Chapter 2:

Review of Related Literature

Motivation to Enter College

Lai (2011), in her literature review, cited Gredler, Broussaard and Garrison for their
definition of motivation. According to them, motivation is “the attribute that move us to do or
not to do something” (Lai, 2011). Self-Determination Theory, as cited to Deci, Vallerand,
Pelletier, and Ryan (1991), discussed the differences between an actions driven by motivation
and actions which are amotivated or the intentional or unintentional behaving (Deci et. al, 1991).
According to Self-Determination theory, motivated actions are those that are “self-determined”
to the point that these actions are done based on one’s own will. On the other hand, those actions
that are amotivated are controlled and are driven by some other “interpersonal” and “intrapsychic
force”. Focusing only on the intrinsically motivated behaviours, Deci ,Vallerand, Pelletier, and
Ryan (1991) mentioned that actions which are done through intrinsic motivation are those that
people are interested and want to do without any rewards or constraints. Instrisically motivated
behaviours are those that “emanate from the self and are fully endorsed”.

Quoted from Lai’s (2011) research report,

“Intrinsic motivation is motivation that is animated by personal enjoyment,

interest, or pleasure. As Deci et al. (1999) observe, ‘intrinsic motivation energizes and
sustains activities through the spontaneous satisfactions inherent in effective volitional
action. It is manifest in behaviors such as play, exploration, and challenge seeking that
people often do for external rewards”. (Lai, 2011)

For this research, the researchers want to study about the motivation of the Grade 11
students to enter college so we chose to specifically review about the motivation in relation to
education. There were studies which coined the term “academic motivation”. Lai (2011) cited
Gottfried for the definition of “academic motivation”. According to Gottfried, “academic
motivation” is the “enjoyment of school learning characterized by a mastery orientation;
curiosity; persistence; task-endogeny; and the learning of challenging, difficult, and novel tasks”
(Lai, 2011).
 Wilkesmann, Fischer and Virgilio (2012) cited the work of Vallerand, Pelletier and
Koester which stated that “motivation” is “operationalized as the underlying ‘why’ of
behaviour”. In terms of education, the work of Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Briere, Senecal &
Vallieres was also cited in the said discussion paper because it mentioned the term “academic
motivation”. This term according to the cited study was the term use to question the reason why
a student goes to college. In addition, the latter term was said to be best understand as the drive
to pursue the tertiary level of academic career which was entering a college or a university
(Wilkesmann, Fischer &Virgilio, 2012).

Relating motivation to academics, as cited by Levy and Campbell (2008), motivation is

defined as “a student’s willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be
successful in, the learning process”. When students attend class regularly, participate actively in
class and finish school works, those are the things to which students can be seen as motivated in
terms of university setting (Levy & Campbell, 2008).

Areepattamannil (2011) cited Pitrich and Zuscho’s work in 2002 for their definition of
academic motivation. Inspired by Deci et. al, according to them,

“Academic motivation refers to internal processes that instigate and sustain

activities aimed at achieving specific academic goals. Self-determination theorists posit
that academic motivation is multidimensional in nature, and is comprised of three global
types of motivation: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation”.
(Areepattamannil, 2011)

According to Shia (n.d), academic intrinsic motivation is necessary ingredient for success
in college among students. However, motivation of many college students is not sufficient
enough to guide them through their careers academically. Shia emphasized in her work the
importance of intrinsic motivation especially in attaining higher educational attainment such as
entering a college. She defined intrinsic motivation as “(a) participation in an activity purely out
of curiosity, which is, for a need to know about something (b) the desire to engage in an activity
purely for the sake of participating in and completing a task; and (c) the desire to contribute.”
Shia also added that when a student has intrinsic motivation, he or she should put “much
persistence and effort”. Through this, students would develop aspirations like the goal to learn
and the goal to achieve. Also, she mentioned another kind of motivativation called “power
motivation”. Shia told that this kind of motivation should also be often seen among students
especially among those who are in college. A student having power motivation has a “need to
control in his/her environment” and aims to have show competency to other. Although, power
motivation is also important, Shia said that most students are driven by extrinsic motivation
(Shia, n.d.).

