USE OF SIM (STRATEGIC INTERVENTION MATERIAL) AS

STRATEGY AND THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF

GRADE 12 STUDENTS ON SELECTED TOPIC IN LIFE
SCIENCE
Gracie O. Ching
Unisan Integrated High School, Philippines
[email protected]

Abstract
This research endeavor aimed to find out whether the use of SIM (Strategic Intervention
Material) would improve the academic achievement of grade twelve students on selected topic in
Life science. The study made use of quasi experimental design which is non- equivalent control
group pretest and posttest design. About 120 participants were used as subjects of the study.
Mean and t- tests were used as tools in the analysis of data. The result of the study revealed that
there was a significant difference in the pretest and posttest mean scores of the experimental and
control group in the topic eclipse. The experimental group achieved a better mean gain score
than the control group. This points out that the use of strategic intervention material (SIM) in the
experimental group significantly improved the performance of the students. It can be concluded
that the performance of students in the experimental group was greatly enhanced after SIM was
employed in teaching the lesson. Therefore, the employment of SIM was better and effective than
the use of traditional method in teaching some topic in science. Furthermore, it was
recommended that SIM be adopted as instructional material or strategy in teaching science
lessons as well as other subjects.
Keywords
SIM, Strategy, Achievement, Life Science, Students

1. Introduction
The onset of the K-12 basic education program aims to erase the poor academic
achievement of students in the different subject areas. The addition of two years in high school
has envisaged development of valuable skills and full mastery of the students in the subjects
learned. Unfortunately, the recent NAT result has addresses challenge to the teaching workforce
particularly on the subjects that students displayed poor performance. The result suggest that on
the average, the students obtained an MPS of 48.90 in the 2012 NAT national average, an
improved performance when compared to the previous years, 44.33 in 2006 and 46.80 in 2005.
To conclude, it was still a poor performance. The glaring difference on the result was the scanty
performance of students in science which register 40.53 and the lowest among the subjects. This
implies that there is a missing ingredient in teaching and handling science lessons. In Portugal,
it has been observed that there is a deficient learning in science both at middle and secondary
level (Fonseca, 2006). This confirmed that there is a failure in teaching science worldwide.
According to a Department of Education (DepEd) briefing material posted online in the Manila
Times, the first two batches of senior high school students scored 36.71 and 36.45 mean
percentage score (MPS) in the Basic Education Exit Assessment (BEEA), the assessment test for
graduating senior high students.
The letdown was due to the ineffectivity and incongruity of teaching strategies and
instructional materials employed in teaching the lesson. Several teaching strategies and
instructional materials are utilized to meet the learning style and need of the students. Alas, the
result is still poor achievement. To note, learning strategies interact with personal characteristics
of students. The fact that there is no ideal strategy that generates success in all learning
situations, hence, teachers need to be trained to develop an understanding and skills in using
appropriate strategies that satisfy student learning (Simsek & Balaban, 2010).
Moreover, there are manifestations that teaching science and mixing with a teaching
material and strategy was too hot to handle. This statement was supported by the finding of
Wood (2002) which emphasized that teachers in California High School struggled in teaching
science particularly Biology in a way the students can truly understand the concepts.
Consequently, the effectiveness of one’s teaching approach may require the use of tools,
techniques and strategies to improve students learning and is sometimes used in a quantitative
way, being very effective or not effective (Drucker, 2006). This finding could be validated by the
poor performance displayed by students in Unisan Integrated High School. The lack of
appropriate materials, effective strategy and focus of students has been becoming a perennial
problem. Therefore, this endeavor was conducted to offer solutions in improving the academic
achievement of students in science. The researcher would like to introduce the use of strategic
intervention material (SIM) as strategy in teaching science lessons. Strategic intervention materials
are instructional materials that meant to teach the concept and skills. Materials are given to
students to help them master a competency based skill which they were not able to develop during
the regular classroom teaching. The ultimate aim of SIM is to make students master the least
learned concepts in science. In doing so, once they mastered the concept they can easily
comprehend questions and answer it correctly, thus, better academic gain is achieved.
This research is anchored on the following theories; first, social development theory by
Vygotsky which says that social interaction profoundly influences cognitive development;
second is Bandura’s social learning theory which posits that people learn from one another via
observation, imitation and modeling; and lastly, the constructivist theory by Bruner which
suggests that learning is a social process, whereby students constructs new concepts based on
current knowledge.

