Non-Cognitive Skills as Correlates to Academic Performance among Senior High School Students

Abstract

Today's teachers and students have a tremendous degree of duty for surviving in a competitive world and they have a growing level of responsibility to achieve in a highly competitive environment. Aside from cognitive skills, the non-cognitive skills are believed to play a crucial role for academic success as they can improve student motivation, engagement, and overall well-being. This study examined the correlation of non-cognitive skills to academic performance among students at General Luna National High School, Siargao Islands, Surigao del Norte, Philippines. The main tools used to gather information were an adapted research questionnaire for Grades 11 and 12 students. The study respondents were the 302 senior high school students under the general academic strand at General Luna National High School during the school year 2022 – 2023. Data gathered were analyzed using Frequency Count and Percentage, Means and Standard Deviations, Mann Whitney U-Test and Kruskal Wallis H-Test, Independent T-Test, and Spearman Rho Correlation to yield a generally significant difference and relationship based on the data outcomes from the respondents’ responses.The descriptive-correlational research design was used to evaluate the non-cognitive skills in the learning of senior high school students that link to their academic achievement in which purposive sampling was done to obtain 302 respondents. Results showed that the respondents still need assistance writing high-quality research papers and more confidence especially when collaborating with teachers in doing class projects even outside the class. Majority of them (64%) got a grade point average below 85% which implies a need to demonstrate a higher degree of academic performance. With p-values of 0.0001 and 0.0120, significant differences exist in the respondents’ academic performance when grouped based on sex and grade level, respectively. Furthermore, with correlation coefficient of 0.29 and p-value of 0.0001, it was revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between the respondents’ academic achievement and non-cognitive skills in terms of academic perseverance. These findings provide several implications especially in enhancing students’ academic achievement for low performing subject areas such as science and mathematics. Hence, it is recommended that teachers and school administrators may consider providing activities or programs to strengthen students’ academic perseverance to improve their performance across all subject areas, most especially in writing research.