CHAPTER I

Background of the Study

School Choice: The Why's of Transferring

School choice has emerged during the past decade, it is

known as a solution to seemingly unmanaged problems of students
such as low academic performance. School choice policies are
designed for improving the student's achievement by providing
them quality education (Rutledge,2016; RAND Corporation, 2017).

There are several reasons why students alter their

educational setting(Oxford University Press, 2017).Recent
researches seeks to understand why parents choose school since
they desired for a better education for their
child(Curry,2018).Family's effort on moving a child to a new
school environment may offer opportunities which enable a student
to have a better access on standard education(Hill, 2016).A study
conducted by National Center for Education Statistics (2018)
shows that 'socioeconomic status' is one of the reported reasons
of students who moved to other school. By utilizing the date from
the 2013 Panel Study on Income Dynamics Rosters and Transfers
Module, study may understand how parental financial capacity
influences the transfer of education. The results from this study
have showed that transfer for education have increased due to
being dependent on the parental wealth (Rauscher,2016). Moreover,
related articles suggested that student movements may be
associated to racial isolation and poverty concentration
(Educational Policy 31(4),415-447,2017).

This study revealed the why's of students who transferred to

a new school environment. Those reasons would give an idea to the
teachers and Deped personnel, which enable them to conclude,
including what needs to improve and consider to provide better
educational system to the students.

The researchers observed that transferees in their school

which is Aguisan National High School is quite increasing. As a
result, the researchers conducted this research study so that the
school teachers and staffs will know if what are the qualities of
the school why students settled for good at Aguisan National High
School.
 Statement of the Problem

There are many reasons why students altered their school

environment. Some reasons may be the lack of financial support,
long distance from house to school, and the expected standard set
by the students from the school. In this study, the researchers
intend to specify and explore other undiscovered why's of the
respondents by conducting interviews using open-ended questions.

This study aims to answer the following questions:

1.Why do students need to move to another school environment?

2.What are the things that a student is expecting to a new school

environment?

3.Who influences a student to change educational setting?

4.How new school environment affect his/her life as student?

5.Does a new educational setting satisfied student's

expectations?

Assumption of the Study

It is said to be affirmative since the researchers found out

several reasons associated to school transferring.

Theoretical Framework

This study was anchored on Friedman's School Choice Theory,

this was introduced by Milton Friedman in 1955.This theory
explains that parents have the right to choose quality school
environment, parents can choose to educate their child through
public, private, charter, virtual, or home school method. There
are three elements of Friedman's School Choice Theory, these are:
competition, decentralization, and parental demand. These
elements were examined associated to the education system. These
elements were interrelated and the implementation of one could
affect the outcome of others.

Friedman stated that "improvements in education can only be

seen when we privatize a major segment of educational system,
this could offer more learning opportunities.” A school's success
will be achieved when parents have given a chance to let their
voice be heard (Lopez, 2012).

This theory may be one of the bases of this study since

proponents also seek to find out several factors affecting a
student's achievement and also the education system of the school
and how it meets the expectations of students as well as their
parents.

Arveseth, Lucinda G., "Friedman's School Choice Theory: The

Chilean Education System" (2014). All Graduate Plan B and other
Reports. 386.htps://digitalcommons.usu.edu/grad reports/386

Scope and Limitation

This study was focused on finding the reasons of learners

why they transfer to a new school, how new school environment
influences them, and the advantages they've earned to a new
educational setting as well. This study is conducted at Aguisan
National High School, Division of Himamaylan, Negros Occidental,
School Year 2019-2020.The researchers had generally selected all
the transferees as respondents in Aguisan National High School.
By the help of the respondents' voice, researchers were able to
accumulate answers and made conclusions afterward.

Significance of the Study

The findings of this study offered various uses. To specify,

this study is significant to the following stakeholders and
beneficiary:

DepEd Personnel. The results of the study may help DepEd

Personnel since this may provide rationale that would enable them
to develop further strategies to improve the educational system
of the school. For example, a student moved to other school
because they want to find a school which could satisfy their
standards. A school in which a student came from will realize
that they need to enhance their teaching techniques for them to
fulfill the students' expectations.

Students. This study is significant to the students because

they will be aware of the alteration and adjustments if they were
one of the transferees later on.
 Parents. This study is also significant for the parents of
the students because they will be able to put their child on a
secured educational setting.

