The Grade 11 General Academic Strand (GAS) students at Sto. Domingo Integrated High School for the school year 2019-2020 had a hard time in answering questions the required explanation. They were not used to speak in long phrases when asked to discuss a word or a concept. They preferred questions requiring them for a “yes or a no” response or a reply needing factual answers like the name of a place, dates and the likes. Thus, an innovative teaching strategy called, ReQuesT or Reverse Questioning Technique was introduced that promoted a constructivist concept in a student-centered learning environment.
ReQuesT or Reverse Questioning Technique required the students to write two questions that start with a Why or a How statement only. The aim was to familiarize them with questions that require discussions and explanations. This was done during the formative assessment or as part of the evaluation stage of the lesson.
Specifically, the study answered the following questions: (1) What is the mean academic performance of the Experimental Group? (2) What is the mean academic performance of the Control Group? (3) Is there significant difference between the academic mean of the experimental and control groups?
The study utilized experimental method using a two groups experimental design. Seventy-seven students belonged to the two sections of the General Academic Strand (GAS) at Sto. Domingo Integrated High School, Sta. Rosa City, Laguna were the respondents. Only 40 students were randomly selected through lottery technique where 20 students composed the Experimental Group (GAS 1) and 20 respondents represented the Control group (GAS 2).
The assumption of normality has been satisfied as signified by skewness of .056 and .000 for experimental and control group respectively. Assumption of equality of variances as revealed from Levene’s test has a value of F-statistic .784 and significant value (p-value) of .381 greater than .05 which implies that group variance can be treated as equal. Effect size of the mean difference has a computed value of 1.6 using Cohen’s d which can be considered as a very large effect size.
There was a high statistically significant mean difference in the academic performance between control group and experimental group which signified that reverse questioning as a technique created a positive impact on the grades of the students. Findings showed that experimental group resulted to higher academic performance than control group. Furthermore, since zero was not on the range of the confidence interval, the test was statistically significant.
It was concluded that (a) at the beginning, students found it difficult to formulate their own questions specifically because questions were limited to How and Why statements only. (b) Students had slowly adapted to the system and were able to create meaningful questions. (c) Errors in grammar were evident but corrected. (d) Students became active and attentive as they knew they needed to complete a task during the formative or evaluation stage of the lesson. (e) Teacher’s tasks to formulate questions for recitation or examinations was lessened as meaningful and creative questions from the students were made available for utilization. (f) ReQuest or Reverse Questioning Technique provided a positive impact in creating a constructivist environment in the Disciplines and Ideas in Social Science by giving the learners opportunity to express themselves through questioning and by letting them to feel that their contributions were given importance.
Thus, the following recommendations were formulated: (a) Make a habit of asking questions that do not only require the students of a Yes or No answer only. Give them the chance to explain and elaborate ideas and concepts. (b) Let them create questions that entail explanations such as those that begin with How or Why statements. (c) Do not just ask them if they understand the lesson, perhaps, let them ask questions to assess whether they understand the lesson very well or not. The content of their questions will help the teacher to determine how far the students have learned. (e) Assist a student find the correct answer by asking other students to help him or her. This way, spirit of collaboration is likewise observed. (f) Be consistent in dealing with the students particularly if the answer entails explanation and be creative to connect incorrect answers with the correct ones. (g) Learn to appreciate their efforts.