Effects of Reading Skills on Students' Performance in Science and Mathematics in Public and Private Secondary Schools

In the Philippine education system, reading, mathematics, and science formed part of the core areas of basic education curriculum. For the last decade, the quality of Philippine education was put into a big question due to poor performance of students in mathematics and science tests both local and abroad. The initial result of current efforts of the government by adopting K-12 curriculum didn't do much to change the status quo. The purpose of this study is to determine the reading predictors of students' performance in Mathematics and Science and identify its effects to such performance. A total of 660 freshmen students from public and private high schools in Cotabato City, Philippines were taken as sample. A validated and reliable 150-item test in reading comprehension skills, mathematics and science was used to get primary data to perform correlation and regression analysis. Findings showed that only making inference and getting main idea were predictors of mathematics performance of students in public school and private schools, respectively. Data analysis also revealed that two reading skills such as noting details and making inference had an influence on science performance of students in public school while skills in getting main idea and drawing conclusion influenced science performance of students in private schools. However, there was only one skill such as vocabulary in context which was predictor of overall science performance of all students. Moreover, separate effects of making inference, identifying main idea explained only 1.8 percent and 1.3 percent of students' math performance while their combined effects provided only .1 percent or nearly zero percent. Furthermore, the study found out that separate effects of noting details contributed 3.3 percent and its combined effects with making inference explained 4.2 percent of science performance of students in public schools. In terms of effects of reading to science performance in private schools, making inference provided 1.2 percent of separate effect; making inference and drawing conclusion influenced 2.8 percent of combined effect; understanding vocabulary in context has overall one percent of separate effect

Effects of Reading Skills on Students' Performance in Science and Mathematics in Public and Private Secondary Schools

In the Philippine education system, reading, mathematics, and science formed part of the core areas of basic education curriculum. For the last decade, the quality of Philippine education was put into a big question due to poor performance of students in mathematics and science tests both local and abroad. The initial result of current efforts of the government by adopting K-12 curriculum didn't do much to change the status quo. The purpose of this study is to determine the reading predictors of students' performance in Mathematics and Science and identify its effects to such performance. A total of 660 freshmen students from public and private high schools in Cotabato City, Philippines were taken as sample. A validated and reliable 150-item test in reading comprehension skills, mathematics and science was used to get primary data to perform correlation and regression analysis. Findings showed that only making inference and getting main idea were predictors of mathematics performance of students in public school and private schools, respectively. Data analysis also revealed that two reading skills such as noting details and making inference had an influence on science performance of students in public school while skills in getting main idea and drawing conclusion influenced science performance of students in private schools. However, there was only one skill such as vocabulary in context which was predictor of overall science performance of all students. Moreover, separate effects of making inference, identifying main idea explained only 1.8 percent and 1.3 percent of students' math performance while their combined effects provided only .1 percent or nearly zero percent. Furthermore, the study found out that separate effects of noting details contributed 3.3 percent and its combined effects with making inference explained 4.2 percent of science performance of students in public schools. In terms of effects of reading to science performance in private schools, making inference provided 1.2 percent of separate effect; making inference and drawing conclusion influenced 2.8 percent of combined effect; understanding vocabulary in context has overall one percent of separate effect

Barca llobregat

The research represented in these pages aims to introduce a strategic approach to the environmental importance and to a functional revaluation of large agricultural areas within the current city and its operational reactivation. The evolution of the urban-territorial city and our occupied environments produced of matters regarding the relations City-nature, City-Nature-Landscape and a change of perspective between the urban, physical and social dimension and the largest agricultural-landscape and agricultural-environmental system in the context within which the city redefines and develops itself

Graduates’ Competence on Employability Skills and Job Performance

One critical measure of success in workplaces is employee’s ability to use competently the knowledge, skills and values that match the needs of his job, satisfy the demands of his employer, and contribute to the overall achievement of institutional goals. An explanatory-correlational research design was used to determine the extent of relationship between three categories of employability skills (using The Conference Board of Canada’s Employability Skills 2000+) and five elements of Contextual Performance adopted from Borman and Motowidlo’s Taxonomy. There were a total of 220 respondents representing the groups of employers and employees from 25 government institutions in the south-central part of Mindanao region, Philippines. Inferential analysis shows that fundamental skills had moderate relationship with employees’ contextual performance; however, being more competent in thinking and problem solving skills provides employees with more benefits in performing contextual behavior.  Findings further revealed that although personal management skills had moderate relationship with employees’ contextual behavior, the competence in personal adaptability and learning continuously are contributory across all elements of contextual performance. Finally, the result of the study yielded that teamwork skills, particularly the skill on working with others, were also moderately correlated with employees’ contextual performance. This implies that graduates’ competence in employability skills could give them due advantage in their respective work settings.  Thus, proper attention on developing competence on employability skills by employers, employees, higher academic institutions, labor agencies, and policy makers may help address the problems on job performance

Correlation between Reading Comprehension Skills and Students’ Performance in Mathematics

The deteriorating performance of Filipino students in the national and international mathematics tests for the last decade has become a major challenge to Philippine education.  The Department of Education attributed this problem to students’ poor reading comprehension. Previous studies showed varied findings on the association between variables in reading and mathematics. The present study utilized the six elements of reading comprehension skills to determine their relationship to students’ performance in mathematics. A total of 666 students belonging to the randomly selected first year classes from 18 public and private high schools were taken as sample. A correlation research design was used and a competency-based achievement tests in reading comprehension and mathematics were the research instruments. Students in private schools performed better in reading comprehension skills and mathematics than their counterparts. While reading comprehension skills were insignificantly correlated to private school students’ mathematics performance, the case is different in public schools wherein three skills namely understanding vocabulary in context, getting main idea, and making inference surfaced to have connection with mathematics. The overall students’ reading comprehension skills were not significantly correlated to mathematics performance. Hence, the poor mathematics performance could be explained by other factors not related to reading comprehension skills.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v2i1.180