In support to the importance of intrinsic motivation, Baranek (1996) told in her study that
children learn the most when they have intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation. It is
because children who are academically motivated intrinsically have autonomy in his or her
learning climate. She also added that intrinsically motivated students perform school activities
for the sake of “enjoyment and satisfaction”. While intrinsic motivation increases academic
achievement, students who are just motivated extrinsically has different effect. Giving rewards
are use to increase a student’s motivation but it does guarantee achievement. So, Baranek (1996)
emphasized that teachers should imposed intrinsic motivation to their students. According to her,
promoting intrinsic motivation especially among those students in K to 12 curriculum is “greatly
important because of the continuous pressure of this kind of curriculum to achieve high test
scores, responsibility and accountability. (Baranek, 1996).

On one study made by Stover, Iglesia, Boubeta and Liporace (2012), they developed an
adapted version of Academic Motive Scale of Deci and Ryan to measure the motivation of high
school and college students of public and private schools and institutions in Buenos Aires. They
adapted the AMS by translating the items into Spanish language since the participants were from
Argentina to which Spanish is the main language used. They also made some changes to some
items to make them more appropriate for the students who were still in high school. The
Academic Motivation Scale was divided into different subscales based on the three fundamental
positions or kinds of motivation of Self-Determination Theory of Deci and Ryan. These kinds of
motivation were amotivation, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The result of their study
revealed that those in college or tertiary level were more intrinsically motivated. Younger
students or those who were still in high school were more extrinsically motivated or they were
amotivated when it comes to academics (Stover, Iglesia, Boubeta &Liporace, 2012).

Levy and Campbell (2008) stated in their article that students in tertiary level or those
who are already in college should be more motivated than students from high school to be able to
cope with the demands of education in universities and acquire the benefits of having higher
educational attainment. Citing Teese’s work in 2002, they mentioned that students tend to be
goal oriented than learning oriented. This means that students attend school and study to earn
something in the end and not to actually appreciate what they learned. Generation Y students are
said to be “extrinsic learners”. Adding onto that information acquired, it was revealed in the cited
study that secondary high school students are said to be “predominantly extrinsic learners”(Levy
& Campbell, 2008).

In the article made by Andrews and Brown (2014), Corts and Stonner’s work in 2011 was
cited because of their use of College Motive Scale to find how students of different institutions
or schools became motivated to enter college. Based on the review done, Corts and Stonner’s
research revealed that self-discovery, getting high earning from a job, intellectual success and
self-improvement were some of the motivators to enter college of the participants they studied
and interviewed (Andrews & Brown, 2014). Corts and Stoner made a research to measure the
motivation of students to enrol in college. Their research involved two studies, one is for
constructing the College Motive Scale to measure the motives of students to enrol in college and
the other one is for finding relationships between the factors that determine the motives of
students to enter college and to other variables such as the courses, academic orientation and the
type of institution. Their College Motive Scale is based on different studies involving motivation
of students to enter college. The researchers asked students for their item pool. After the numbers
of reduction and elimination of items, they came up with five items for each primary factor. Each
item was rated on a five point Likert Scale. They came up 5 principal factors why students enrol
in college: Social, Intellectual Curiosity, Career/Financial, Self-Discovery and
Expectations/Obligation. These five factors are based on the initial listing of the reasons why
students enter college. The researchers mentiones that the said scale had acceptable internal
consistency with coefficient alpha which ranged from .88 to .72. With regards to the second part
of their research, the researchers found that those students who were high in career and social
factor as motives positive correlation with being grade oriented. On the other hand, those
students who were high in intellectual and self-discovery factors as motives positively correlated
to being learning oriented (Corts & Stoner, 2011).

