Chapter I

The Problem and Its Background

This chapter describes the background of the study regarding the relationship between birth

order and academic general average. This chapter will elaborate its objectives, scope and

delimitation of the study and its significance.

Introduction

Philippines is a family -oriented society and that the Filipino concept of self- regard is

based on the bond that unites their families. In the Philippines having five to seven children is

considered common and Filipinos cope with large families, the older children in the family

tend to take care of their younger siblings and tend to their needs.

Sibling rivalry is not seen as a problem to Filipino families but with this families may

develop age authority among the siblings for most time older children are supported by their

parents. The most common scenario in the Filipino family in siblings is that the youngest

tends to be spoiled while the eldest is over burdened and the middle goes unnoticed which

create the ordinal position that differ their self- regard to their families.

Recent reviews of research regarding birth order and their personality are generally

confused and controversial because of this only a few conclusions can be made, but this topic

mostly neglect family size, and cross- culture.

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 According to Alfred Adler (1927, 1956) regarding his theory in birth order, it says

that birth order is the arrangement of children in their families, their birth order affects the

psychological thinking, and it also states that only one can occupy being the first- born child,

last- born child and only child but many children can be classified as a middle child and with

this it may affect their thinking in life, love preferences and even their personality

Also taking the lead of the from the original birth order theorists Alfred Adler, Alan

E. Stewart (2012) a Georgian psychologist distinguished the Actual Birth Order (ABO),

which means it is the numerical rank which you are born in the family and Psychological

Birth Order (PBO), which is the birth order position that is self- perceived.

Stewart explain using Alfeld’s work is that first -borns would most likely to be the

leader and responsible but they may be sensitive with the feeling of being “dethroned” by

their younger siblings who takes away the attention to them.

The children at the center or they are so called middle children are said to be the ones

who goes unnoticed or left out that is why they build some sort of independence.

The last-borns are more likely to be noticed and builds some sort of dependence

unlike the middle children and first- borns and is more sociable than their older siblings. The

only child receives all the attention but gets the feeling of being scrutinized and controlled.

2
 Academic General Average sum up a student’s academic performance, which consists

of written works, performance tasks and quarterly assessment. A student’s academic

performance can or may be affected by the student’s psychological thinking.

General Objective

The general objective of this research is to know if birth order correlates to the

student’s academic general average of Grade 9 Students in St.Dominic College of Asia Basic

Education Junior High.

Statement of the Objective

The specific objectives of this research answers to:

1.) To know the mental characteristics of each child order in terms of Alfred Adler’s Birth

Order theory.

2.) To identify their general average of the 1st Quarter and 2nd Quarter.

3.) To determine if there is a relationship with Birth Order to their general average.

3
Theoretical Framework

The Birth Order theory by Alfred Adler (1870–1937), an Austrian psychiatrist

explaining that birth order affects the child’s personality and affects the individual’s

performance in life as well as there habitual way of dealing with their friends, family, work,

school, and etc.. Adler also elaborated what is the common characteristics of first- borns and

that first- borns are reliable, conscientious, cooperative, nurturer, people pleaser,organized,

assertive, perfectionist and first- borns commonly get the feeling of being ‘dethroned’, as

well the middle child which feels ignored and may develop middle child syndrome and

characteristics like being competitive, flexible, and friendly and that last- borns are risk

takers, attention seeking, sensitive and are pampered and with this characteristics will affect

their personality later in life.

4
Conceptual Paradigm

Input Process Output

Prepared a Distributed the Presented the

questionnaire for questionnaire. final result and
the Grade 9 Collected and final data.
students. analyzed the
data.

Figure 1. Conceptual Paradigm

To formulate this research, the researcher must collect data and to do so, the researcher

created a survey questionnaire that will answer each research objective, after creating the

questionnaire it shall be distributed to selected Grade 9 students and shall collect the data and

analyze the data and then finally show the final result of the data collected.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

5
 The concern of the study was only the Grade 9 students of St.Dominic College of

Asia Basic Education Junior High that has siblings, whether the siblings were in elementary,

in St.Dominic, or in different schools.