Present Researchers. The findings will widen the minds of

the present researchers. Through this, they will be able to
analyze the topic and also improve their problem-solving skills
and critical thinking skills. This study tested the patience of
the researchers and made them learn about such phenomena.

Future Researchers. This study may a source of information

of the future researcher when they also conduct a similar topic.
They will also be able to get techniques and strategies when they
will base on this study.

Definition of Terms

The following terms were operationally and conceptually

defined to better understand the study:

School.
 CHAPTER II

Review of Related Literature / RRL

School choice policies have become a well-known topic in

recent decades as a solution to address chronically low-
performing schools and to enhance learner's achievement by
providing students access to higher-quality schools. Much of this
discussion is supported by a premise that increasing options will
result to increased student mobility as families look for new and
better schools. Prior research has found that, on average,
students who choose to move to a higher-quality school are higher
achieving, less likely to live in poverty, and more likely to be
white. Moreover, several scholars have raised equity concerns
related to school choice policies and questioned whether
improvements in student achievement (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2018).

Students change schools for several reasons, and some

students change more often than others--a reality that can leave
them feeling emotionally disconnected and often academically at
risk. Way back in history when schools are increasing attention
on students' social and emotional enhancement, this book get the
innovative practices that some institutions are using to link
with new students and provides practical strategies that all
schools can use to make both students and parents feel a part of
the school and community. The book tackles how to utilize
technology to improve families' experiences in their new schools,
provides strategies that fit at the school and district levels,
and gives schools suggestions for practices that are best suited
for younger students as well as for those at middle and high
school levels (Oxford University Press, 2017).

This article examines how student movements may relate with

both racial isolation and poverty concentration. This study
builds upon previous research by specifically examining learner
transfers into charter schools, disaggregating findings by
geography. White students that move within urban areas
transferred to more racially segregated schools (Educational
Policy 31 (4), 415-447, 2017).

This study investigates the relationship between race,

school choice and educational stratification in South Africa. It
focuses on racial distinction in families’ efforts to take
advantage of choice by transferring to opportunity (i.e.,
transferring to a school perceived to offer students better
access educational opportunity than their present school) and
explores the implications of those transfers for revealed
patterns of racial stratification in access to high quality
schools (British Journal of Sociology of Education 37 (4),
520-547, 2016).

Students’ self-reported reasons for changing their

educational setting varied by socioeconomic status. This reason
was selected for its relevance to education stakeholders, who may
be better able to address in-school reasons such as expulsion and
suspension than out of school reasons such as moving to a new
area (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018).

The function of this quantitative study was to find whether

factors of social comparison theory influence public school
choice in Indiana. There were two arms in the study. One arm used
three district-level variables (parent education level,
socioeconomic status, and homogeneity of race) connected with
social comparison theory (SCT) and five district-level variables
(prevalence of advanced courses, rate of perceived safety,
graduation rate, passing rate on the state achievement test, and
athletic success) associated with traditional measures of school
quality (SQ) to address three research questions. The second arm
of the study used seven variables (math achievement, language
arts achievement, race, socioeconomic status, special education
status, high ability status, and language minority status) to
determine how the transfer students’ districts of residence
compared to their districts of enrolment in their similarity to
the student. The conclusion was that factors of SCT influence
school choice (Indiana State University, 2018).

As wealth inequality increases, the importance of parental

financial transfers for socioeconomic attainment may also
accelerate. Using data from the 2013 Panel Study of Income
Dynamics Rosters and Transfers Module, this study examines two
questions: how parental financial transfers for education have
altered over time, and what connected is between these transfers
and adult socioeconomic outcomes. Results suggest that transfers
for education have increased, have become more commonplace, and
have become more dependent on parental wealth over time. Holding
constant several individual and parental measures, the
relationship between parental transfers for school and adult
socioeconomic attainment is positive (The Russell Sage Foundation
Journal of the Social Sciences, 2 (6) 172-196,2016).
 Chapter III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter contains research methodology which includes

research design, research locale, participants of the study, time
frame of the study, plan of establishing validity of the
qualitative data, data gathering procedures, and ethical
considerations, data analysis procedure, and schematic diagram of
Colaizzi’s method of data analysis to interpret qualitative
research data.

Research Design

This research study used phenomenological research design.

