Challenges in Course Selection Among Science, Technology, Engineering,

and Mathematics: A Road to Progress

_________________________

A Qualitative Research presented to the

Faculty of Integrated Basic Education Department of

THE RIZAL MEMORIAL COLLEGES, INC,

Davao City

________________________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements in Practical Research 1

_________________________

Legaspi, Clyde Ceasper Q.

Lamaan, Adrian Jude F.
Albay, Mary Angelica P.
Pomoy, Althea Gwen D.
Caballero, Giovanni M.
Pagobo, Abegail Y.

Aroma, Prince Adrian E.

APRIL 2024
Introduction

One of the main objectives of senior high school is to provide students

with the knowledge and abilities that they may need as they step on their path in

higher education. However, having to choose a college course is really

challenging for students. Because eventually, when a senior high school student

starts to decide to choose a specific course to pursue in college, various factors

such as familial pressure, societal expectations, and socio-economic problems

significantly influence their decision-making process. Because of these

obstacles, it hinders students from choosing their preferred careers, and in some

cases, students may decide not to attend college at all.

In the study of Cavanaugh et al. (2022), it was found that online education

has led to students perceiving difficulties in course selection. The transition to

online education during COVID-19 tends to influence students’s perceptions of

how they view the quality of the courses that they want to pursue in college. Also,

it revealed that there is a 6% decline in perceived course difficulty and a 4%

decrease in perceived quality across 837 courses from 191 different schools in

the United States. This leads to a lack of motivation for these students to enroll in

those specific courses, and they may experience dissatisfaction with their

learning experiences.

Moreover, in the Philippine context, senior high school STEM students

tend to value the guidance and support of their families and peers more than
their personal preference for choosing the course they want to pursue. Among

165 grade 12 students of Don Bosco College and Mary Help Christians College

in Zambales. It was found that the internal factors that influence students course

selection, like individual, family, and peer perspectives, are significantly high,

along with the external factors such as compensation and educational

requirements, which show a significant impact that influences the career

preference of senior high school students. (Regulacion, 2022).

LOCAL

Through a comprehensive review of the previous existing literature, the

researchers have derived the viewpoints of Sadjail et al. (2022) and Regulacion

(2022), both of which revealed that internal and external factors such as familial

influence, societal pressure, peer perspective, and personal interest significantly

influence students career choices. Although Cavanaugh et al. (2022) found out

that the COVID-19 pandemic altered the students perceptions of the course

difficulties and quality, this could potentially impact their decision-making when

choosing a college course. However, none of these studies was able to

specifically explore the obstacles that students encountered. Despite all of the

factors that have been revealed in various research studies, there is still a lack of

studies that explore the reasons behind how familial obligation and personal

preference influence the decision-making process of grade 12 STEM students.

This study explores the lived experiences of students majoring in STEM

(science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), focusing on the difficulties

of choosing and advancing through courses. The objective of this study is to

examine the various obstacles that STEM students encounter when choosing

their courses and advancing in their academic careers.

The research paper seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the struggles encountered by STEM students while choosing and

advancing in their courses?

2. How do STEM students cope with the challenges and pressure in course

selection, and what are their strategies to help them succeed in their learnings?

3. What are the valuable insights they gained from the obstacles in choosing and

advancing in courses?

Method

In this study, our focus lay on the lived experience of grade 12 STEM

students using a qualitative-phenomenological approach. This helps in gaining

deeper insights into the phenomenon by understanding and engaging with the

participant's narrative. For research instruments, this study used in-depth

interviews, which involve structural interviews and engaging in conversational

interviews with the participants, in order to obtain detailed and valuable data that

will reveal the participants feelings, experiences, and perspectives.

 The sampling method we used in this study is purposive, non-random

sampling. It allows the researchers to select participants who are most likely to

provide relevant and valuable information for the research study. The criteria for

inclusion are: being currently enrolled at Rizal Memorial Colleges; must be a

grade 12 graduating student; and under the STEM strand. The researchers

chose 10 participants who are in grade 12 STEM strands. According to the study

of Mary Scheuer Senter, top students tend to show active participation and

excellence in class and have more diverse backgrounds and skill sets. With an

age range of 18–21, this age typically indicates the level of maturity necessary

for meaningful engagement with the study objective in methods. The criteria for

inclusion are: being currently enrolled at Rizal Memorial Colleges; being a grade

12 graduating student; and being in the STEM strand.

The data collection method includes conducting an IDI, or in-depth

interview, with the selected participants individually. The researchers employed

thematic analysis, which involves looking for common themes in qualitative data.

By adopting this approach, the researchers aimed to reveal the complexity of the

STEM students' experiences in course selection and progression at a higher

level of education.
 References

Cavanaugh, J., Jacquemin, S., & Junker, C. (2022). PMC - NCBI. Nih.gov.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=Joseph+Cavanaugh

%2C+Stephen+J+Jacquemin%2C

Dovetail Editorial Team. (2023, February 8). What is Phenomenology in

Qualitative Research? Dovetail.com.

https://dovetail.com/research/phenomenology-qualitative-research/

Mary Scheuer Senter. (2020). A Meaningful and Useful Twofer: Enhancing

Honors Students’ Research Experiences While Gathering Assessment

Data. DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nchchip/326/?

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lJjz88uuWGz1r9DwdH4Dun8CMrRosS3HhWzWmORI

Regulacion, C. A. (2022). Influence on career preferences of the senior high school

graduating students, 104(1), 17–17. https://doi.org/INFLUENCE%20ON

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