The influence of teacher characteristics on motivation of pre-school children in learning science activity in Marimanti Zone, Tharaka-South District 

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out the influence of teachers characteristics on motivation of pre-school children in leaning science activities in Marimanti Zone Tharaka South District. Teacher characteristics like academic, Professional qualification, age and experience do have an influence on how a teacher is able to motivate the pre-school children in science activities. This study adopted a survey design. This design was suitable for this study because variables such as age, academic qualification, professional qualification and experience of the teachers were not be manipulated. The target population for this study included 14 public and 2 private primary schools with pre-school classes. The 16 pre-schools formed the part of target population .To ensure validity of the instrument the researcher piloted the instruments in one public and one private school that were not based in the main study. The researcher administered the instruments to teachers and pupils of each pre-school at a time. The data was analyzed using frequency, counts and tables. The findings of the study will help the policy makers to determine methods of effective teaching that motivates preschool children to learn science activities. The researcher reviewed the existing literature on the subject matter of the study. The section relates past studies on influence of teacher characteristics on motivation of pre-school. The results of the study revealed that pre-primary teaching is dominated by Secondary school leavers who have little or no training. Teachers are not employed by the TSC like their primary school counterparts meaning that they regard the job as temporary and can quit with availability of an opportunity .Teachers without teaching facilities were 50% , A few used text books (20%), teaching charts (10%) and rulers (5%) while remaining (15%) used other facilities. Pre-primary teachers in Tharaka South District are dominated by women who make up to 80% of the teaching force. The main methods used by pre-primary teachers in teaching science were writing on the black board and showing the pupils practically/conducting demonstrations. The researcher recommends that the government to provide adequate facilities and resources to run all the pre-primary classes instead of leaving the burden to parents.