Factors influencing academic performance of students in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in Imenti North district, Kenya

Abstract

This project was on the factors influencing academic performance of students in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in Imenti North District. The district has had a low mean score in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education for over a period of five years. The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors that influence academic performance of students in Kenya Certificate of secondary Education. The objectives of the study were to examine if discipline, the availability of resources, level of motivation and teaching approaches influences the academic performance of students in KCSE in Imenti North District. The study sought to answer four research questions. How do students' discipline, availability of learning resources, level of students' motivation and teaching approaches influence academic performance of students in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in Imenti North District? The study was carried using descriptive survey design. The targeted population was 36. head teachers, 260 form four teachers and 2115 form four students from the public secondary schools of Imenti North District. The sample size was 32 schools, 32 head teachers, 252 form four teachers and 322 form four students which were determined using the Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination table. The questionnaires were administered to the respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse data. After analysis the results were summarized and presented in tables. The results from the data analysis show that student's discipline influences academic performance of students in KCSE in Imenti North District. Availability of resources influenced academic performance of students in KCSE. From the analysis we could not link students' motivation as a factor that influences academic performance of students in Imenti North District. Teaching approaches do not influence academic performance of students in KCSE. From the study findings the recommendations were that discipline is very significant to the performance of students in KCSE and therefore be emphasized and strengthened through guidance and counseling programmes in all schools where the ministry of education could sponsor the counselors. Students should also be taught selfdiscipline and the school management should not only deal with discipline through punishments but also guidance and counseling. Schools should provide adequate resources to in order to facilitate teaching and learning in schools. This should be done as soon as possible. Education officers in the district should ensure that teachers have well written notes and other learning resource materials like notes as this has been found to affect the performance of students fro from further findings. The ministry of education through the education officers should organize in service courses for teachers from time to time for professional experiences. Head teachers and entire school management should be encouraged to offer result based motivation to students in the district as this had been associated to better results among some schools in Imenti North district. As much as possible schools in Imenti North district should be equipped with enough books and well stocked laboratories for effective learning as this had been found to affect the performance of schools in Imenti North district. The community should put up more single sex schools as they were few in the district and they performed better than the many mixed schools that performed poorly. Suggestions for further research were also made, that a similar study is done in private schools in the same district for comparison purposes. That a similar study be done in other districts in the country for comparison.