This study describes the effects of the Academic Self-Efficacy Enhancement Program (ASEEP) that was developed by the researcher and integrated into the Science 8 lessons for the first grading period of the school year 2020–2021 during the implementation of modular distance learning. This study included sixteen (16) grade 8 students-at-risk of dropping out and struggling students from Malolos City High School-Santisima Trinidad in District 5 of the Division of City Schools of Malolos. All participating students are purposively selected for this study. The sixteen (16) students in this study are 13 or 14 years of age and are classified as struggling students based on their self-reported Science 7 average grade and their perceived academic self-efficacy mean score. All the 16 student-participants have a Science 7 average grade below 80 and a perceived academic self-efficacy below the mean score of 2.00. All the participants were asked to answer the Academic Self-Efficacy Scale for Filipino Junior High School (ASES-FJHS) before and after the implementation of ASEEP. The student-participants have undergone the intervention program for seven (7) weeks.
All the components of academic self-efficacy have increased from before and after the implementation of ASEEP: Perceived Control (1.95 to 2.98), Competence (1.95 to 2.97), Persistence (1.96 to 3.04), and Self-Regulated Learning (1.85 to 2.97). Subsequently, the overall mean scores of the student-participants have increased from before and after the implementation of ASEEP (1.93 to 2.99). It was also revealed in the study that there is a significant difference between the level of perceived academic self-efficacy of junior high school student-participants before and after the implementation of the Academic Self-Efficacy Enhancement Program in Science 8. The results of this study show the effectiveness of the ASEEP in increasing the academic self-efficacy of struggling grade 8 students.