2. Research Questions
This paper aimed to find out whether the use of SIM (Strategic Intervention Material)
would improve the academic achievement of grade seven students on selected topic in earth
science. Particularly, it sought to answer the following queries:
1. What is the academic profile of students in science in the second quarter?
2. Is there a significant difference in the pretest mean score of the students in the control and
experimental group?
3. Is there a significant difference in the posttest mean score of the students in the control and
experimental group?
4. Is there a significant difference between the pretest and posttest mean score of the students
in the control and experimental group?
5. Is there a significant difference between the mean gain score of the students in the control
and experimental group?

3. Operational Definition of Terms

Academic Achievement refers to the performance of students in science in a particular
lesson. It is measured in terms of grade.
 SIM refers to a strategy or instructional material that is used to increase the academic
achievement of students in science. Also, it aims to develop mastery on the least learned
concepts in the learning competency.

4. Method
The study made use of quasi experimental design which is a non- equivalent control
group pretest- posttest design. Non- equivalent design is a good design when you have access to
one group for your experimental (Vockel, 1983). This design was used by the researcher because
the subjects of the study were intact group of the grade 12 students in Life science class in a
naturally assembled setting at Unisan Integrated High School, Unisan , Quezon. This design is
represented as follows:
O1 X O2

O3 O4
where:
O1 – Pretest of the experimental group
O2 – Posttest of the experimental group
O3 – Pretest of the Control Group
O4 – Posttest of the Control Group
------------------ - Non- random assignment of subjects
X – Treatment applied in the experimental group
Moreover, the researcher utilized questions which cover the topic Characteristics of Life
as part of the fourth quarter coverage based on the learning competencies of the Department of
Education. The test questions were checked and validated. The pretest and posttest was designed
to measure the academic achievement of grade 12 students. The pretest and posttest both consist
of a 25- item test determines the level of academic achievement of the students in Characteristics
of Life. The subjects took the test twice with the same content of the test, pretest and posttest.
The pretest was administered to all subjects prior to the treatment. The pretest was helpful in
assessing student’s prior knowledge of Characteristics of Life and testing initial equivalence
among groups. A posttest was administered to measure treatment effects. In addition, the results
of the pretest and posttest scores were analyzed and categorized using the scale below:
0 – 19.99% - Very Poor
 20 – 39.99% - Poor
40 – 59.99% - Satisfactory
60 – 79.99% - Very Satisfactory
80 – 100% - Outstanding
Further, this study employed the following statistical tests in the treatment of data. These
were the mean and t- test for paired and independent samples. Mean is being described as center
of gravity of a distribution and is described as the common score of the entire group. On the
other hand, t – test for uncorrelated samples used to test the significance of difference between
the pretest and posttest mean scores in the experimental and control group while t- test for paired
samples used to test the significance of the difference between the pretest and posttest mean
scores within each of the group.

5. Results and Discussions

In this section, the data gathered were carefully discussed, analyzed, and interpreted
using appropriate statistical tools.
Table 1 describes the academic profile of students in Life science in the second quarter. It
was displayed that students in the experimental group records a mean of 78.83 while the control
group registers a mean of 78.53. The performance of both groups was described as fairly
satisfactory. There was a slight difference on the grade of students in the second quarter in both
groups. This implies that the students in both groups have an almost equal performance in the
said subject. Therefore an intervention in improving their performance was highly desired or
appropriate.
Table 1: Academic profile of students
Groups N Mean Descriptive Interpretation
Control 60 78.5333 Fairly Satisfactory
Experimental 62 78.8387 Fairly Satisfactory

Table 2 indicates the significance of the difference between the pretest mean scores of the
students in experimental and control group in the topic Characteristics of Life. The experimental
group gains a mean score of 4.90 while the control group earns a mean score of 4.83. There was
a slight difference of .07. The performance of both groups in the topic can be described
qualitatively as poor. The computed t- stat was .26 at 120 degrees of freedom and the p- value
was .80 which
was greater than .05 in the level of significance. This means that the null hypothesis was
accepted which denotes that there was no significant difference between the pretest mean scores
of the students in the experimental and control group in the topic Characteristics of Life.

Table 2: Test on the significance of the difference between the pretest mean scores of
the experimental and control group in Eclipse
Groups Mean QD N Df t -stat p-value Decision
Experimental 4.90 Poor 62 Accept Ho,
Control 4.83 Poor 60 120 .26 .80 Reject Ha

The result above reveals that there was no significant difference in the pretest means
scores of students in both groups. This suggests that students from both groups performed poor
in the pretest in Characteristics of Life. In addition, this implies that there is an equal
performance in the two groups during the pretest. Moreover, the findings was supported by Sahin
(2010) which asserts that the effect of any strategy or material on the academic achievement of
student in any written course found to be non- significant in the pretest scores of the
experimental and control group in the Written Expression Achievement Test.
Table 3 discusses the significance of the difference between the posttest mean scores of
the experimental and control group in Characteristics of Life. It notes that the posttest mean
score of the experimental group is 11.23 and 7.70 in the control group. The performance of
students in the experimental group is described as satisfactory and poor in the control group. The
computed t- stat was 8.11 at 120 degrees of freedom and the p- value was .000 which was lesser
than .05 in the level of significance. This implies that the null hypothesis was rejected which
denotes that there was a significant difference between the posttest mean scores of the students in
the experimental and control group in Characteristics of Life.
Table 3: Test on the Significance of the Difference between the posttest mean scores of
the experimental and control group in Eclipse
Groups Mean QD N Df t -stat p-value Decision
Experimental 11.23 Satisfactory 62 Reject Ho,
Control 7.70 Poor 60 120 8.11 .000 Accept Ha

The result reveals that there was a significant difference between the posttest means
scores of the two groups. This implies that students in the experimental learned better than the
students in the control group as indicated by higher mean. Further, the exposure of students in
the experimental group by the strategic intervention material given has helped them master the
lesson better than the students in the control group. Moreover, this result supports the view that
the use of learning strategy contributes to higher students’ academic achievement. Further, the
findings of Iqbal (2004) supports the idea above that the use of learning strategy is more
effective as teaching learning technique than traditional method.
Table 4 presents the pretest and posttest mean scores of the experimental and control group in the
topic Characteristics of Life. It displays that the mean score of the experimental group in the
posttest is higher than the pretest which registers a mean scores of 4.9 and 11.23. The
performance of the students in the experimental group in the pretest was described as poor and
satisfactory during the posttest. On the other hand, the mean scores of the students in the control
group records 4.83 in the pretest and 7.70 during the posttest. The performance of the students in
the control group during the pretest and posttest was described as poor. In the experimental
group, the computed t- statistic was 16.18 at 61 degrees of freedom and the p- value was .000
which was lesser than .05 in the level of significance. This means that the null hypothesis was
rejected which denotes that there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest
mean scores of the students in the experimental group in the topic Characteristics of Life. On the
contrary, the control group registers a t- statistic of 8.83 at 59 degrees of freedom and a p- value
of .000 which was lesser than .05 in the level of significance. This implies that the null
hypothesis was rejected which denotes that there was a significant difference between pretest and
posttest mean scores of the students in the control group in the topic Characteristics of Life.

Table 4: Test on the Significance Difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of
the experimental and control group in Characteristics of Life

Groups Mean QD Mean QD N df t-stat p-value Decision

(Pretes (Posttes
t) t)
Reject Ho,
Experimental 4.9 Poor 11.23 Satisfa 62 120 16.18 .000 Accept Ha
ctory
Reject Ho,
Control 4.83 Poor 7.70 Poor 60 8.83 .000 Accept Ha