Reading Comprehension Skills And Performance In Science Among High School Students In The Philippines

The research work was carried out among randomly selected 666 first year student-respondents from 18 identified public and private high schools in the Division of Cotabato City, Central Mindanao, Philippines. The six elements of reading comprehension skills, i.e., understanding vocabulary in context, identifying main idea, noting details, making inference, predicting outcomes, and drawing conclusion, and students’ performance in science from the two school types were described and correlated. A competency-based 50-item multiple choice achievement test for each of the reading comprehension and science learning areas was utilised as the research instrument. The test was developed based on the prescribed Table of Specifications (TOS) and aligned with learning competencies formulated under the Restructured Basic Education Curriculum (RBEC) of the Department of Education (DepEd). The study results showed that the overall students’ performance in reading comprehension and science was indexed at low mastery level. Generally, four out of six reading skills such as understanding vocabulary in context, noting details, predicting outcome, and making inference made up the overall reading skills that positively correlated with science performance of students although the strength of relationship was considered weak

Phenolic Composition and Antioxidant and Antiproliferative Activities of the Extracts of Twelve Common Bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris

Beans are important dietary components with versatile health benefits. We analysed the extracts of twelve ecotypes of Phaseolus vulgaris in order to determine their phenolic profiles, antioxidant activity, and the in vitro antiproliferative activity. Ultra-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector (UPLC-DAD) admitted us to detect and quantify some known polyphenols, such as gallic acid, chlorogenic acid, epicatechin, myricetin, formononetin, caffeic acid, and kaempferol. The antioxidant activity (AA) ranged from 1.568 ± 0.041 to 66.572 ± 3.197 mg necessary to inhibit the activity of the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical by 50% (EC50). The extracts, except those obtained from the nonpigmented samples, were capable of inhibiting the proliferation of the human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) cells, human breast cancer cells MCF-7, and A549 NSCLC cell line. Cultivars differed in composition and concentration of polyphenols including anthocyanins; cooking affected the antioxidant activity only marginally. Qualitative and quantitative differences in phenolic composition between the groups of beans influenced the biological activities; on the other hand, we did not find significant differences on the biological activities within the same variety, before and after cooking

The contribution of general language ability, reading comprehension and working memory to mathematics achievement among children with English as additional language (EAL): an exploratory study

An increasing number of high-stakes mathematics standardised tests around the world place an emphasis on using mathematical word problems to assess students’ mathematical understanding. Not only do these assessments require children to think mathematically, but making sense of these tests’ mathematical word problems also brings children’s language ability, reading comprehension and working memory into play. The nature of these test items places a great deal of cognitive demand on all mathematics learners, but particularly on children completing the assessments in a second language that is still developing. This paper reports findings from an exploratory study on the contribution of language to mathematics achievement among 35 children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) and 31 children with English as their first language (FLE). The findings confirm the prominent role of general language ability in the development and assessment of mathematical ability. This variable explained more variance than working memory in word-based mathematics scores for all learners. Significant differences were found between the performance of FLE learners and EAL learners on solving mathematical word-based problems, but not on wordless problems. We conclude that EAL learners need to receive more targeted language support, including help with specific language knowledge needed to understand and solve mathematical word problems

An overview of anti-diabetic plants used in Gabon: Pharmacology and Toxicology

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Ethnopharmacological relevance: The management of diabetes mellitus management in African communities, especially in Gabon, is not well established as more than 60% of population rely on traditional treatments as primary healthcare. The aim of this review was to collect and present the scientific evidence for the use of medicinal plants that are in currect by Gabonese traditional healers to manage diabetes or hyperglycaemia based here on the pharmacological and toxicological profiles of plants with anti-diabetic activity. There are presented in order to promote their therapeutic value, ensure a safer use by population and provide some bases for further study on high potential plants reviewed. Materials and methods: Ethnobotanical studies were sourced using databases such as Online Wiley library, Pubmed, Google Scholar, PROTA, books and unpublished data including Ph.D. and Master thesis, African and Asian journals. Keywords including ‘Diabetes’ ‘Gabon’ ‘Toxicity’ ‘Constituents’ ‘hyperglycaemia’ were used. Results: A total of 69 plants currently used in Gabon with potential anti-diabetic activity have been identified in the literature, all of which have been used in in vivo or in vitro studies. Most of the plants have been studied in human or animal models for their ability to reduce blood glucose, stimulate insulin secretion or inhibit carbohydrates enzymes. Active substances have been identified in 12 out of 69 plants outlined in this review, these include Allium cepa and Tabernanthe iboga. Only eight plants have their active substances tested for anti-diabetic activity and are suitables for further investigation. Toxicological data is scarce and is dose-related to the functional parameters of major organs such as kidney and liver. Conclusion: An in-depth understanding on the pharmacology and toxicology of Gabonese anti-diabetic plants is lacking yet there is a great scope for new treatments. With further research, the use of Gabonese anti-diabetic plants is important to ensure the safety of the diabetic patients in Gabon.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio