Sub Research Question Four

SRQ4: What is the relationship between students’ prior academic performance and their learning performance in the PBL approach?

The Sub Research Question four of this study investigated the extent of students’

prior academic performance influence has on the learning using the PBL approach for the students in semester three and four. The quantitative instrument namely Pre-test, Post-test and Students’ academic records were employed to investigate this issue. In this investigation, Researcher hypothesized that:

H1: Students of semester three and four with above average CGPA scores should have higher scores in both the pre-test and the post-test; than those with below average CGPA scores.

H2: Students of semester four should have higher scores in the pre-test than students of semester three.

H3: There is no difference in post-test scores between students of semester three who attending the CNC programming milling and students of semester four who attending the CNC programming lathe.

Researcher’s hypothesis one:

H1: Students of semester three and four with above average CGPA scores should have higher scores in both the pre-test and the post-test; than those with below average CGPA scores.

The independent-samples t-test was conducted to determine the significance between the students’ pre-test, post-test scores of students’ semester three & four and their last semester of Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) in order to address the SRQ four. The SRQ four asked: To what extent does students’ academic performance influence the learning with the PBL approach? Research hypothesis one was: Students of semester three and four with above average CGPA scores should have higher scores in both the pre-test and the post-test; than those with below-average CGPA scores.

The researcher arranged the data according to the students CGPA scores in two groups, one having high CGPA scores and the other low CGPA scores to test for significance. The researcher considered the CGPA with equal and above mean as high CGPA and the CGPA with below mean as low CGPA. The means of CGPA for students in semester three (x̄ = 2.72) and four (x̄ = 2.70) were calculated.

For semester three, the assumption of homogeneity of variances was tested and satisfied via Levene’s F-test, F(45) = .01, p = .913 (pre-test) and F(45) = .18, p = .672 (post-test). Whereas for semester four, the assumption of homogeneity of variances was tested and satisfied via Levene’s F-test, F(83) = .32, p = .573 (pre-test) and F(83) = 3.03, p = .085 (post-(pre-test).

Tables 4-17 and Table 4-18 show the outcomes of the independent samples t-test of students’ CGPA versus the students’ pre- and post-test. The outcomes revealed that the group of students in both semesters three and four with high CGPA scored higher than those having low CGPA in both the pre-test and post-test. However, the mean differences for pre-test (Table 4-17 and Table 4-18) were not significant in both semesters three and four. Nevertheless, the independent samples t-test was associated with a statistically significant in the post-test for both semester three with t(45) = -6.55, p = 0.00 and semester four with t(83) = -6.75, p = 0.00. The findings indicated that there was some relationship between the students’ CGPA and the performance of students learning in the PBL approach. Therefore, the hypothesis one: students of semester three and four with good CGPA above average have

higher scores in both the pre-test and the post-test than the ones with CGPA scores below average is not rejected.

Table 4-17: CGPA versus pre-test and post-test of semester three students.

Tests CGPA N Mean

Table 4-18: CGPA versus pre-test and post-test of semester four students.

Tests CGPA N Mean

Researcher’s hypothesis two:

H2: Students of semester four should have higher scores in the pre-test than students of semester three.

This hypothesis investigates whether there was a significant difference in performance scores between students of semester four and semester three in the pre-test. The independent-samples t-test was conducted to determine whether students of semester four would achieve higher scores on the pre-test than students of semester three.

The assumption of homogeneity of variances was tested and satisfied via Levene’s F-test, F(130) = 12.67, p = .001 (pre-test). However, the test was significant, therefore, the t-value from equal variance not assumed was used by equalizing the sample size. Random sampling was conducted on a group of semester four students (85) to equalize with the number of semester three students (47) as shown in Table 4-19.

The results from the independent samples t-test (Table 4-19) on pre-test indicated that the students of semester four scored higher mean (M = 17.55, SD = 5.12, N = 47) than semester three students (M = 10.09, SD = 3.34, N =47). The difference was statistically significant (t(79.12) = -8.38, p = .000). Therefore, the hypothesis two:

students of semester four would achieve higher scores on the pre-test than students of semester three, is not rejected.

Table 4-19: Independent samples t-test on Pre-test between students of semester three and four.

Semester N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pre-Test 3 47 10.09 3.335 .486

4 47 17.55 5.115 .746

Researcher’s hypothesis three:

H3: There is no difference in post-test scores between students of semester three who attending the CNC programming milling and students of semester four who attending the CNC programming lathe.

This hypothesis investigates whether there was a significant difference in performance scores between students of semester four and semester three in the post-test. The independent-samples t-test was conducted to determine whether there was a difference in post-test scores between students of semester three who attending the CNC programming milling and students of semester four who attending the CNC programming lathe.

The assumption of homogeneity of variances was tested and satisfied via Levene’s F-test, F(130) = 8.13, p = .005 (post-test). However, the test was significant, therefore, the t-value from equal variance not assumed was used (Table 4-20).

Table 4-20: Independent Samples t-test on Post-test between students of semester three and four.

The results from the independent samples t-test (Table 4-20) on post-test showed that the students of semester three scored higher mean (M = 48.09, SD = 20.18, N = 47) than semester four students (M = 43.00, SD = 13.73, N =85). However the difference was not statistically significant (t (130) = 1.54, p = .128). Therefore, the hypothesis three: there is no difference in post-test scores between students of semester three who attending the CNC programming milling and students of semester four who attending the CNC programming lathe is not rejected.

Semester N Mean St d. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Post-Test

3 47 48.09 20.179 2.943

4 85 43.00 13.727 1.489