INFLUENCE OF SELECTED INSTRUCTIONAL FACTORS ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN MAKUENI COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

Education is an indispensable catalyst that strongly influences the development, economic fortunes of a nation and the quality of life of its people. The aim of education is to equip students with knowledge, skills, attitudes and competencies that would enable them render useful services to themselves and the society. The success of secondary school students is mainly measured by their academic performance in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination. Instructional leadership, instructional supervision and appropriate use of instructional resources are important components in education which help students and teachers to realize the education goals especially in Kenya. Makueni public secondary schools KCSE performance had been in the decline between the years 2007-2010 from mean grade of C to C- (minus) and for this reason, the study investigated the influence of selected instructional factors on public secondary schools students’ academic performance in Makueni County, Kenya. The study expected to benefit Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MOEST), Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (QUASOs) in implementation of curriculum and evaluation process. Four research objectives guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The target population was 2034 (headteachers, teachers and QASOs). The sample size for the study was 93 headteachers, 418 teachers and nine District Quality Assurance and Standard Officers (DQASOs), a total of 520 respondents. Stratified, simple random and purposive sampling procedures were employed to determine the sample size. Questionnaires were used as research instruments to gather information from the respondents. A co-efficiency value of 0.7 was obtained and this deemed the reliability for each instrument used. The study concluded that the instructional resources, instructional leadership practices and instructional supervision influenced students’ academic performance. The study also recommended that for public secondary schools in order to perform better academically in their KCSE examination there is need to equip the schools with teaching-learning materials, government employ teachers and headteachers’ support of teachers’ attendance of seminars. Suggestions for further study is that the role of instructional supervision on school policy development and replication of this study to be carried out in other administrative counties to establish the robustness of the findings and formulation of policy recommendations.