PAGTUKLAS: Prior Art-Guided Tutorials by Using Digital Knowledge to Learn and Apply Searching Strategies

This classroom-based action research examined the effectiveness of PAGTUKLAS (Prior Art-Guided Tutorials by Using Digital Knowledge to Learn and Apply Searching Strategies), an interactive Genially-based tutorial, in improving the prior art searching skills of third-year Bachelor of Technology and Livelihood Education (BTLEd) students majoring in Home Economics and Industrial Arts at Davao Oriental State University. A needs survey and diagnostic test showed that students had difficulty generating keywords, constructing Boolean search strings and navigating patent databases, which root cause analysis traced to a lack of prior knowledge and difficulty navigating patent databases. The tutorial guided students through seven locked levels, from writing a one-sentence invention summary to analyzing patent abstracts and was implemented with 71 students over four weeks in two action research cycles, the second using a revised version. Data were gathered through a pretest and posttest scored with a validated rubric, a confidence rating scale, interviews and observation notes. The mean score rose from 27.00 (SD = 11.14) to 52.68 (SD = 9.86) out of 60, and the number of students reaching the 75% passing score rose from 4 (5.63%) to 60 (84.51%). The gain was statistically significant, t(70) = 16.08, p < 0.001, with a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.91). Mean confidence rose from 3.10 (moderately confident) to 3.97 (confident), although confidence was not related to posttest performance (r = 0.02), and nine of the 11 students who did not pass rated themselves as confident. Interviews described the tutorial as useful and its revised version as easier to use, and eight implementation challenges were addressed between cycles. PAGTUKLAS offers a low-cost, replicable approach to teaching prior art searching in teacher education.