Abstract

Writing skill is a fundamental skill for academic achievement and professional growth. It allows students to express themselves effectively and is vital in most professional careers. Nevertheless, most students lack writing skills due to reasons like low motivation, low self-esteem, and limited exposure to effective teaching practices. These difficulties obstruct their development of competent writing skills that they will need for their future academic and professional careers. With the growing integration of modular learning into the Philippine education system, specifically through Self-Learning Modules (SLMs), it is important to analyze their impact on improving students' writing skill. This research endeavors to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of SLMs, writing attitudes, and actual writing skills of the Grade 10 students in one national high school in Santa Rosa, Laguna, Philippines. More specifically, it aims to determine the effect of SLMs on students' writing attitudes and skills and whether these factors are associated with general writing ability. A descriptive-correlational research design was employed in this study to analyze students' perceptions of SLMs, their attitudes toward writing, and their actual writing skills. A total of 300 randomly selected Grade 10 students participated in the study, answering survey questionnaires, and completing a writing proficiency test. The data were analyzed using weighted mean, Pearson’s r correlation, and percentage distribution to establish relationships between students' perceptions of SLMs, their writing attitudes, and their writing skills. The results indicated that students greatly valued the worth of SLMs, showing that they found them helpful in their learning process. The respondents also showed a positive attitude towards writing, showing motivation and valuing it. Nevertheless, even with these positive attitudes, the evaluation of students' writing ability indicated that most of them were at a "Fair" level, with only a few attaining a "Good" level of proficiency. Correlation analysis proved that a significant but moderate correlation existed between writing attitudes and the perceived usefulness of SLMs, showing that SLMs could be related to affecting the perception of writing among students. Nevertheless, further analysis was not able to show a significant relationship between the perceived usefulness of SLMs and writing skills and between writing attitudes and writing skills. These results suggest that positive attitudes toward writing are not always reflective of better writing skills, which suggests that other variables, including teaching methods, student motivation, and practice time, significantly contribute to the development of writing. This research emphasizes the necessity of enhanced teaching techniques and pedagogical approaches in self-learning modules to optimize its effectiveness. Although SLMs contribute to students' writing attitudes, their direct influence on writing skills is limited. Thus, it is suggested that other variables like teacher support, cooperative learning activities, and extensive writing practice be included in the curriculum to improve students' writing skills. Subsequent studies can investigate how various teaching methodologies, online learning resources, and peer-to-peer collaboration can further enhance students' writing improvement within a modular learning environment.