The findings above reveals that there was significant difference between the pretest and
posttest mean scores of the students in the two groups. The results suggest that students in the
experimental group who were exposed to the strategic intervention material have gained a
significant learning in the topic Characteristics of Life as indicated by a higher mean. The
increase of mean score in the posttest was attributed to the effect of strategic intervention
material which resulted to an increase of scores or better performance of students. This finding is
supported by the constructivist point of view which posits that when learners are actively
engaged and activities are interactive and student centered, learners learned a lot on their own.
Thus, increasing their academic gain or resulted to better performance. Moreover, the study can’t
be supported by findings based on the effectiveness of strategic intervention material utilized in
science subjects because there were no studies conducted to measure its effectiveness. More
studies await to discover the usefulness of SIM.
The traditional method (modular approach) that was employed in the control group also
suggests that there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of
the students. This signifies that students who were exposed to traditional method have learned
something in Characteristics of Life as indicated by an increase in score during the posttest. The
result was supported by the findings of Vigor (2006) which implies that even without the
integration of learning strategy, the students achievement in any topic (mathematics) were
enhanced.
The last table below points out the significance of the difference between the mean gain
scores of the experimental and control group in the topic Characteristics of Life. The
experimental group obtains a mean gain score of 6.33 while the control group records 2.87. Both
groups can be described qualitatively as poor. The basis for obtaining a poor qualitative
description of the two groups is by getting the difference between the percentage obtained in the
pretest and posttest in eclipse. Sixty two students were the subjects in the experimental group and
only sixty in the control group. The computed t- statistic in the experimental group tallies a 16.18
at 61 degrees of freedom while the control group notes 8.83 at 59 degrees of freedom explain
that there was a significant difference in the mean gain scores of the experimental and control
group in the topic Characteristics of Life. The p- value obtained for both groups was lesser than .
05 in the level of significance. This indicates that the null hypothesis was rejected and proves
that there was a significant difference in the mean gain scores of the experimental and control
group in the topic Characteristics of Life.
 Table 5: Test on the Significance of the Difference between the Mean Gain Scores of
the Experimental and Control Group in Characteristics of Life

Mean Gain
Groups QD N df t- stat p-value Decision

Reject Ho, Accept Ha

Experimental 6.33 Poor 62 120 16.18 .000

Reject Ho, Accept Ha

Control 2.87 Poor 60 8.83 .000

The result from the analysis points out that the experimental group obtained a greater
mean gain score than the control group in Characteristics of Life. Thus, students performed
better in the experimental group than those students in the control group. Students learned best in
the topic because the material given through SIM was simplified and easy to understand. Hence,
information is retained longer and mastery was achieved.
The effectiveness of SIM as a strategy needs to be explored to measure its relevance in
teaching workplace. As shown in the table, it contributes greater gain on the part of the students.
Thus, it can be used as intervention strategy in making the lesson easy to understand and mastery
was achieved on the part of the students. This idea was supported by the findings of Ceballos
(2000) which says that collaboration is a shared act by each member of the group and allows
each member to collectively gain knowledge and learn on their own. This statement is in line
when SIM was employed in the teaching process. Since SIM entails collaboration on the part of
the students. Thus, students learned best if there is collaboration among the members of the
group.

6. Conclusions
Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn:
1. The academic profile of the two groups was described as fairly satisfactory.
2. There was no significant difference in the pretest mean scores of students in the
experimental and control group in the topic Characteristics of Life. Both groups performed poor
in the pretest due to the lack of exposure to the topic.
3. There was a significant difference in the posttest mean scores of students in the experimental
and control group in the topic Characteristics of Life. The experimental group obtained a
satisfactory performance in the posttest while the control showed a poor performance. The better
performance in the experimental was attributed to the utilization of SIM that made students
gained significant learning, thus, improving their performance. On the other hand, the control
group also demonstrated significant increase in their performance with the use of traditional
method.
4. There was a significant difference in the pretest and posttest mean scores of students in
the experimental and control group in the Characteristics of Life. Experimental group recorded a
higher pretest and posttest mean scores than the control group. Both groups showed a poor
performance in the pretest while the experimental gained the upper hand in the posttest by
demonstrating a satisfactory performance compared to the control group.
5. There was a significant difference in the mean gain scores of students in the experimental
and control group in the topic Characteristics of Life. The experimental group tallied a
higher mean gain scores than the control group. Both groups achieved poorly in the topic
Characteristics of Life.

7. Recommendations
Based on the conclusions of the study, the following are suggested:
1. Since the use of Strategic Intervention Material (SIM) yield a better performance on
students, teachers should adopt it as a strategy or instructional material in teaching science
lessons.
2. The Department of Education must intensify their campaigns in improving the NAT
result of the students by engaging teachers in this kind of material.
3. Each teacher should be required to make a SIM every grading period. Exposure to this
kind of activity will make lessons meaningful and easy to understand.
4. The conduct of similar studies in other areas is recommended to validate the external
validity of the findings.

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