The study only involves comparing the general average of the participants for the first

and second quarter of the academic school year 2018-2019. The research was only

concentrating on the general average for it is the summation of the participant,s academic

performance in that certain span or quarter.

The study focused only to determine if birth order has a relationship to their general

average and not focusing on the reasons why or how it affects the Birth Order

Significance of the Study

6
Students It may help them improve their learning skills and find

gfdbdbways adapt to learn easier from their birth order.

Teachers It would help them build a relationship towards their

students and also improve and enhance teaching skills to their

students birth order.

Future Researches This information may be useful and help other researchers

to have an idea for their own personal research.

Definition of Terms

7
Academic General Average -is the general average of grades in all subjects in a quarter or

gdnfgnfgnfnfnfnfnmfgnfgngnnacademic year.

Actual Birth Order -which means it is the numerical rank which a child is born in

the family.

Correlation -have a mutual relationship or connection, in which one thing

dsgsfbsfbsfbsfbsfbsfbsfbsfbfbaffects or depends on another.

Dethroned -remove from a position of authority or dominance.

Psychological Birth Order -which is the birth order position that is self- perceived.

Psychological -is the science of behaviour of minds including the conscious

and the unconscious happenings, also the feelings and thought.

Self- regard -regard for or consideration of oneself or one's own interests.

Sibling rivalry -is the jealousy, competition and fighting between brothers and

dnbhdgndgndnbdgndgndghg sisters. It is a concern for almost all parents of two or more kids.

Review of Related Literature

8
Local Studies

Human capital formation during youth, beside the individual characteristics of

students, is one of the dependent parts on the quality of the student's schooling background.

The determinants of academic performance of students are studied considering the student's

pre-collegiate knowledge and various things associated with their high school graduation.

The study confirms that individual student ability is the main factor of academic performance

while the high school graduation is a secondary factor. The highschool background plays an

important role for the findings indicates that the quality of funding and the level of

development of the community in which the high school is located are contributing factors of

the student's academic performance (Sicat & Panganiban,2009).

Dacog, Hinacay, Pastrano, et al.(2007) focused to identify the factors affecting

student's academic performance in terms of the English subject in Department of Capitol

University during the first semester, school year 2007-2007. The study involved thirty-five

students by using Personal Data Questionnaire and a Standardized Questionnaire. The factors

affecting their academic performance are age, gender, study load, areas of responsibility, etc.

Bernardo (2008) discusses Achievement goal theory assumes that self-instrumental

achievement goals are associated to one's academic achievement. A research on Asian

9
students shows that mastery and performance are showing a possible relation to achievement

but achievement motivation in Asian cultures are socially oriented and not individually. The

research study explored the social and individual achievement motivation relate to Filipino

university students, which the results shows that social and individual motivations doesn't

have a relation but academic achievement, personal standards and parent-oriented

achievement motivation does.

Local Literature

David Watkins & Estela Astilla (1980) wrote an article about the relationship between

self- regard among Filipinos. The Philippines is a family-oriented society and the concept of

Filipinos in terms of self-regard is based on the bond that unites the family. The difference

between Filipino and Western families is the size of the family, an average Filipino family is

five to seven. To cope with such a large families the older children will tend to the needs of

their younger siblings with this Filipino households tend to create some kind of age authority

hierarchy among the siblings, the common in desired element in the family structure is the

tendency of the youngest child being spoiled the middle children unnoticed, and the eldest to

be overburdened, which has the potential to create a difference with their self-regard to their

Filipino Families.

Dr.Bernardo M. Villegas a journalist from Manila Bulletin created an article tackling

about parents being their child's first educators, and by that it discusses that parents should

10
focus on educating them especially in their preschool years for schools are just

complementary and how it could affect their education in the future.

An article in Philstar, say that parents tend to not give attention to their children and

this article it stated a number of codes such as P.D. 603 also known as 'The Child and Youth

Welfare Code' which declares the child one of the most important assets. As well as the

family code.

Foreign Studies

The study of Mahed Al-Khayat aimed to understand the effects of birth order on

personality, and academic performance. He used 60 families were took as sample families

from Salt City in Jordan. There were instruments used to measure Personality Traits and for

the Academic Performance and the statistical differences were both based on Birth Order.