Andrews and Brown (2014) also found that there were other researches which revealed
other motivators of students to continue their academic career, specifically to enter college. They
mentioned that other researches had found that “peer and faculty relatedness” had also
relationship to the motivation of the students to attend college and continue to pursue their
academic career. In Andrews and Brown’s (2014) own study used the Freshman Orientation
Survey by Brown which includes items concerning the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to
attend college. The following were of the items which were used to measure the reason for
attending college among Andrews and Brown’s participants in their study: “to prepare for a
professional career”, “to get a better job”, “to learn more things that interest me”, “to become a
more cultured and well-round individual”, “to make more money”, “to please my parents and
family”, “to get more vocational training” and “to gain knowledge”. Using four point Likert
scale, Andrews and Brown (2014) measured the items about motivation. The result of their study
revealed that the item “to prepare for a professional career got the highest mean among items of
their survey while the item “to please my parents and family” got the lowest mean (Andrews and
Brown, 2014).

Williams and Williams (n.d.) also discussed how motivation can be seen among students.
According to them, if the students pay attention, work on tasks as soon they are assigned to them,
ask questions, answers attentively and are determined to learn, the students are said to be
academically motivated. They also mentioned that if not for being motivated, students might
have little amount of learning. So, through their research, they listed the five key ingredients to
increase students’ motivation. These are the students themselves, teachers, content, the
method/process and the environment. First, students should have interests, abilities and values
education. Second, teachers should acquire enough training, pay attention the learning process
and are dedicated and responsive to the students. The content should be updated and will fit to
the needs of the students. Lastly, the environment to which a student will study must be secured,
empowering promotes positive feeling and should be reachable (Williams & Williams, n.d.).
Parental Encouragement

Parent-child relationship is essential in the development of a child holistically. There have been a
lot of researches that examined the influence of family, particularly the parents, to the children’s
lives. Almost all people initially learn how to walk, utter words, eat, sing and even dance through
the help of the parents. Even when an individual started to be matured and decide for his or her
lives, parents are still needed as guide so that he or she would not be led to the wrongpath. As
mentioned earlier, parents are the very first people to whom an individual will discoverthe things
about the world. The parents are one of those who can help the children grow and survive in this
society. One thing that a child could do for him to learn how to live is through education and
parents have an important role to that. From the school to where a child will enrol up to giving
allowances, parents are important. Parents can help their children to choose what course in
college he or she will take. Quoted by the researchers,

“Parental encouragement is the treatment provided by the parents to their child

which can nurture the hidden potentialities within them. It can be in the form of guidance,
concern, care as approved by them which can act as a driving force for the students to
take a particular decision in life.” (Bashir &Majeed, 2016)

Coming from this definition of parental encouragement, the researchers found different
studies on how this definition of parental encouragement can be seen. Parental encouragement
could influence the children’s psychological well-being. For example, in Dr. Gupta’s (2014)
research entitled “Study of Parental Encouragement in Relation to Mental Health of Secondary
School Students”, he emphasized the role of parents in both the personal and school life of their
children. One aspect to which this role of the parent can be seen is through encouragement. This
can be seen by guiding, helping and advising the children when they are going through difficult
circumstances. Also, through giving encouragement to the children, parents can motivate their
children to strive for success. Not only encouragement can influence the children’s future but it
can also affect their psychological well-being. The study conducted by Dr. Gupta (2014)
revealed that the girls of Senior Secondary School of Ludhiana District of Punjab, India had high
parental encouragement when they were asked to answer the Parental Encouragement Scale. The
mentioned study also revealed that students from urban area received more parental
encouragement than those who were settling in rural. In addition, those students who came from
urban areas were more psychologically healthy. It was also shown in the paper that there is
significant relationship between the parental encouragement and the psychological state of the
students.

