Research and Development Center

R&DC RESEARCH PROPOSAL FORMAT

BASIC INFORMATION
Research/Project Title: Difficulties of Grade 12 – ABM Students Towards Fundamentals of
Accountancy, Business and Management Subject in a Philippine University.
Project Duration: August 2019 - March 2020
PROPONENT
Angel Lee C. Bueno
09260662693
angelbueno2802@gmail.com
Block 15 Lot 4 Meadowpark Subd. Molino 4, Bacoor, Cavite
Rachelle C. Balonzo
09264907443
balonzorach00@gmail.com
Block 41 Lot 21 Soldiers Hills IV, Molino 6, City of Bacoor, Cavite
John Gabriel E. Bondoy
09152168436
johngabrielbondoy@gmail.com
B12 L52, Thailand street, SMC, Salawag, Dasmariñas City, Cavite
Jea A. Bares
09389027627
jiyaaa.bares@gmail.com
B11 L7, East 1, Camella Springville, Molino 3, Bacoor City, Cavite
Carolin G. Balidiong
09455487647
carolinswifty@gmail.com
Block 187 Lot 6 Phase 1 Mabuhay City, Paliparan 3, Dasmariñas City, Cavite
DETAILS OF RESEARCH PROPOSAL
RESEARCH PROBLEM AND RATIONALE:

Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business and Management introduce basic principles,

terminologies, and processes related to the nature of Accounting. This subject allows ABM
(Accountancy, Business, and Management) students to understand the vital role of Accounting in
today’s business environment and how does it provide quantitative information to the economic
entities. Its main function is to provide quantitative information, primarily financial in nature, about
economic entities that is intended to be useful in making economic decisions.

Alongside with the definition, the subject itself explains the nature of accounting cycle and the
introduction to the Financial statements which are part of the Financial report of a business entity.
These are the introduction towards the field of Accountancy and its complexity. With this subject,
ABM students are expected to do bookkeeping, preparation of financial statements, and analysis of
financial statements for decision-making. Decision-making involves giving rational information to the
economic entities so that they can create economic decisions.

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Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business and Management’s main goal is to teach students the
basic concepts and principles of bookkeeping as an introductory level towards Accounting career. Not
only to Accounting career but also to help incoming college students who will take courses that are
related to Business Administration, Management and Commerce. In a study conducted by Urquiza and
Usabiaga (2015) stated that the main objective of the course of Fundamentals of accounting is to help
students understand the fundamental accounting concepts and principles as well as to develop the
capability to perform the basic accounting functions: the recognition, valuation, measurement and
recording of the most common business transactions and the preparations of accounting statements.

On the other hand, this subject is considered as one of the difficult subjects of Senior High
School. It is one of the major subjects and building blocks of ABM strand. Mostly, the students have
failed to understand the lessons due to the complexity of Accounting. Lack of liberal education in
English and Math should also consider in these situations because the nature of the subject is analysis
and comprehension of a given situation.

Students find it hard to understand the lessons. Some are struggling to use worksheet and some
didn’t understand the accounting cycle. The financial statements, which are crucial in making
economic decision of the business, also find it difficult by the students since they are still struggling to
understand the journal entries.

Therefore, the researchers decided to create this research to address the concern regarding the
difficulties of ABM students in Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business, and Management.
Addressing the concerns of ABM students will help them to understand the subject itself and its
complexity.

OBJECTIVES:

The study aims to help the Grade 12 ABM Students on what kind of lessons they’re difficult to
understand with. This paper will serve as a guide to ABM teachers especially the new people in
teaching career.

 To identify the struggles of Grade 12 – ABM students regarding FABM subject.

 To examine the topics in the FABM subject students find difficult to learn.
 To determine different coping strategies that students used in understanding the FABM subject.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS:

Through the identification of the difficulties of grade 12 – ABM students towards

Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business and Management subject in a Philippine University, this
research can serve as a guide to students of ABM and the future ABM students to have a better
understanding in FABM and it will be easier for them to know the struggles that they might encounter.
SIGNIFICANCE:

The study will be beneficial to the following:

 STUDENTS. This study would help them adapt different strategies to develop a better
understanding of FABM subject.
 ACADEME. This study would serve as guide for them to know what part of the topic that

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students find it more difficult and help them to enhance and develop students’ understanding in
FABM subject.
 FUTURE RESEARCHERS. This study would generate new knowledge that could serve as
the basis for further studies.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Importance of basic accounting in Senior High