Gustafson (2010) examined the twenty- five articles regarding the effects on

personality of the Birth Order theory of Alfred Adler. The research focused on broad range

topics such as relationships and mental health. Overall result of the research show a

significant effect on many aspects of personality because of birth order.

Salmon, Shackelford, Michalski (2012) states that the examined factors that influence

discriminative parental solicitude is sex, birth order, and age of mother. It says that the

11
indicator of a high parental investment is being a parentable favorite. The research formed

two hypotheses related to the influence of birth order and sex on parental favoritism. The

research says that fathers is very unlikely to have a favorite but mothers are more likely to,

especially if their child is a female, but the research also explained that parental favorite

varies over the birth order of their child which creates some type of favoritism.

Foreign Literature

According to Dr. Kevin Leman a psychologists and author who studied birth order

and created a book titled: "The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are" believes

that the sibling personality difference is because of their birth order, for the parents treats

their children depending on their birth order. The first-born will mostly be some sort of

experiment for new parents which parents may give an iron fist to their first child, which

makes the child a perfectionist, and always striving to please their parents. The second child

or middle child would most likely to be raised with less of an iron fist and the parents may

not be as attentive to their second born or middle born which leads to make the child to be

more of a people pleaser due to lack of attention of parents. The last- born would likely be the

most free-spirited due to the parents spoiling them and allowing almost everything. Hence

why sibling personality differences lies in birth order.

Jeffrey Kluger an editor for TIME magazine, created a book in 2011 called "The

Sibling Effect", this book elaborates on the fact that the typical stereotypes as the striving

12
first-born, the wild child of a last-born and the unnoticed middle-born, can actually affect the

success of a person relies on their sibling hierarchy which plays an important role in the work

they would love, the career they pursue,and how successful they will be.

Birth Order refers to the order of siblings in a family, which can only be numerically

ranked by four positions namely first, middle, youngest, and only child, but only one sibling

can occupy the youngest, eldest and only child positions but the middle children can be

classified to many. Alfred Adler was the first psychologist to theorize about the effects of

birth order on personality development for he believed that parents response to their children

by the order of each child birth in the family. The different treatment towards the child is

believed to influence a child's developing personality, which can cover relationships of birth

order to a wide variety of psychological topics.(Rodgers et al. 2000).

Chapter II

Methodology

13
 This chapter elaborates on how the study will be conducted, and the flow on how the

research objective would be attained.

Research Design

For this research, Descriptive Research and Quantitative research design was used. It

would involve analysis and interpretation of data that was gathered from the results answered

by the Grade 9 student participants.

A survey questionnaire had information taken from a sample size by means of self-

support, wherein the respondents answer a series of questions regarding the information

needed for the research.

Context and Participants

14
 This research was conducted at St.Dominic College of Asia - Basic Education,

Academic Year 2018 - 2019.St. Dominic College of Asia - Basic Education was founded in

2011

The total of Grade 9 students in this private school is 150 students. 10 students with

siblings participated in this research by answering the questionnaire that was provided by the

researcher. The table below will show how many survey questionnaire was handed out to

each Grade 9 sections.

Section Number of Students Sample Size

Section A 37 10

Section B 37 10

Section C 39 10

Section D 37 10
Table 1. Population and Sample Size of Grade 9 Students.

Instrumentation

The research instrument used for this study is a survey questionnaire. In order to

collect data the questionnaire was the research instrument.

15
Data Gathering Procedure

In gathering data, this research did a survey questionnaire that is appropriate to

answer the research objectives, the questionnaire is solely based on the Alfred Adler’s theory

and is answered by selected grade 9 students that has siblings in a private school in Bacoor

City, Cavite

Data Analysis

This research used Descriptive Statistics. After gathering the data through survey, the

researcher got the frequency distribution of the data collected from the questionnaire that the

grade 9 students answered for each question. The formula that was used after the item

analysis procedure made use of the following formula. % = f/N * 100

Wherein:

F = frequency

N= Population

%= Percentage
Figure 2. Formula for Data Analysis

Chapter III

Results and Discussions

16
 This chapter contains the results of the data gathering in forms of graphs and in this chapter

would show the interpretation of the results of each question in the questionnaire and what

research objective it answers.