Creswell (2013) defines phenomenology as an approach to
qualitative research that focuses on the similarity of a lived
experience within a particular group. The essential goal of the
approach is to arrive at a description of the nature of the
particular phenomenon. Typically, interviews are conducted with a
group of persons who have first-hand knowledge of an event,
situation or experience. The interview attempts to answer two
broad questions (Moustakes, 1994): what have you experienced in
terms of the phenomenon? What contexts or situation have
typically influenced your experiences of the phenomenon
(Creswell, 2013)? Other forms of data such as documents,
observation and art may also be used. The data is then read and
reread and culled for like phrases and themes that are then
grouped to form collection of meaning (creswell,2013). Through
this process the researcher may construct the universal meaning
of the event, situation or experience and arrive at a more
profound understanding of the phenomenon.

This research design was really useful on the researcher’s

study in finding answer to their question on school choice and
the transferring event occurring at school. Through this,
researchers were able to arrive at fundamental conclusion and
realization about the research topic.

Locale of the Study

This study was conducted at Aguisan National High School,

Division of Himamaylan, District of Negros Occidental. This
school had been recorded to have numerous transferees, the
researchers have found a potential to the selected participants
to yield at the most significant pace.

Participants of the Study

This study had selected all the transferred students of both

Junior High School and Senior High School in Aguisan National
High School, school year 2019-2020.These participants were
eligible on answering the questions being established and arrive
to satisfying result.

Time Frame of the Study

This study lasted for almost three months before it was

completely done. The researchers had rigorously worked for this
paper. This was done through conducting interviews and
participants were given approximately ten minutes to answer the
given questions.It started from the first week of January 2020
and lasted until the second week of March 2020.

Plan of Action

This study involved systematic and empirical actions done by

the researchers. First, the researchers finished the chapters
one to three. Second, the researchers developed list of
questions/topics and this was applied for the interview sessions.
Third, the researchers made hand-written or printed permission
letter for the teachers of transferred students. Fourth, when the
permission letter was approved the participants were requested to
go out from their class for the actual interview session. Fifth,
the answers were gathered and analyzed. Sixth, the researchers
were capable of developing the conclusion and recommendations.

Data Gathering Instruments

This study was focused on understanding and analyzing the reasons

of the transferred students in Aguisan National High School of
school year 2019-2020.Hence, this used interview guide as
research instrument. An interview guide, or also called aide
memoire, is a list of topics, themes, or areas to be covered in a
semi structured interview (SAGE Encyclopedia,2020). According to
Thorogod (2010) interviews are useful to explore experiences,
views, opinions, or beliefs on specific matters. Often the
researcher develops a topic list before the start of the
interview, which can be flexible in manner. It requires the
interaction between the researcher and interviewee.

Establishing Validity of the Qualitative Data

Depending on their philosophical perspectives, some

qualitative researchers reject the framework of validity that is
commonly accepted in more quantitative research in the social
sciences. They reject the basic realist assumption that there is
a reality external to our perception of it. Consequently, it
doesn’t make sense to be concerned with the “truth” or “falsity”
of an observation with respect to an external reality (which is a
primary concern of validity). These qualitative researchers argue
for different standards for judging the quality of research.

For instance, Guba and Lincoln proposed four criteria for

judging the soundness of qualitative research and explicitly
offered these as an alternative to more traditional
quantitatively-oriented criteria. They felt that their four
criteria better reflected the underlying assumptions involved in
much qualitative research. Their proposed criteria and the
“analogous” quantitative criteria are listed in the table.

Traditional Criteria for Alternative Criteria for

Judging Quantitative Research Judging Qualitative Research
internal validity credibility
external validity transferability
reliability dependability
 objectivity conformability

Credibility

The credibility criteria involve establishing that the

results of qualitative research are credible or believable from
the perspective of the participant in the research. Since from
this perspective, the purpose of qualitative research is to
describe or understand the phenomena of interest from the
participant’s eyes, the participants are the only ones who can
legitimately judge the credibility of the results.

Transferability

Transferability refers to the degree to which the results of

qualitative research can be generalized or transferred to other
contexts or settings. From a qualitative perspective
transferability is primarily the responsibility of the one doing
the generalizing. The qualitative researcher can enhance
transferability by doing a thorough job of describing the
research context and the assumptions that were central to the
research. The person who wishes to “transfer” the results to a
different context is then responsible for making the judgment of
how sensible the transfer is.

Dependability

The traditional quantitative view of reliability was

associated on the assumption of replicability or repeatability.
Essentially it is concerned with whether we would obtain the same
results if we could observe the same thing twice. But we can’t
actually measure the same thing twice – by definition if we are
measuring twice, we are measuring two different things. In order
to estimate reliability, quantitative researchers construct
various hypothetical notions (e.g., true score theory) to try to
get around this fact.

