Teachers’ Perspective and Preparedness Towards Online Learning in Social Studies

The study aimed to find whether differences exist in the perspective of teachers towards online learning when grouped according to profile. Specifically, the study endeavored to describe the profile of the respondents in terms of age, gender, civil status, and educational attainment; determine the extent of teachers’ perspective towards online learning in the areas of access, interaction, response, and results; ascertain the level of teachers’ preparedness towards online learning in teaching social studies; and find out whether a significant difference exists in the preparedness of teachers towards online learning when grouped according to age, gender, civil status, and educational attainment. The study was conducted among the national high schools in the Division of Malaybalay City, Bukidnon for the School Year 2020-2021. A total of 96 Social Studies teachers were drawn from (6) national schools through purposive sampling. To gather relevant information needed for the study, the researcher adopted the questionnaire developed by Larsen (2012) and Lichoro (2015). Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test, and analysis of variance were used to treat the data. The majority of the teachers were in middle adulthood and were predominantly female. It is further revealed that most of them were single and bachelor’s degree holders. Access and interaction were observed in great extent, while responses and results were demonstrated in moderate extent, suggesting that the teachers’ perspective towards online learning showed certainty in the way they take online learning as a learning platform in this pandemic period. Similarly, teachers’ preparedness towards online learning yielded positive results in all indicators, implying that teachers consider online learning as a powerful tool for them to teach and support the learning of the students in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a significant difference in the preparedness of teachers when they were grouped according to age, where younger teachers are construed to be ready for this kind of learning delivery, while sex, civil status, and educational attainment did not show significant differences. This means that regardless of their characteristics in these three variables, their preparedness for online learning is the same. Thus, school administrators have to consider teachers to acquire new skills, sharpen existing ones, perform better, increase productivity and be better teachers in this new way of approaching learning.