Enhancing Writing Skills of Senior High School’s Humanities and Social Sciences Students Through Online Blogging

Abstract

Online blogging is the act of creating and maintaining content such as ideas, opinions, essays, images, videos, etc. for a blog that is personally uploaded and shared to a website. In education, it is viewed as a novel and innovative teaching strategy to use for augmenting the writing skills of the students. To ascertain such contention, this study explores the effectiveness of online blogging in enhancing the writing skills of Senior High School’ Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) students. The researcher employed quasi-experimental research design to examine the effectiveness of online blogging as compared to traditional writing. Grade 11 HUMSS students of Balite National High School (n=13 for experimental group, and n=13 for control group) for the 2nd semester of school year 2021-2022, comprised the respondents for this study.To collect the data, the researcher used an Assessment Writing Test in essay form as an instrument. There was a pre-test that was held before the researcher gave treatment to the experimental class and a post-test, which was held afterward. To make the data analysis, the researcher analyzed the data by using mean and independent t-test. The findings indicated that there was significant difference in the level of writing competencies as to focus and details, voice, and grammar and mechanics of the students but in other writing competencies such as organization and word choice there wasno significant difference in their pretest and posttest performance. Generally, the integration of online blogging was found better and more effective than the traditional method. Results suggested that the participants have positive perception and attitude towards online blogging, viewed this as a tool in improving their writing skills, and kept them motivated. Finally, this study recommends that online blogging should be part of the writing classes and be incorporated in lesson planning and designing curricula in senior high school.