It is vital to address the importance of Fundamentals of ABM 2 to identify the significance of
the subject in ABM strand. According to Gadiano et al. (2017) Fundamentals of Accountancy,
Business, and Management introduce basic accounting principles, accounting concepts, and
accounting terminology. This subject teaches the rules of debit and credit which allow performances in
accounting to be done successfully. It serves as the foundation of knowledge of every ABM students.
There are several existing foreign and local studies conducted that focuses primarily on the
significance of basic accounting in Senior High. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
(2016) announced that they have partnered with state CPA societies to increase the number of high
school educators trained to teach higher order accounting courses across the country. Rankin et al.
(2003) cited in (Kwarteng, 2019) argues that high school accounting can be beneficial to the
performance of students in first-year university accounting since there is a close association between
the high school and university accounting curricula. It is important to realize that accounting education
often starts earlier, at the high school level. Understanding how high school accounting affects the
development of accounting students can help further the development of accounting education
programs (Marinaccio, 2017). Papageorgiou (2017) further emphasizes the correlation of academic
performance of accounting students in college who took Grade 12 accounting and the other college
students who didn’t took Grade 12 accounting. He explains that there was a very high significant
difference in the students’ Accounting I marks who had Accounting in Grade 12 and students with no
Accounting in Grade 12. Marinaccio (2017) conducted a study about the effects of high school
accounting in student’s performance on accounting proper. He emphasizes that students who take high
school accounting are more likely to select accounting as a major, perform better in introductory
managerial accounting courses, and are more likely to be retained within the major. These findings
confirmed that students with accounting as a Grade 12 subject tend to display high academic
performance in college accounting. With the development of more effective high school accounting
programs courses, students can gain experience to help them throughout their higher education. These
related studies suggest that basic accounting is very significant for those students who will take
accounting course in college.

Performance in basic accounting

Learning professional subjects in accounting is not like reading a novel, memorizing, or even
like just mastering the accounting terms. In other words, it is very challenging (Mercado et al., 2016).
Some related studies also focused in performance of students in basic accounting by means of studying
their satisfaction, learning style, and also their common problems which links to different struggles of
accounting students primarily in Grade 12. According to Laguador et al. (2014) Learning professional
subjects as an accounting student is definitely a big challenge. Accounting students use different kinds
of strategies in order to excel in their professional subjects. They use learning strategies. Learning
Style is correlated with student’s satisfaction because it determines if his/her strategy in studying
produces the expected outcome such as higher grades and effective learning. If the student is not
satisfied with his/her efforts, he/she might choose a different learning style in able to derive a better
result in his/her studies (Mercado et al., 2016). A study of Arganda et al. (2014) suggests that effective
study habits and proper time management should consider in taking accounting course. In terms of
learning style, most students are satisfied through the aid of books. Making use of various teaching

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aids like whiteboard, visual aids, accounting manual, practice sets, etc. makes students satisfied
regarding the teaching strategy of the professor (Mercado et al., 2016).

Student’s emotion is a second variable that affects an academic performance of students. According to
Gadiano et al. (2017) students’ performance in Accountancy, Business, and Management strand can be
affected by positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. These five
elements shape the wellbeing of the students as they study. The way these elements move within their
lives affect their thoughts, motivation and preferences. Institutional factors and parental socio-
economic factors affect students’ academic performance in accounting (Ifeoma et al., 2017).
The lecturers and teachers are the third and most important variable in the academic performance of
students. Existed foreign and local related literatures indicates two variables, teacher’s presence and
their capabilities. According to Akpanobong and Asuquo (2015) teachers’ quality plays a significant
role in shaping and enhancing students’ interest in Financial Accounting. Students’ achievement in
Financial Accounting at the secondary school level relates directly to the quality of the teachers
handling the subject. Mbugua et al. (2012) cited in Ifeoma et al. (2017) stated all the factors affecting
the academic performance of students. Under staffing, inadequate teaching/learning materials, lack of
motivation and poor attitude by both teachers and students as factors influencing academic
performance of students. Kwarteng (2019) in his study revealed that teachers’ inability to completely
handle the entire topics in the curriculum for reasons of having difficulty with some of the topics
implies ineffectual lesson delivery. Instructor’s lectures were not clearly delivered or imparted and
their incomprehensible teaching techniques are some causes of the academic problems encountered by
the Grade 12 accounting students (Arganda et al., 2014). Mercado et al. (2016) indicated that the
professors should give more problem solving exercises in order to improve the practical skills of the
students especially if they are exposed to a program that involves applied skills like Accountancy.
Every learner comes to the class with an expectation of meeting a friendly teacher. If the teacher
presents himself as an expected friendly stimulus, interest is aroused in the learner with the consequent
attention to what is presented in the class (Akpanobong and Asuquo 2015).

