CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES

Foreign Study

According to Super’s (1990) Developmental Theory of Career Development, high school

students are at the exploration stage of career development, which involves identifying and

choosing their strand preferences, while also making preparations about their strand choice .The

study showed the areas of a student’s life and how it affects their plans, decisions, and strand

choice they make. Factors are: Gender, Parental Influence, and Peer Influence. The study

attempted to identify and differentiate to what extent these factors played varying roles in their

strand preference as well as their future career.

Local Study

According to Moneva and Malibas’ (2019) Preferences in Senior High School Tracks of

The Grade 10 Students, a lot of factors should be considered in choosing a strand in Senior High

School. Gender is a very crucial factor among students in their choice of a strand. Gender

distinguishes female students to be more inclined to artistic related strands while male students

select scientific-related strands. Gender differences exist in selection of specialty medical

courses. On the contrary, in choosing journalism, traditional sex-role stereotypes as career

become irrelevant. It does not make any variations of influence of family members, peers,

teachers and guidance counselors in the choice of strand. Also, similarity of strand preference

choice may be depicted in cases like mother and daughter close relationship while in developing
and undeveloped countries, career decision making for college is influenced by parents

particularly the father .

Aside from gender, before entering college, socio-economic status and lifestyle is also

included in the factors affecting the choices of strand of a Grade 10 student.

Decision-making, negative thinking and career difficulties indicate indecisiveness of a

student. In order for students to make the right decision, one can consider interest and IQ;

interest in the subject, relationship with peers, members of the family and teachers, and by

assessment and research in the internet and other sources before making the decision. Many

students need career counseling before choosing their strand for them to take the correct career

path in Senior High School. The approach to supporting student willingness is a potential

influence. In terms of personal qualities, low self-confidence in the classroom implies the

behavior to be less motivated and do less effort while adjusting their aspirations. Confidence

evolves through experiences in a student’s life and overconfidence is relevant to the good

earning expectation of an individual.

REVIEW OF RELATED ARTICLES

Foreign Article

An American self-help author Steve Pavlina wrote an article about The Challenge of

Choosing the Right Career (2007). According to him, those people who are indecisive and

deliberate in making decisions tend to choose the wrong career. So if you feel like you made the

wrong choice of career, it’s definitely fine. “Good choices rarely happen by accident”, as Pavlina

said. Staying in that bad decision can also lead your health, relationship, and life into bad
situation. But still, making good career choice will most likely be hard unless you have tried it.

Pavlina stated an example in his article about a chef that he and his friend hired. When they gave

the recipe to the chef for her to bake, the result was unexpected. He said that the feels like a

mattress when they try to chew on it. Instead of telling the chef how the cake really tasted, they

somehow told the chef that maybe the recipe is the bad one. And that example made him take

another lesson that if you ever made a mistake, just the same as choosing bad career, all you have

to do is move on and forgive yourself. Don’t stay on the situation but learn from it little by little.

Local Article

In the said article of Philippine Basic Education (2018), the various strands and tracks are

now offered in the last two years of basic education. The various options available obviously

make it possible for students to find themselves later unprepared for the courses they decide to

take in college. As we all know, there are four academic strands namely: STEM (Science,

Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), ABM (Accountancy, Business, and Management),

HUMSS (Humanities and Social Sciences), and GAS (General Academic Strand). It is important

to remember that no strand is above the other and one should not look down on a certain strand

because it seems easy. Students of each strand face different challenges and it’s up to them to be

prepared to face these challenges.

In the official statement on the bridging program, the National Union of Students of the

Philippines (NUSP) gave concern over the Program required for the first wave of Senior High

School (SHS) graduates that entered college this school year. The said program is for students

who took SHS strands that are “mismatched” with their current tertiary education course. They
are required to take additional subjects in order to “demonstrate the competencies” required of a

graduate of a strand aligned with the course.

In Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), students under the Bridging Program

are required to finish two additional subjects over two years just to be considered qualified to

take their college course, while also taking the same subjects as students who do not have to take

the Bridging Program.

In the University of the East (UE), the Bridging Program requires students to take

General Education subjects during the regular school year, and then enroll in their major subjects

during the summer break. This entails around twenty thousand pesos (Php 20,000) in additional

fees on top of their already bloated tuition and other school fees — a slap on the face of students

and families whose pockets were emptied by capitalist-educators that profited from the K-12

program.

The problem, however, goes far beyond additional time and money. The question of

whether these bridge programs are effective or not still remains up to answer. This is the huge

difference between a "bridging program" that is meant for advancement and a "bridging

program" that is meant for remedial. A study in Australia shows: Students entering universities

with insufficient mathematics preparation for the courses they intend to study is an increasing

problem. We show evidence of how withdrawal rates, failure rates, and final marks in a first year

calculus unit are strongly associated with the level of mathematics studied at school, the assumed

knowledge published for the degree and enrolment in a bridging course. Bridging course students

were, on the whole, able to pass their first semester university calculus-based subject; however,

they did not achieve at the level of their mathematically well-prepared peers.
 The K to 12 Curriculum in the Philippines with its tracks and strands basically forces

students to choose a career path at an early age. The wrong choices made unfortunately have

serious consequences.

SYNTHESIS

From this study, the researchers have synthesized that there are way more far factors that

could be affecting a student’s strand preference. Though this study only used 5 factors, still it

causes a great impact on the decision of a student.