Researchers also reviewed different studies involving how parental encouragement

affects the academic career of the students. The following researches were conducted in different
countries. The students who participated on the following studies have different nationalities, as
well as values and beliefs. Bindu and Aruna (2014) mentioned in their study Relationship
between Parental Encouragement and Process Skills in Social Studies that children whose
parents frequently give encouraging words and support have positive effects such as
improvement and better performance academically. Encouragement and support can be seen
through cheering and guiding. Bindu and Aruna (2014) even cited researches that showed how
the high level of encouragement, mostly through involvement such as being knowledgeable
about the activities of their children in school and frequently communicating and attending
parents assembly in the school, have positive impact on the children’s academic attainment.
Through their research which used their own constructed Parental Encouragement Scale and test
of process skills in Social Studies, Aruna and Bindu (2014) found that there was positive
relationship between the parental encouragement and the process skills in social studies of their
participants (Aruna&Bindu, 2014).According to Rafiq, Fatima, Sohail, Saleem and Khan (2013),
assisting children in doing their tasks especially when it comes to school related activities,
offering help when reading and encouraging them in doing their homework independently were
some of the activities to which parents’ roles can be seen. They also mentioned in their study that
there were some researches which revealed that parental involvement and the academic success
of students have positive relationship. They also added that parental encouragement, specifically
their involvement, could result into student’s lesser drop-out rates in school, lower tendency of
being absent, better school performance, especially in language and mathematics, as well as good
interpersonal relationships in school. In their own study, the following were the measures used to
determine the level of parental involvement in the school activities of children: “parent’s
frequency of advising for doing homework”, “parents’ valuing arranging tuition for children”,
“parents help in doing homework”, “monitoring regular school attendance of children”, “contact
with teachers for checking attendance of children”, and “enquiring about teaching methods of
teachers and contacts with teachers for not doing homework”. They also included the overall
extent of parental involvement, which was divided into three levels, high, medium and low, and
encouragement on good academic performance. The result showed that majority of the parents
often advised their children in doing their homeworks and almost all of the parents of the
students monitored their children’s attendance in school. It was also revealed in their study that
64.7% of the parents had high level of involvement. Their study also revealed that there was
significant relationship between the parental involvement and the students’ performance in
school activities (Fatima, Sohail, Saleem and Khan, 2013).

Center on Education Policy (2012) also mentioned in their 4th out of 6 papers,
which studied about students’ motivation to learn, that there were researches wherein results
showed that there was correlation between the involvement of parents and the children’s
educational development and intrinsic motivation in academics. It also cited the work of
Grolnick, Friendly and Bellas last 2009 which showed that even though parents won’t be able to
help out their children in each subject or certain skill needed in school, they could still perform
certain tasks for their children such as encouraging their children to be more competent,
controlled and develop positive attitudes towards academics.

Directly quoted from CEP’s paper,

“When parents believe in children’s competence and have high expectations for them,
provide the resources that children need to feel connected to others and facilitate a sense of
autonomy by supporting children’s initiations and problem-solving, children’s motivation
is most likely to thrive.” (CEP, 2012)

Fergunson was also cited by CEP (2012) for his work which stated that parents who were
actively involved in their children’s school activities would tend to develop the competency,
curiosity, and control and positive mind-set of their children. In addition, CEP also mentioned
that even though there were parents who have limited resources, it would not be a hindrance to
be aware and involved in their children’s education (CEP, 2012).

The CEP also stated in this research that the socioeconomic status has also effect on
students’ education. Heckman’s work showed that those students with lower social status and are
financially disadvantaged tend to have lower level of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. With
that, these students with low social status lag behind and their motivation are negatively affected.
In addition, single-parent home tend to provide less parental attention and resources that it made
students less motivated, have lower focus on tasks, self-esteem and self-regulation and might
have hard time working with others. Research has found that a cognitively stimulating home
environment is a more accurate determinant of children’s academic motivation than is
socioeconomic status.(CEP, 2012).

In contradiction to this, the study of Henry Codjoe (2007) focused on educational

experiences of African-Canadian youths. Previous studies formulated a negative notion towards
Black students. Researches tend to discriminate Blacks over the White people because of their
socio-economic status. The findings in Codjoe’s study (2007) tried to contradict this notion and
tried to explore other factors that could influence the academic achievement of Black students.
According to Black students, parental encouragement and a supportive home environment is a
great motivator for them to persevere and perform at their best. Every words of encouragement
their parents provide make them realized the importance of education to them. Aside from these,
encouragement from parents help the students develop self-confidence and self-esteem. (Codjoe,
2007)