Synthesis
While several foreign and local literatures existed in the context of basic accounting in Grade 12, none
of these deals with the difficulties of Grade 12 ABM students in Fundamentals of Accountancy,
Business, and Management. However, existing related literatures focused primarily on learning styles
and lecturing issues of the teachers but difficulties of students in every lesson on basic accounting
(Fundamentals of ABM 2) were not indicated on these studies. Some related literatures were 5 years
old and the knowledge needs to be updated to ensure the accuracy of information in the academe. To
sum it up, it is important to have basic accounting like Fundamentals of ABM 2 in Senior High for
those who will take Accountancy as their course in college. The subject itself are focused on the basic
principles and bookkeeping practices. Learning professional subjects like accounting needs to have a
lecturer or teacher that has experience in the field of Accountancy. Teachers need to be approachable
and effective in teaching because they are the most important variable in student’s academic
performance. If the teacher is inefficient and not friendly then their students will most likely to follow
that. Students should have its own learning strategies to help them in basic accounting.

THEORETICAL/CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY:

Theoretical Framework
Self-efficacy theory by Bandura (1997) maintains that all processes of psychological and
behavioral change operate through the alteration of the individual’s sense of personal mastery or
efficacy (Maddux, 2016). People process, weighs, and integrates diverse sources of information
concerning their capability, and they regulate their choice behavior and effort expenditure accordingly.
According to Bandura (1997) self-efficacy expectancies are viewed as varying along three dimensions:
magnitude, strength, and generality.

Magnitude of self-efficacy refers to the number of steps of increasing difficulty a person

believes himself capable of performing. For example, a student who is trying to focus on a classroom

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discussion may believe that he can understand FABM topics better under conditions in which he feels
relaxed and motivated. However, his ability to focus might ruin under conditions of higher stress or
when he feels uninspired. Strength of self-efficacy expectancy refers to the resoluteness of person’s
convictions that he/she can perform a behavior in question. For example, each of two students may
feel capable of focusing on studying at a classroom discussion, but one may hold this belief with more
conviction or confidence than the other. Strength of self-efficacy expectancy has been related
repeatedly to persistence in the face of frustration, pain, and other barriers to performance. Generality
of self-efficacy expectancies refers to the extent to which success or failure influence self-efficacy
expectancies in a limited, behaviorally specific manner, or whether changes in self-efficacy extend to
other similar behaviors and contexts.

This framework will be used as a guide to identify the process of information and to find the
difficulties of students on the specific lessons on the subject. Therefore, this study will cover the self-
efficacy of the students as well as the development of the students.

Conceptual framework

Fig. 1.1 shows the connection of difficulties experiencing by ABM students.

The Conceptual framework explains the possible difficulties of ABM students on

Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business, and Management (ABM) subject. Fig. 1.1 shows the
dependent and independent variables that will be using in this study. Dependent variables cater the
difficulties of ABM students on the subject while the Independent variable is the possible outcome if
the difficulties mentioned on the dependent persists. This framework will serve as a guide in creating
the surveys and fill the gap in this study. This paper will cover the analysis of respondents’ difficulties
in Fundamentals of ABM. Therefore, the study will cover the lecturing issues on every lessons
encompassed by the subject to create conclusion and update the knowledge to ensure the accuracy of
information in this context.
METHODOLOGY:

Research Site. This study will be conducted at the University of Perpetual Help-Molino campus,
which is one of the most densely populated school in Bacoor City in terms of SHS student enrollees.

Respondents of the Study. The researchers aim to survey Grade 12 – ABM Senior High School
Students of University of Perpetual Help – Molino who are having difficulties towards the subject
“Fundamental of Accountancy, Business and Management”. The researchers will use a cluster
sampling technique under probability sampling method. In cluster sampling, the researchers randomly

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select from already existing or naturally occurring sub-groups (clusters) of the population which are
the sections in the ABM strand. The survey questionnaires will be given out to twenty random students
per section. There are 11 sections in the ABM strand. Therefore, the total number or respondents in
this study is 220.

Research Design and Data Collection. This study will use descriptive research design under
quantitative research. The purpose of descriptive research is, of course, to describe, as well as explain,
or validate some sort of hypothesis or objective when it comes to a specific group of people (McNeill,
2015). The data will be collected using the form of a survey questionnaire administered to a random
sample of students per cluster or section in the ABM strand.

Data Analysis. The research study will utilize used descriptive statistical analysis that would help the
researcher to present meaningful quantitative data. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic
features of the data in a study. It provides simple summaries about the sample and the measures.
Together with simple graphics analysis, they form the basis of virtually every quantitative analysis of
data (Williams, 2006).

