Profiling Students in the K to 12 Curriculum Strands Based on Academic Performance Using Cluster Analysis

The addition of the senior high school in the K to 12 Curriculum is intended to help students prepare for their future career. By choosing a specific strand, the students are equipped with knowledge and skills that they would need in their desired field; hence, students in different strands are expected to be taking up different courses throughout their senior high school. This also means that in order to have academic success, students' abilities must fit their chosen strand. The current study aims to categorize students based on their academic performance to determine the type of students in each strand of the K to 12 Curriculum. Specifically, it employs k-Means clustering to categorize students based on their Earth Science and General Mathematics scores. As the results showed, there were four clusters identified, which reflected the abilities of students in each cluster. Moreover, MANOVA revealed that these four clusters are significantly different from each other in both Earth Science and General Mathematics scores. Further, Chisquare test uncovered the significant association between the clusters and the students' strand. It was then found out that STEM students' abilities were fit to their chosen strand. However, the same cannot be said for the other strands since only the students' Earth Science and General Mathematics scores were used in the study. Hence, further research must be done that would include other measures of students' performance