It was also shown in the Center on Education Policy (2012) that parents’ beliefs, values
and expectations could affect the motivation of students academically. As the parents exercise
the reward and punishment concepts and display negativity and anger, they lower the intrinsic
motivation of the students. The academic motivation of the students as stated in the paper
become extrinsic. Another thing mentioned in the paper was that teachers and parents have
substantial influence in the adolescents’ school engagement despite the times when some
students become tempted to act or behave negatively by their peers (CEP, 2012). This would
mean that it was one of the factors on the students’ academic status whether the parents were
there or not. On a study about immigrants students, such as Asians and Latinos, conducted by
Graham and Hudley in 2005, if the students grew valuing the importance of hardwork and good
education, it tend to result higher achievement among immigrants and children of immigrants.
Asian and Latino students were said to be more motivated because of their parents have high
expectations that they would succeed academically (CEP, 2012). Another similar study
conducted by Eaton and Dembo was cited in this paper. According to their study, Asian
American students who have parents who gave high expectations and pressure also tend to be
more motivated to work and study harder than those students who were white and belief that
success in school came were brought about by the innate ability (CEP, 2012). Iyengar and
Lepper was also mentioned which showed that white students tend to be more motivated and
performed better if they were given personal choices. On other hand, Asian Americans,
specifically those who were Chinese and Japanese, worked harder in their parents told them what
they needed to do (CEP, 2012).

Yun Zhou and Jennifer Glick’s (n/a) study focused on how parental involvement
influence the adolescent’s desire for higher educational attainment. The researchers tried to look
through at the educational aspirations of the child that is of great importance in contributing to
the child’s educational achievement. Aside from encouragement from parents, they also tried to
look at the influence of peers and other people that the child interact with like her teacher or the
counselor. Based on some studies, parental encouragement has positive effects on the children’s
academic achievement. Parental encouragement is not just measured by the frequent contact of
the parent to the school but also the parents’ actions at home such as communication with the
child and continuous supervision at home. (Glick & Zhou, n/a)

Some researchers argue that parental involvement varies based on what racial group a
person belongs in. If parents have high aspirations, children tend to be more driven to achieve
more. However, in some cases for low income families, there are children who strive to be
successful. This is influenced by the regular parent-child communication. (Glick & Zhou, n/a)