The idea of dependability, on the other hand, emphasizes the

need for the researcher to account for the ever-changing context
within which research occurs. The research is responsible for
describing the changes that occur in the setting and how these
changes affected the way the research approached the study.
Conformability

Qualitative research tends to assume that each researcher

brings a unique perspective to the study. Conformability refers
to the degree to which the results could be confirmed or
corroborated by others. There are a number of strategies for
enhancing conformability. The researcher can document the
procedures for checking and rechecking the data throughout the
study. Another researcher can take a “devil’s advocate” role with
respect to the results, and this process can be documented. The
researcher can actively search for and describe and negative
instances that contradict prior observations. And, after the
study, one can conduct a data audit that examines the data
collection and analysis procedures and makes judgments about the
potential for bias or distortion.

Data Gathering Procedures

1. Had been permitted by the School Principal, Mrs.Silva

G. Digal and the teacher of respondents in Aguisan
National High School in school year 2019-2020.
2. Had made the list of topics or questions to be used for
interview.
3. Respondents were requested to go out from their class
and series of questions were being asked to them.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical Considerations can be specified as one of the most

important parts of the research. Dissertations may even be doomed
to failure if this part is missing.

According to Bryman and Bell (2007) the following ten points

represent the most important principles related to ethical
considerations in dissertations:

1. Research participants should not be subjected to harm in any

ways whatsoever.
2. Respect for the dignity of research participants should be
prioritised.
3. Full consent should be obtained from the participants prior
to the study.
 4. The protection of the privacy of research participants has
to be ensured.
5. Adequate level of confidentiality of the research data
should be ensured.
6. Anonymity of individuals and organisations participating in
the research has to be ensured.
7. Any deception or exaggeration about the aims and objectives
of the research must be avoided.
8. Affiliations in any forms, sources of funding, as well as
any possible conflicts of interests have to be declared.
9. Any type of communication in relation to the research should
be done with honesty and transparency.
10. Any type of misleading information, as well as
representation of primary data findings in a biased way must
be avoided.

In order to address ethical considerations aspect of your

dissertation in an effective manner, you will need to expand
discussions of each of the following points to at least one
paragraph:

1. Voluntary participation of respondents in the research is

important. Moreover, participants have rights to withdraw
from the study at any stage if they wish to do so.
2. Respondents should participate on the basis of informed
consent. The principle of informed consent involves
researchers providing sufficient information and assurances
about taking part to allow individuals to understand the
implications of participation and to reach a fully informed,
considered and freely given decision about whether or not to
do so, without the exercise of any pressure or coercion.
3. The use of offensive, discriminatory, or other unacceptable
language needs to be avoided in the formulation of
Questionnaire/Interview/Focus group questions.
4. Privacy and anonymity or respondents are of a paramount
importance.
5. Acknowledgement of works of other authors used in any part
of the dissertation with the use of Harvard/APA/Vancouver
referencing system according to the Dissertation Handbook
6. Maintenance of the highest level of objectivity in
discussions and analyses throughout the research.
 7. Adherence to Data Protection Act (1998) if you are studying
in the UK.

Data Analysis Procedure

To answer specific problem number 1, which aims to identify

the respondent’s demographic profile (sex, age, grade & section),
information listing was used.

To answer specific problem number 2, which aims to set forth

in finding the reasons why students need to transfer to other
school environment, actual interview and recording was used.

To answer specific problem number 3, which aims to set forth

to answer the numerous expectations of each students to their new
school environment, similar method was used.

To answer specific problem number 4, which aims to set forth

in finding a certain person or things which influences a student
to alter his/her educational setting, the same method was
utilized.

To answer specific problem number 5, which aims to determine

the effects of the new school environment to the life of student,
interview and recording was also used.

To answer specific problem number 6, which aims to find if

the new school environment provides satisfaction on the student,
methods from problem 1-5 was used.

Researchers reads a description of each

person participating in the study to
gain a sense of participants
 Researchers extracts statements with
significant to the research question

Researcher begins to articulate what

Significant statements should be direct
the statements mean and creates themes
quotations from the participants
from the meanings

Researcher groups similar themes

together and organizes them into

Researcher integrates the results into

a comprehensive description of the
topic and returns to each participant
to verify the results
Schematic Diagram of Colaizzi’s method of data analysis to
interpret qualitative research data