| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of school culture on performance of Kenya certificate of secondary Education Examinations in schools in Kirinyaga East District by establishing the extent to which schools culture influence students' KCSE performance; investigating the role of teachers in shaping school culture, determining the influence of headteachers' leadership styles on academic performance as well as examining the students perception towards their school culture. The study was guided by McClelland's achievement motivation theory which shows that people's motivation patterns reflect their cultural environment. The study used a descriptive study design to collect data from a large population in order to determine the co-relation between variables. The population consisted of students, teachers and the principals in Kirinyaga East district (DEO, Kirinyaga East, 2011).
The estimated number of students is 6,400 students, 480 teachers, 32 principals and the 32 public secondary schools in the district. Fourteen schools were purposefully selected from the 32 across categories and type which includes day, boarding, single-sex and mixed schools. All the fourteen principals of the schools were selected as respondents to the study. The researcher applied simple random sampling (SRS) to select a total of 156 students from form 1 to form 4 and fifty six (56) teachers taking into account the different departments in secondary schools.
The analysis was aided by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer software. The processed data was presented, in the form of percentages, tables, upon which the data findings could be interpreted easily. According to the study, over 50 percent of teachers indicated that the .commitment of students to school tradition had a high influence on academic performance, strong culture is experienced when teachers, students and the school community are committed to a certain school norm, which translates to good performance in KCSE. In addition, forty percent of headteachers used leadership style that involved teachers and students in decision making.
This shows that headteachers have leadership capabilities in giving direction to a certain school culture as well as teachers who are a cutting edge in the formation and shaping of culture in secondary schools. Moreover, culture also emanates from students perception on how things are accomplished in their respective schools, the available resources as well as the academic performance. As part of recommendations, head teachers should adopt a democratic style that includes all major stakeholders in decision making. Among the major stakeholders should be the students, who should be given chances to express their opinions and suggestions before a decision that will directly affect them is arrived at. This would diminish resistance to changes and eventually shape their discipline positively. This would in turn translate into good KCSE performance. | en_US |