There were other researches, whose participantsare college students, were conducted in
order to see the relationship of parents, specifically their encouragement, to these students
academic career. Hodge and Mellin (n.d.) made a research entitled “First Generation College
Students: The Influence of Family on College Experience” which studied the Influence of family
to the college experience of those college students who were the first person in their family who
entered and enrolled in college and the term given to those kind of students was the “first-
generation” college students. Hodge and Mellin (n.d.) mentioned that family support had a lot of
varying meanings based on different researches conducted on the similar participants they used
for this study. Some were based on the level of support the students felt from their parents and
some were measured by the involvement of the parents in their children’s school activities and
educational development. Hodge and Mellin (n.d.) also cited the work of Bryan and Simmon
which also involved first generation college students. The mentioned study showed that these
first generation college students felt anxiety and frustrations as they felt that the level of support
of their family were not at the same level as those others who were not the first person to enter
college in their family felt. In addition, Bradbury and Mather’s work in 2009 was also cited and
their study revealed that the influence of family encouragement and support had effect to the
first-generation college students’ choice to enter college (Hodge &Mellin, n.d).Hodge and Mellin
(n.d.) also studied 19 first generation college students. They conducted focus group interviews
with them and the result of their interviews revealed five categories or themes that showed hoe
family influence could affect these students’ academic career. These themes were: support,
understanding, motivation, goal achievement and expectations (Hodge and Mellin, n.d.) Support
appeared because students conversed that they received different levels of support from their
family. Students mentioned different actions and behaviors that they think could mean that their
families, specifically their parents, were supporting them or not. Some of these actions or
behaviors were whether the parents asked the students the schools and courses they wanted to
take, students received help in their applications from their parents, parents knew or have ideas
on the course that the students were taking up and parents joined the students when they
enrolled. Another theme revealed was the “Understanding”. This theme emerged on the students’
statements related to the knowledge of their parents about the school processes and things that
the students were experiencing in the school. The third theme that arose was the “Motivation”. In
this area, some of the students told the researchers that their parents didn’t have any involvement
and the decision to enrol in college was their personal choice only. They even added that their
“motivation” seemed like “invisible”. Some of the students only wanted to attend college
because they wanted to achieve stable job after they graduate and help their family in the future.
The fourth and fifth themes that appeared were the “Goal Achievement” and “Expectations”. In
these categories, the family affected some of the students’ academic career through the goals and
expectations that had been imposed to them. Some told that their parents had already plans for
them that they didn’t already have any choice to decide on. Some told that even though some of
their parents encouraged them, they sometimes felt pressure and stress in their parents have high
expectations on them (Hodge and Mellin, n.d.) Turner, Megan and Heffer’s (2009) article
entitled “The Influence of Parenting Styles, Achievement Motivation and Self-Efficacy on
Academic Performance in College Students” showed how parenting styles, motivation and self-
efficacy influenced the academic performance of undergraduate psychology major students of a
university in southwestern United States of America. In their paper, they cited Baumrind’s work
in 1966 which identified and characterized the three parenting styles: Authoritative, Permissive
and Authoritarian Parenting (Turner, Megan &Heffer, 2009). Focusing only on how parenting
style influence the academic performance of the participants of the study, Turner, Megan
revealed that their study showed that the authoritative parenting style significantly predicted
students’ academic performance and no relations had been found when it comes to authoritarian
and permissive parenting style. This result of their study was supported by other related
researches which discussed the positive effect of authoritative style of parenting to the academic
performance of students. Turner, Megan and Heffer mentioned that authoritative style of
parenting was “characterized by high levels of nurturance, involvement, sensitivity, reasoning
and encouragement of autonomy”. This style of parenting which has the following characteristics
such as “supportiveness” and “warmth” could be an important key to a student’s academic
performance even he or she become a college student (Turner, Megan and Heffer, 2009).

In another study conducted by Cox (2012), there were many factors that could affect the
motivation of students to perform better in academics and strive for success. There were students
who said that the distance of universities and colleges were important because some needed to be
close enough to their families. There were some who considered the affordability and reputation
of the school were necessary. In this paper, Cox also emphasized the importance of parental
involvement to the students’ academic career and success. Cox’s research revealed that despite
the socioeconomic status that students belong to, as long their parents were involved and
supporting them, they were willing to make every effort to attend in college and succeed
academically. Example of which was that, according to Cox, there were some students who told
them that their parents sacrificed just to send them to school, so being a conscientious students
and because some of them were the first person to enter college, they took this situation of theirs
as challenge. They wanted to graduate and get a job so that they would be able to pay back to
their families and community.
Importance of Education

Education has different interpretations depending on the people who define it. There are
some who would say that education means going a school or institution. Others might say that it
is the “lifelong learning”. It is also said that education is a training of intellect to which leads an
individual to a specific path which will direct him or her to a certain changes. The word
“education” is said to be derived from the Latin word “Educare”-meaning is “to raise or to bring
up”. Another Latin term, “Educere”, is the other word to which the word “education” came from
as others what others told. “Educere” means “to lead or to come out”. These terms to which the
word “education” are derived from indicate that education “seeks to nourish the good qualities
and draw out the best in every individual”. There are other educators who told that education
could possibly came from another Latin word, “Educatum”-“the act of teaching or training”. In
addition to the definition of education, the Dictionary of Education, as cited in this book, is
defined as “the aggregate of all the processes by which a person develops abilities, attitudes and
other forms of behaviour of practical values in the society in which s/he lives; the social process
by which people are subjected to the influence of selected and controlled environment
(especially that of the school), so that they may obtain social competence and optimum
individual development” (National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2014).

Results released an article stating the various ways to which the importance of education
could be seen. As they said, education is one of the basic human right. It is important in the
development of children, society and any countries in the worlds. Specifically, having education
can help appease the problem of poverty, it provides empowerment for all especially to women,
improve the child and maternal health, fight the spreading of HIV/AIDS, help in the
development of the economy and build a peaceful society (Results, n.d.).

