Measuring the Impact of a Supplemental Civic Education Program on Students’ Civic Attitude and Efficacy Beliefs

Abstract

This study examines the impact of Project Citizen Philippines, an extra-classroom civic education program, on its 3^rd and 4^th year high school participants’ civic attitude and efficacy beliefs. Three hundred forty three participants and 107 non-participants from various public high schools in the Philippines’ National Capital Region were compared on their scores on relevant scales, using the Mann-Whitney U test. Qualitative data was also gathered and analyzed using randomly selected student reflection papers. Findings indicate that project participants scored higher in the efficacy and attitude measures used than non-participants. Passages from the reflection papers lend support to these findings. The results are discussed in relation to other findings in the literature, and in light of the country’s current and planned school-based civic education programs. An implication of the study is the need to promote extra-classroom activities to supplement curriculum-based civic education efforts and to reach as wide a student population as possible, and to systematically evaluate and document such efforts towards providing data in furthering civic education in the Philippines.