CRITIQUE PAPER

I. Reference:
Cabisado, R., Castor, N. G., Estrella, L. J., Flores, S. M., and Tupas, T. R. (2011). “Effects of Instruction on Students’ Expectations in College Physics.” An Undergraduate Thesis, College of Education, West Visayas State University, Iloilo City

II. Summary:
The experimental study scrutinized the effects of instruction on student’s outlook in College Physics. The subjects of the study were the second year college students taking up Bachelor of Science in Biological Science who were enrolled in College Physics in West Visayas State University for the school year 2010-2011. The researchers identified the teacher’s instruction as the independent variable, and the dependent variable was the expectations of second year college taking up Bachelor of Science in Biological Science, taking into consideration their attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions about College Physics. The study utilized the one-group pretest – posttest design in an experimental study. A Likert-type scale instrument was used as a data gathering instrument.
The analysis of data was shown on the descriptive data analysis with the use of the frequency and percentage. The researchers utilized t- Test to determine the significant difference in the expectations of second year students enrolled in college physics before and after teacher’s instruction.
The findings of this study revealed the significant effects of instruction on students’ expectations in College Physics.
The paper is beneficial to the students of College Physics in assessing and determining how their expectations towards this subject may remain or change, and also to the Teachers for they will be guided in their choice of appropriate teaching strategies. In addition, the teachers can check if they are effective in teaching the subject or if they need more improvement in the teaching-learning process.
The findings of the study may aid the teachers in understanding the learners for them to develop a better way in recognizing the terms and problems in College Physics. They can also test the students’ ability in formulating the best solution for a particular problem that explains the idea needed to prove their answers.
As a whole, this paper is descriptive and this is limited only on the effects of instruction that this may brought on the expectations of the second year Bachelor of Science in Biological Science students enrolled in a Physics subject in the West Visayas State University during the school year 2010-2011.

III. Research Purpose and/or Research Questions
The goal of their dissertation is to determine the effects of instruction on students’ expectations in college physics among those taking up the course at West Visayas State University. More specifically, they enumerated these following questions: 1. What are the initial and terminal expectations of College Physics among students of West Visayas State University?
2. Is there a difference on the expectations of students in College Physics before and after instruction?
The research intentions were explicit. The statement of the problem that has been developed by the researchers is just enough to comply the over-all goal of the study. Basic thoughts and other important things needed to be explored are all emphasized and it seems that everything is doing well.

IV. Theoretical Framework
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge or the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge in particular with its foundations, scope and validity. The author’s perspective is very important in the consideration of a certain study. In this study the author’s views that physics as science brings changes in the development of the community. For them the physics is applied in all aspect of human interest.
They believe that the knowledge about the subject matter and how it is taught influence the personality of students. Education influences people’s progress in any field of endeavor because people acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes. The authors also cite some factors such as the school which has the great role in student’s achievement, and the teacher which is the key factor to learning that the child can acquire for positive development and growth. Lastly, the author discussed the different expectations of the students. They state the theories in a good manner with regard to a good discussion with the study.

V. Methodology Research involves study of methods and systematic techniques to be used to a particular discipline especially in a scientific one. The strength of the author’s methodology is that they select a good group of students to be used in their experimental research. It is good because we can determine the different expectations of the students in the subject matter it’s because it is their first time to take physics as their subject. However, it takes a long time to find out whether the students expectations improve or not.
There is a question on my mind asking that what if the students behavior didn’t change and their expectations will not improve as the days of the study goes by, are they willing to repeat again the process or continue and accept the result of their study? But the method used is consistent with the author’s theoretical perspective. They used the Likert type scale instrument in which it consist of a variety of statements about the nature of physics, the study of physics and their nature to it. They used inferential statistics in data analysis to investigate the use of t-test for dependent sample to ascertain the effects of instruction on student’s expectation on the college physics. They also used t-test to determine the significant differences existed between the treatment means and among section means. The levels of significance were set at 0.05 level probability.

VI. Findings and Discussion
The findings were presented in two ways: the descriptive analysis, the mean and frequency to determine the effects of instructions to students expectations in physics while inferential analysis, used the two tests for two labeled variable. An author explains the items that got the highest and the lowest mean.
They get the significant difference through statistical computations. It shows that the students in learning physics made them change some of their ideas about how the physical world works and in order for them to solve problems they need to figure it out.
In the findings that they have presented, the students’ terminal expectation of College Physics, they have found out that there is a change in the beliefs of the students after the ten-week instruction of the teacher in College Physics. It shows that most of them believe that knowledge in Physics consists of many pieces of information each of which applies primarily to a specific situation. It was seconded by the belief that to be able to use an equation in a problem, they need to know what each term in the equation means. Some of the students have the same belief after the ten-week interval of instruction which results to a tie between the following beliefs: Students believe that the most crucial thing in solving a physics problem is finding the right equation to use; learning physics helps them to understand the situations in their everyday life; learning physics requires thinking, restructuring and reorganizing the information that they have learned in the class. It was followed by the belief that “problem solving” in physics basically means matching problems with facts or equations and then substituting values to get a number. After the instruction, learning physics made them change some of their ideas about how the physical world works. Some of them rely on what they just read from the text, work most problems, or pay close attention in class to understand most of the basic ideas in this course; The result of their exams guide them to improve their understanding of the course material; and lastly, they also found that the least among the top 10 expectations of the students was that learning physics is a matter of acquiring knowledge that is specifically located in the laws, principles, and equations given in class or in the textbook.
The long essay produce something new in the understanding of the topic because in the manner that, findings are presented in tables which enables us to see and understand the result of their study it is. They presented the data clearly and accurately.

VII. Personal Critique/Reactions/Reflections
The study is about the Effects of instruction on students expectations in College Physics. It enables the researcher to test the expectations of the students on the instructions used during the discussion of the subject matter. It takes a long week to test whether those expectations are improving or not. But the researchers come up with a precise and accurate result of the study. Using of tables is important especially in doing inferential statistics because you can easily understand and visualize the data being presented.
They presented it in a very clear manner in order for the readers like us to understand and gain knowledge in their work. It is not easy to show judgment in this study because first as you need to understand the scope of the study in order for you to comments if there are some errors or random questions that comes into your mind. But overall, I admire the authors of this study because of their patience and giving their great effort in making this study a successful and a knowledgeable one.