrators attitude towards the use of ICT, quality of information and on the issue of commercialism. Innovative programs presented dealt on the individual needs of the pupils and on the career services, but not on the ways to improve professional capabilities of the guidance counselor. 

It was recommended that continuous re-training and establishment of well-defined capacity building programs for guidance counselors focusing on individual skills of the counselors as to the other uses and application of ICT should be undertaken. On future research, accountability of administrators on ICT integration in school counseling can be carried out as well as more empirical studies on the different perspective of administrators on ICT integration were noted. Furthermore, inquiries related to assessment/evaluation on reliability of information can be done by looking into the research outputs of students and faculty with the online materials cited on the bibliography. School counselors are to be guided through school-based-in-service training and DepEd-sponsored programs on capacity building by putting emphases on the benefits of ICT use as well as case presentations of the various experiences of counselors in the Philippines about ICT integration on the implementation of the school guidance programs.

Synthesis

In conclusion, these related local/foreign literatures and studies that we gathered are relevant to our study. According to these, technology has a big impact in the academic performance of the students. Through the use of technologies, the students are able to understand the lessons well. The students also

References

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• Christensen (2014), Effects of Technology Integration Education on the Attitudes of Teachers and Students. Retrieved January 29, 2019 from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15391523.2002.10782359.
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• Vinluan (2010), The Use of ICT in School Guidance: Attitudes and Practices of Guidance Counselors in Metro Manila, the Philippines. Retrieved January 30, 2019 from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10447-010-9110-4.
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