Birth Order of Grade 9 Students

37.5 40

22.5

First Borns Middle Borns Last Borns

Figure 3. Demographic Profile of Grade 9 students in terms of Birth Order.

Figure 3 shows that 40% of the respondents are First Borns and 37.5% are Last Borns

and 22.5% are Middle Borns. This means that the majority of the students who had answered

the survey questionnaires are First Borns.

17
 Standing in the Family
80
68.75
Percentage of each Birth Order

70
60 56.56

50 46.67
40
40 33.33
30
18.75
20 13.33
12.5 11.11
10
0
First Borns Middle Borns Last Borns

Standing in the Family of each Birth Order

Left Out Spoiled A Leader

Fig
ure 4. Standing in the family of Grade 9 students.

Figure 4 above shows that 68.75% of the first borns feel that they should be a leader

to their siblings, next to that is 18.75% of the first borns are left out in their family, and

12.5% of the first borns are spoiled, also as well as the 55.56% of the middle borns feel that

they should be a leader to their siblings, after that we have 33.33% of the middle borns are

left out, and 11.11% of the middle borns are spoiled, and 46.67% of the last borns tend to feel

left out in their family, and 40% of the last borns are spoiled and lastly 13.33% of the last

borns feel that they should be a leader to their older siblings. The results shows that Adler’s

Birth order theory may be present in the Grade 9 students in terms of characteristics.

18
 General Average of Respondents for 1st and 2nd Quarter
92
89.62
89.21
90 88.78
87.78
General Average

88

86
84.4
83.6
84

82

80
1st Quarter 2nd Quarter

Birth order per quarter

First Borns Middle Borns Last Borns

Figure 5. General Average of Respondents in 1st and 2nd Quarter.

In Figure 5 we can see that the first borns got the highest average in each quarter with

89.21% in the 1st quarter and 89.62% in the 2nd quarter, coming in second are the middle

borns with 87.78% in the first quarter and 88.78% in their second quarter and coming it at

last are the last borns with 83.6% in their first quarter and 84.4% in the second quarter. In this

graph show that First borns tend to get a higher than the middle borns and last borns.

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 Chapter IV

Summary, Conclusion, and Recommendations

This chapter presents the summary of the findings of the research, it also shows the

formulated conclusion/s based on the findings of the research, draws implications for

research, practice, and policy. It also issues recommendations.

Summary

According to the results first -borns got the highest general academic average for the

first and the second quarter and coming in at second are the middle borns which got the

second highest general average for both first and second quarter and lastly are the last borns.

This occurred because Alfred Adler’s Birth Order Theory in terms of mental

characteristic is present to the Grade 9 students because in the case of first borns they must be

the leaders of their siblings and set an example and also make their parents proud to get their

attention or to give what is expected to them, for the middle children since they are most

likely independent and to try and catch the attention of their parents they try and catch up

with their older siblings, and lastly for the last borns which is a bit different in their expected

standing in their family which is they are most likely to be left out but in the Birth Order

theory they should get most of the attention of their parents but coming at second in the result

is the expected standing which is getting the most attention in the family but nevertheless it

20
still showed the expected result in terms of the general average of the last borns in the first

and second quarter.

Practical Implications and Recommendations

The researcher would like to use this research to improve the education of the students and

improve the teaching methods of the students by knowing that Birth Order can affect their

education they should find a way to improve themselves.

The researcher would also like to recommend to further study on the questionnaire to make

more of a strong and accurate result and also expand this to other factors of the academic

performance such as recitations, performance tasks and more.

Future Research

The researcher would like to recommend this to future researchers to expand this

study by identifying if there is a relationship between birth order and academic general

average in other grade levels and also the researcher would like to recommend to conduct

about only childs for this research only focuses on siblings

Concluding Statement

The conclusion of the study is that there is a relationship between the Birth Order and

the General Academic Average of Grade 9 students.

21
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