Research Instrument. A survey questionnaire will be used as the research instrument. The researcher
prepares a set of questionnaires to be distributed to the participants. The questionnaire consists of
close-ended questions that are related to the study. The functionality of the study will be determined
through questionnaires. The questionnaires are divided into three sections. The first section gathers the
basic information of the student. The second section composed of a five-point Likert scale to
determine the student’s struggles and difficulties regarding the topics in Fundamentals of
Accountancy, Business and Management subject. The final section consists of different coping
strategies. The participants may choose 5 out of 13 statements only. The survey questionnaire had
undergone several validations before administering it as a research instrument to get assured of its
reliability.

Major Activities. Use a Gantt Chart

Activities Month/Duration

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1.Proposal preparation
2. Research preparation
3. Data Collection
4. Data Analysis
5. Paper writing
6. Paper Dissemination
BUDGETARY REQUIREMENT:

Item Estimated Cost

Personnel 0
Major equipment 0
Supplies and Materials 125
Transportation, Communication and Representation 525
Miscellaneous 0
Total estimated expenses 650

BIBLIOGRAPHY/LITERATURE CITED:

Akpanobong, U. E., & Asuquo, E. E. (2015). Teacher quality and students’ achievement in
Financial Accounting in Senior secondary schools in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria, 3(9),
177–188.Retrieved from https://www.ijern.com/journal/2015/September-2015/15.pdf

American Accounting Association. (2015). Pathway to Academia for Accounting Professionals

Webcast. Retrieved from http://commons.aaahq.org/posts/2c8f27a1df

Arganda, A. M., Ducut, R. L., & Andal, E. C. (2014). Needs and problems of the second year
Accountancy students of the college of business and entrepreneurial technology Rizal
Technological University, 5(2), 93–100. Retrieved from
http://www.researchersworld.com/vol5/issue2/Paper_11.pdf

Gadiano, H., Cadawas, M., Marcaida, K., & Malaca, C. (2017). The relationship between the
mindset of Grade 12 ABM students and their academic performance in Fundamentals of
Accountancy, Business, and Management. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/34518445/THE_RELATIONSHIP_BETWEEN_THE_MIND
SET_OF_GRADE_12_ABM_STUDENTS_AND_THEIR_ACADEMIC_
PERFORMANCE_IN_FUNDAMENTALS_OF_ACCOUNTING_AND_BUSINESS_
MANAGEMENT_Researchers

Ifeoma, O. J., Chinyere, A. S., Efeyadu, U. H., & Akuezilo, J. A. (2017). Perceived factors
influencing academic performance of students in accounting in secondary schools in
Anambra State, 22(2), 96–99. Retrieved from http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr
jhss/papers/Vol. 22 Issue2/Version-3/P2202039699.pdf

Ifeoma, O. J., & Ezenwafor, J. I. (2016). Effects of problem-based teaching method on students'
academic performance and retention in Financial Accounting in technical colleges in
Anambra state, 4(6A), 634–639. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306096583_Effects_of_Problem
Based_Teaching_Method_on_Students'_Academic_Performance_and_Retention_in_
Financial_Accounting_in_Technical_Colleges_in_Anambra_State

Kwarteng, J. T. (2019). Degree of Senior High school accounting curriculum implementation in

Ghana: Relevant and problematic topics, 7(3). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?

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id=EJ1220991

Maddux, J. E. (2016). Self-efficacy. In Interpersonal and intrapersonal expectancies (pp. 41-

46). Routledge.

Marinaccio, G. T. (2017). The effect of high school accounting on the selection of college major,
performance, satisfaction, and retention. Retrieved from
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0c7d/6e7daaee85f5c8758fab251d886ef171a27c.pdf

Mercado, C. I., Bayugo, E. M., Leynes, Z. S., Lontok, C. B., Medilla, D. M., & Manongsong, J. L.
(2016). Accounting students' learning satisfaction of professional subjects as basis for
continuous improvement, 3(1), 99–109. Retrieved from
http://oaji.net/articles/2016/17101465285276.pdf

Naqshbandi, MM, Kamel, Y, (2017). Intervening role of realized absorptive capacity in

organizational culture–open innovation relationship: Evidence from an emerging market.
Journal of General Management 2017, Vol. 42(3) 5–20. Retrieved from
https://www.oxford-review.com/oxford-review-encyclopaedia-terms/encyclopaedia-
absorptive-
capacity/

Papageorgiou, E. (2017). Accounting students’ profile versus academic performance: A five-year

analysis, 31(3), 209–229. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318712711_Accounting_students'_profile_
versus_academic_performance_A_five-year_analysis

Romburgh, V. H. (2014). Accounting education: Investigating the gap between school, university and
practice. Retrieved from
https://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/12082/Van_Romburgh_H.pdf?sequenc
=1&isAllowed=y

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UPHMO-RDC-ADM-3247/rev0 Research Proposal Format