According to Turkkahraman (2012), sustaining individual and the developing the society
is education’s principal purpose. The different conditions happening naturally are those that will
determine the function of education. Vice versa, education is also depended of the society.
Education is the key to create individuals who are well knowledgeable and educated that will
help build a “prosperous” society. Educational facilities have two important roles based on
Turkkahraman (2012): to prevent people from “falling behind” from the changing conditions of
the world and its economy and improving this world in order to restrain these changing
conditions (Turkkharaman, 2012).

Based on the study made by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
cited in the work of Kyllonen (2012), higher educational attainment can lead to higher payment
in the workplace as well as lower unemployment rate. Also, it was mention to Kyllonen’s (2012)
work that in United States and OECD nations, educational attainment does not only positively
affect an individual and the economy of a certain nation, but it also gives democracy or freedom
for an individual to be able to participate on different political and civic activities in one’s own
country. That was why one of the main agenda of OECD was to promote the importance of
higher educational attainment. In US, Obama’s administration’sresponses to the decreasing
number of students continuing higher education by proposing the goal “once again have the
highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the year 2020”.But one challenge that
hinder this kind of goal was the affordability of the education itself. Kyllonen (2012) added that
beside the affordability, preparedness was also an issue in attaining higher level of education. In
addition, those who achieved college education, according to Public Health Services, can
prolong one’s life expectancy. Also those who are college graduate can have children who will
have high cognitive skills. College students would have more opportunity to employed in a job
which can be “meaningful” and “interesting” and would give them “freedom” in their workplace.
At the same time, those who attained higher educational attainment could have higher self-
esteem, more satisfaction in their careers and lives and would not have great difficulty managing
everyday dilemmas (USC Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis, 2008).

K to 12 program

It has been for decades that the educational system of the Philippines was comprised of
10-year cycle. The country was said to be one of the three remaining countries in the world and
the only one in Asia that uses 10-year basic education. In comparison with the other neighboring
countries, Philippines was left behind in terms of students’ performance in achievement tests
particularly in the field of Mathematics and Sciences. These dilemmas in our academic
achievement were said to be caused by the “congested” educational curriculum. The demands of
the curriculum should be accomplished in a span of 12 years. Because of being “congested” of
the curriculum, the students were not fully prepared to enter the higher level of education and
lack competencies when they were already in the workplace. So, the solution the former
president Benigno S. Aquino III came up was to implement the K to 12 program or The
Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 signed on the 15th of May 2013. The mentioned program
aimed to enable the Philippine educational system address its insufficiency in basic education by
adding to more years in the secondary level. This would make the country’s educational system
meet the international standards in education and for the Philippines to be more globally
competitive with the other countries. K to 12 program, as shown in the discussion paper of
Department of Education in 2010, aimed “to achieve mastery of core competencies and skills”
and help the students decide for their future academic career based on their interests and
competencies. The idea of K to 12 program in improving the Philippines’ educational system
was good. In fact, it was said that the origin of K to 12 and its effectiveness can already be seen
since Plato’s time. Plato said that students should receive “customize” education, meaning
educating students based on their capabilities (Calderon, 2014). According to the Policy Brief
entitled “K to 12: The Key to Quality Education?” presented by Yap (2011), the K to 12 is
needed because of these reasons: to decongest the curriculum, to prepare the students for higher
education, to train the students for labor market and most importantly to conform to the global
standards. K to 12 program allows the teachers of Grades 1 to 3 to teach using their mother
tongue languages. This may allow students to choose which path they want to pursue after
secondary education. Students may choose to go to colleges or universities but if they are not
able, they could choose technical-vocational courses or the entrepreneurial fields. K to 12
includes an aptitude test to know in what areas of specialization the students may go after high
school (Yap, 2011).

