An Analysis on the Effects of Group Performance Tasks to Grade 9 Students

by

Hanna Coleen G. Malayao
Grade 10 - Diego Mojica
St. Dominic College – Basic Education

A (Draft) Research Paper submitted to

Mr. Poccholo M. Rudio

November 4, 2015

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Introductory paragraphs

A school or institution is built to provide learning and good education to students and prepare them for their future. Parents send their children in school to be knowledgeable on everything they see and do and enjoy life while learning. According to Albert Einstein, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” It only means that education shouldn’t focus on teaching facts instead students should be learning while interacting with one another.
Educating students is done by many ways, it may be by visual aids that will let the students view a clearer idea on the topic, it may also be by means of technology which is very popular nowadays especially to the present generation. But above all this, there’s this one way of educating students that would never get old, it is interacting students with other people by grouping them to work on a specific matter or task.
This process would develop students to become sociable as they grew up and letting them share their opinion and ideas. It would help as well to engage and connect students with their skills and values while learning competently. Researcher reports that students learn best when they are actively involved apart from being intellectual, they are also developing their inner social. Group task was a main technique teachers or administrators used to socialize students intelligently and skillfully.
According to a research, the benefits of group tasks are the following: students would develop their own voice and perspective in relation to peers; they could also receive social support and encouragement to take risks in every task and most of all, refine understanding through discussion and explanation among themselves. (Caruso & Woolley, 2008)

It would develop a personality in each student to develop, cooperate and confidence over sharing their own opinion towards something. The atmosphere built in a group while doing tasks would always be positive in such a way everybody are delighted. It helps the interaction more expressive as opposite gender would share ideas in order for the success of a task they are all involved in.
As a result, this study is done to determine the outcome/effect of group performance task to students.

Statement of the Problem Students nowadays, are more into working with group when it comes to performance tasks rather than individual tasks that led the students in losing their confidence into taking risks when performing tasks. Thus, most of the students will just depend on the members of their group and will just take everything easy. On the other hand, some misunderstandings where pointed out with regards to the marking of each member depending on how they interact and cooperate with the group. According to studies, only 14 percent of the students participated in a study group throughout the entire semester. Almost 55 percent reported that they had never participated in a study group in any task. Those who had never participated in study groups offered a variety of reasons why they chose not to. Included among the reasons were the failure of participants in study groups to contribute equally (various versions of members not carrying their weight and not being reliable), the lack of productivity in the study groups accompanied by the sense that it is just more efficient to study on your own, the perception that study groups are easily distracted and lack focus (someone starts talking about something else and the group stops studying), and logistical problems primarily associated with finding convenient times and places to meet.

Purpose
This study is done to determine and find out the effects of Group Performance Tasks to the 9th Grade students of St. Dominic College – Basic Education Department.

The goal of this study is to: * discover what are the effects of Group Performance Tasks to the 9th Grade students * provide information that will let the students/respondents understand the effects of Group Performance Tasks * observe the factors that will affect Group Performance Tasks * produce a simpler interpretation that students and/or respondents will easily understand * supply effects about the topic that will let the readers consider Group Performance Tasks positively

Significance of the Study This study is beneficial to the following: To the Students’ Parents: The study will benefit the parents by encouraging their child to interact with their classmates and be socially competent while learning. Also, they can benefit from this by being informed about how their child sees and performs task in groups and how do they develop their skills through interaction. To the Faculty and Administrators: The study will benefit the teachers by allowing them to know and understand the gaze of students about having group performance task more efficient for them to develop their social skills as well as their intellectual mind. It will also benefit them by providing students the best kind of group work activities that will surely enhance their students’ potential skills in any aspect. To the Students: The study will benefit the students by providing them the right information in order for them to consider group task positively. It will also benefit them by informing them about the intellectual and social skills that they can develop as they perform tasks as groups, as well as the values they can learn. To the Future Researchers: They will benefit in this study because this will serve as their basis in creating a research based from the topic they’ve chosen.

Research Questions At the end of the research, the researcher aims to answer the following questions: 1. Which is more effective: a. Individual performance task b. Group performance task 2. Do students consider group performance task? 3. Do students learn and accomplish the task well within the group? 4. What are the things that students should attain in order to achieve their goal by group? Individually?

Theoretical Framework According to research of the University of Illinois – School of Labor and Employment Relations, Similarity-attraction theory (Byrne, 1971) supports the argument that employees in groups composed of members with similar personality traits are more likely to experience higher well-being because members are attracted to the similarities that they see in each other. However, it is likely not the heterogeneity or homogeneity of the group that matters, but rather the variability of the personality trait in a group and its mean level (Homanetal, 2008). For example, a group that is composed of employees who are all highly conscientious might outperform a group in which all members are very low on the trait of conscientiousness (although both groups will have the same similarity scores). That is, the group’s personality composition can result in a supplementary fit, (i.e., higher mean level of a personality trait is associated with higher group performance) or a complementary fit (i.e., group members possessing a specific level of a personality trait may benefit the team by filling a competency gap in the group. Though the statements show that it connected with the employees’ work and how they best fit in group, it could also be compared to students who are usually working on with group performance tasks. It is best said that groups composed with members that have similar traits or characteristics often works better than the others.

Conceptual Paradigm The Input-Process-Output (I.P.O.) model was used in this study.
Figure 1: Input-Process-Output of the Study

Conceptual Framework: The figure shown above explains the 3 parts of the research; it is the INPUT, PROCESS and OUTPUT. First part focuses on the INPUT, the things that the researcher will need at the beginning of the study; this includes the number of respondents as well as their profile, survey questionnaires which will determine the data that will be collected afterwards, and lastly the permission of the school authorities or administrators to conduct the said research. Second part focuses on the PROCESS, the procedure will finally be conducted by the researcher. Where in the end, data from the questionnaires will be collected and analyzed by the researcher. The last part focuses on the OUTPUT, this will be the result of the study conducted by the researcher. The outputs will reveal the effects of Group Performance Task to the 9th Grade students of St. Dominic College – Basic Education.

CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Foreign and Local Literatures According to Professor Graham Gibbs, “Group work has the potential measurably to improve student engagement, performance, marks and retention and usually succeeds in achieving this potential provided that there are associated assessment mechanisms that leverage appropriate student learning behavior. In the absence of such assessment mechanisms these benefits may well not materialize.” The statement tells how group works pays a big role in improving student engagement and connection towards achieving their goal in accordance to appropriate learning and social behavior. Professor Graham Gibbs also states that “Groups produce better work than do individuals but whether group works produces inappropriately high average marks depends on context variables, especially the experience of the teacher in setting a group task of appropriately calibrated difficulty and the experience of the marker in calibrating standards that take the greater achievement of groups into account. Higher marks for group works are likely but not inevitable.” This only means that even though working as group, there are still chances or factors that could affect a group task especially when it comes to standards and high marks considering its other factors such as average mark standards and teachers or professors.
The benefits in working group task will not only be limited with their intellectual performances and skills rather than it involved their active participations as well as their engagement or interaction with other people. Group task shows more large positive impacts as well as encouragement towards your group mates. Also, learning in groups according to studies shows consistent benefits to student learning process better progress.

Foreign and Local Studies Konopka (1963) defines group work as a method of social work that is utilized in order to `help individuals to enhance their social functioning through purposeful group experiences, and to cope more effectively with their personal, group or community problems`. This definition shows a tradition within group work of helping individuals with problems. Brown provides a modernized and more comprehensive definition of group work (1994, p.8). He states that `group work provides a context in which individuals help each other; it is a method of helping groups as well as helping individuals; and it can enable individuals and groups to influence and change personal, group, organizational and community problems` (original emphasis). He goes on to distinguish between `relatively small and neighborhood centered` work and `macro, societal and political approaches` within community work, explaining that only the former may be properly classified as group work. Group is said to have group stage development wherein there two useful theories that are discussed by Tuckman (1965) and Rogers (1967). These are the 5 group stage development according to them: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Mourning. According to Tuckman and Rogers, “Potential exists within this stage for members to be oppressed as scapegoats, that is blamed or at fault for the ending of the group. This can be minimized by constant focusing and refocusing on group end points and staged celebrations of group achievements.” We could claim that groups are important in our lives and working with them is extremely better. Johnson and Johnson states that, “Many of our goals can be achieved only with the cooperation and coordination of others.” The statement truly shows how working with group proves something with the people involved. However, “The success of any group depends on the ability of its members to exchange ideas freely and to feel involved in the life and decisions of the group.” (Massallay, 1990) Group work can be used as an effective tool for many youth work situations, not least of which is as a medium for challenging oppression both within groups and individuals. Yet we have seen that through the development stages of a group’s life there are many opportunities for individuals to develop and focus oppressive behavior internally within a group. (Harte, 2001)

Definition of Terms
These are the terms that were used in the study:
Social – Liking to be with and talk to people; happy to be with people
Intellectual – is a person who engages in critical study, thought, and reflection about the reality of society, and proposes solutions for the normative problems of that society, and, by such discourse in the public sphere, he or she gains authority within the public opinion.
Potential – is defined as the possibility of becoming something.
Paradigm – a typical example or pattern of something; a model
Likert Scale – is a bipolar scaling method, measuring either positive or negative response to a statement. Sometimes an even-point scale is used, where the middle option of "Neither agree nor disagree" is not available.
Synthesis
In totality, Chapter 2 is all about literature and studies that are related to the researcher’s topic provided that it discusses about the Effects of Group Performance Task.

CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY

Purpose
This study is done to determine and find out the effects of Group Performance Tasks to the 9th Grade students of St. Dominic College – Basic Education Department.

The goal of this study is to: * discover what are the effects of Group Performance Tasks to the 9th Grade students * provide information that will let the students/respondents understand the effects of Group Performance Tasks * observe the factors that will affect Group Performance Tasks * produce a simpler interpretation that students and/or respondents will easily understand * supply effects about the topic that will let the readers consider Group Performance Tasks positively

Research Questions At the end of the research, the researcher aims to answer the following questions: 1. Which is more effective: a. Individual performance task b. Group performance task 2. Do students consider group performance task? 3. Do students learn and accomplish the task well within the group?
What are the things that students should attain in order to achieve their goal by group? Individually?

Research Design In this study, the research design used was descriptive type. Descriptive method determines the social and intellectual effects of group performance task to students. The researcher used survey questionnaires to collect data from the respondents, Grade 9 students of St. Dominic College – Basic Education which will be described in the latter. The study is done for the researcher aims to obtain knowledge, observe and analyzed the social and intellectual effects of Group Performance Task.

Research Locale
The study will be done at St. Dominic College of Asia, located in St. Dominic Complex, E. Aguinaldo Highway, Bacoor City, Cavite. St. Dominic College of Asia was founded in 2003 by Don Gregorio and Dona Dominga Andaman. In 2012, St. Dominic College – Basic Education was given the privilege and opportunity to operate considering that they will provide “Revolutionizing Education” to preschool, grade school and high school students. It was founded by Dr. Gregorio Andaman Jr., and currently headed by the principal, Ma. Arlene V. Coronado. The study was conducted to the Grade 9 students of St. Dominic College – Basic Education Department which are located at 7th floor inside their rooms.

Population and Sampling
Instrumentation
Interpretation
Data Gathering Procedure

Scope and Limitation This study is limited only to the 9th Grade students of St. Dominic College – Basic Education, which will be the respondents of the said research. The researcher will focus this study only with the Effects of Group Performance Task to the students of St. Dominic College – Basic Education and nothing more. The study will be conducted at St. Dominic College – Basic Education Department.