How Homesickness Can Affect Academic Performance of Students

Scope and Limitations

The study is focused on the determination of knowing the possible effects of homesickness to the academic performances of Grade 11 Humanities and Social Sciences students of SLU-LSHS. The study process is performed at Saint Louis University – Laboratory Senior High School located at Navy Base, City of Baguio, Province of Benguet.

The researchers concentrated on Saint Louis University Laboratory Senior High School students specifically Grade 11 excluding other grade levels. Its’ scope is also within the Humanities and Social Sciences Academic Track students eliminating other academic tracks such as Accountancy, Business and Management (ABM) Academic Track students and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Academic Track students.

According to Crouch & McKenzie (2006), less than 20 participants in a qualitative study helps a researcher build and maintain a close relationship and thus improve the “open” and “frank” exchange of information. On the other hand, according to Guest, Bunce, and Johnson (2006), it needs specifically 12 participants. The researchers have decided to have 12 participants for the research study, the same how Guest et. al. (2006) proposed it and which is also the 10% of the total population of Grade 11 HUMMS students of SLU-LHS. SLU-LHS Grade 11 HUMMS track has a total population of 116 students divided into 3 sections, HUMMS A (Mapagmalasakit) with 39 students, HUMMS B (----) with 39 students and HUMMS C (Matiyaga) wih 38 students.

The respondents are honor students (from Baguio City), honor student (not from Baguio City), Top 10 students in their class, regular student (from Baguio) and regular student (not from Baguio). The research will exclude themselves as interviewees for this research study for it to be bias-free and uncontrollable by the researchers. Through this, the researchers will know if there are effects of homesickness to the academic performance of Grade 11 HUMMS students.

To gain information and data, the researchers will use the process of interview to the participants disregarding other methods such as expert opinions and many more. The interview will be guided by the following set of questions prepared by the researchers that can possibly give information and data for the study. The interview will be audio recorded by the researchers and will use the transcribing process.

Although this research was carefully prepared, the researchers are still aware of its unavoidable limitations and shortcomings. The possible limitation for the side of the researchers may be the denied or limited access of the researchers to the respondents because the respondents may not be available or has something to do when the time of interview may come. The researchers will not be able to control the availability of the respondents. Another possible limitation for the researchers is the time to complete the research study seeing that there is only a limited span/due date given to complete the research study. The data gathered from the respondents is also a limitation owing to the fact that it is from the respondents’ personal experiences and encounters are not controllable by the researchers. There is no way that the researchers may control the data gathered considering that the research should not be in any way falsified for it to have an honest and great result in the end.