Despite the positive aspirations and premises of K to 12 program in the Philippines, there
were a lot of people, groups, organizations, and other public officials who doubt and criticized
the implementation of it. As cited from their website, Anakbayan disapproved the K to 12
program because according to them, it is “flawed, problematic framework” causing more
dilemmas and worsening the existing ones in the educational system of the country. Anakbayan
chairperson, Mr. Vencer Cristomo, also told that the program would just add to the parents’
burden and would just increase the drop-out rates in the country. He emphasized that the current
statistics revealed that only 14 out of 100 students finish college. In addition, the government has
insufficient budget to suffice the demands of the new program. Crisostomo also pointed out that
the said program would make “semi-skilled” youths which are not good for the condition of the
employment rates in the country. It was because one of the premises of the K to program was
that students may choose not to enter college or tertiary level of education anymore (Calderon,
2014).

Supporting the criticisms of Crisostomo, Ragaza (2012) said that the blemish of the K –
12 program is its incapability to handle and manage the dilemma of decreasing number of
students who can access education. It is due to poverty that the number of drop-outs increases
through the years. He also mentioned that the program is a burden because it will take up another
part of the budget of the families who will be affected by this new system of education. He also
added that this is a major problem that any reforms even the K to 12 couldn’t resolve (Ragaza,
2012).

Punay (2015) also added that last March, 2015, the Council of Teachers and Staff of
Colleges and Universities of the Philippines also filed a petition to stop the implementation of K
to 12 program. It is because of the legality of the program. According to them, K-12 violates the
“rights of education workers”, “full protection of labor”, “promotion of employment’ and
“quality of employment opportunities” which are all under Article XIII Section 3 of the
Constitution. Punay (2015) also stated that different party-list groups such as ANAKPAWIS,
ACT TEACHERS and KABATAAN have already filed petitions against the program because
according to them the new curriculum is anti-Filipino. The representatives of the party-list
groups also added that it disregards the subjects which promote nationalism and the value of
being responsible citizen (Punay, 2015). It is because the K-12 program may include the
elimination of subjects such as Filipino and Makabayan.

In a report written by Legaspi (2014) in the website of GMA News, they have
interviewed some teachers who gave their opinions regarding the K to 12 program. Yen Paunan,
a grade 7 Filipino teacher at Caloocan Highschool told GMA News Online that since there isn’t
enough textbook provided by the Department of Education, they need to use workbooks that are
not actually fitted in the curriculum of K to 12 program. Conrado Contreras, head of Lakan Dula
High School’s Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health department said in a phone interview
with the GMA News Online said that the program is actually good for the system of education
but the problem is that the government and the Department of Education are not giving enough
learning resources or materials on time. So, the teachers need to spend their money to photocopy
the textbooks that will be used by the students. He added that the teachers, using their own
salary, buy overhead projectors that they will use in classes. He also said that there is “zero fail”
or “drop-out policy” under K to 12. To do this, the teachers need to make sure that they could
teach students appropriately and effectively so that no one will drop-out. They need to do
remedial classes for the students who are quite left behind from their other classmates which
exceed their teaching load. According to Contreras, the government doesn’t respond to their
concerns about their salary and insist that the government needs to pay attention to the
curriculum first. Both Paunan and Contreras expressed that the new program is actually good as
it help the students know which path they could take after high school, but, the result of the
program will not be seen as long as the other underlying dilemmas will not be resolved (Legaspi,
2014).
Definition of Terms/Operational Definitions:

Parental Encouragement

Parental encouragement is the “treatment provided by the parents to their child which can
nurture the hidden potentialities within them. It can be in the form of guidance, concern, care as
approved by them which can act as a driving force for the students to take a particular decision in
life” (Bashir &Majeed, 2016).

Importance of Education

It is the significance of “being educated”, “going to school”, or learning.

Motivation

As cited by Rehman and Haider (2013) from Jones’ work in 2000, motivation is
“psychological forces that determine the direction of a person’s behavior, a person’s level of
effort, and a person’s level of persistence in the face of obstacles” (Rehman & Haider, 2013).

College

It is an institution offering instruction usually in a professional, vocational or technical

field or it is an institution of higher learning offering a course of general studies leading to a
bachelor’s degree.

Grade 11 in K to Program of the Philippines

The first level on the Senior high school or the specialized upper secondary education
under K to 12 program
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