Level of College Readiness and Challenges Encountered in The Online Distance Learning of Grade 12 Senior High School Students of Divine Word College of Legazpi, School Year 2020-2021: A Correlational Study

The purpose of this study was to know the implications of ODL to college readiness of Grade 12 senior high school students and the relationship between the encountered challenges and the college preparedness of the students. This study will also enable the department to guide and prepare the students for higher education. This study sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the demographic profile of the respondents in terms of the following: [a] Sex, [b] Device used during online distance learning and [c] Internet Provider. (2) What are the challenges encountered by Grade 12 Senior High School students in their Online Distance Learning in terms of: [a] Academic Performance, [b] Technology and Internet Connectivity, [c] Teacher-Related and [d] Personal-Related. (3) What is the level of College Readiness of Grade 12 Senior High School students? (4) Is there a significant relationship between the challenges encountered by Grade 12 Senior High School students in their Online Distance Learning to their College Readiness? (5) What strategic interventions can be done to improve the implementation of Online Distance Learning? The researchers chose the entire population of the Grade 12 Senior High School students of Divine Word College of Legazpi, the School Year 2020-2021 as the respondents of the study. The total respondents are three hundred twenty-three (323). The retrieval rate of the response is 78.63% for the survey in the challenges encountered by the students while the retrieval rate of the students took the aptitude test is 86.15%. This study made use of the correlational research design to measure two variables and assess the statistical relationship (i.e., the correlation) between them with little or no effort to control extraneous variables. In addition, the researchers used survey questionnaire to identify the challenges encountered by Grade 12 Senior High School students in their Online Distance Learning. The challenges are presented into four groups: Academic Performance, Internet and Connectivity, Teacher-related, and Personal-related challenges. Moreover, to measure the level of readiness of students in Higher Education, the researchers will use the data of the Aptitude Test administered by Asian Psychological Services and Assessment Inc (APSA). There was a total of two hundred fifty-four (254) grade 12 respondents, one hundred twenty-five (125) of them were male and one hundred twenty-nine (129) of them were female. Majority of the respondents (59.1%) use both Laptop/Desktop and Smartphone as their gadgets for online distance learning. In addition, the majority of the respondents (35.8%) uses DCTV as their internet service provider. The Top 5 challenges encountered by the students: (1) I am having a hard time studying online. (2) I have trouble concentrating when doing my activities at home. (3) My area is always affected by power service interruptions. (4) I experience mental fatigue after online classes. (5) I do house chores while I am attending my classes. Half of the respondents meet the standards based on the standardized test administered by APSA. Only 1.1% of the respondents had a descriptive rating of “excellent/highly proficient†while 4.3% of the respondents had a descriptive rating of “does not meet standard†. Furthermore, 44.6% of the respondents had a descriptive rating of “progressing towards standards†. The researchers used Pearson r Correlation to know if there is a relationship between the college readiness and the challenges encountered by the students during ODL. The Pearson r Correlation value is -0.02069 which indicates that it has a negative relationship. Although it has a negative relationship it is a negligible correlation based on literature.