Beyond The Screen: The Impact of Instructional Media Integration on Critical Thinking Skills and Academic Achievement Among High School Learners

This study examined instructional media integration and perceived learner outcomes at Bugang National High School, Division of Bohol, during School Year 2025–2026 as a basis for a multimedia-enhanced instructional framework. A descriptive-correlational design involved 18 teachers and 50 high school learners. A researcher-developed, literature-informed questionnaire gathered respondent profiles and five-point agreement ratings of instructional media integration and learner outcomes. Frequencies, percentages, weighted means, and Pearson correlation were used in the reported analysis. Learners were from Grades 7–10, with Grades 7 and 8 comprising 62%; 56% were female, and 74% accessed academic resources through smartphones with mobile data. Instructional media integration was generally rated Agree across media types, frequency and duration, instructional strategies, alignment with objectives, and learner engagement. The detailed tables indicated favorable perceived outcomes, with critical thinking and motivation and engagement rated Strongly Agree. The manuscript reported a positive association between instructional media integration and learner outcomes (r = .31, df = 66, p = .01). This association does not establish that media integration caused improvements or that questionnaire ratings represent independently measured achievement gains. The proposed framework combines multimedia components, instructional design, delivery, and implementation, supported by an implementation scheme and five sample learning activities. These materials are proposed applications of the findings; their effectiveness was not evaluated in the reported study.