| dc.description.abstract | This study sought to investigate the factors that affect students' academic performance in technical courses. The study was carried out in one of the Technical, Industrial, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TIVET) institution, Kisumu Polytechnic in Kisumu East District, Kenya. Case study research design was used to carry out the research. The specific objectives of the research were, to: analyze students demographic characteristics and find out how they influenced students' academic performance; establish the extent to which government policies on education impacted on students' academic achievement; determine how the learning environment contributed to students' academic performance; establish the extent to which peer influences affected students' academic performance; and determine how teachers' personal characteristics influenced students' academic achievement.
Literature was reviewed on students' demographic characteristics, government policies on education, learning environment, peer influences and teachers' personal characteristics. Systematic and random sampling methods were used in sampling. The research instruments for the study were self administered questionnaires, interview schedules, document analysis and observation of resources guide. There were two sets of questionnaires, one for the students and another one for the lecturers. There was one interview schedule for the senior administrators of the college (the principal, the deputy principal, the registrar, the deputy registrar, the dean of students, the deputy dean of students and the finance officer).
All the research instruments were pre-tested before the research was carried out. A pilot study involving thirty students, ten lecturers and one senior administrator of the institution was under taken to pre-test the research instruments. After the fieldwork, data was organized according to the population studied and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) computer software used to analyze the results using descriptive methods. The number of percentages of those favouring the responses in comparison to secondary data determined any significance of any response. The study revealed that teachers' characteristics such as remuneration were important in influencing students' academic achievement.
That if teachers were not well remunerated, they ended up teaching in other colleges to make ends meet, which caused them to miss attending most of their classes and mark students' books in good tome. There was also a shortage of physical facilities such as classrooms, laboratories, workshops, library and school furniture which made the learning environment not conducive for studies. Other teaching and learning resources such as course books, modem equipment, computers, and duplicators among others were either inadequate or obsolete, which affected students' performance.
It was also revealed that Government Policies on education also impacted negatively on students' academic achievement due to inadequate funding, poor teacher motivation, poor staffing of teachers and remuneration. All these factors contributed to the institution straining to employ part time lecturers who some were inadequately prepared with skills of handling properly some of the technical courses. Drug abuse and indiscipline cases were also rampant in the institution due to negative peer influences among the students. They also found out that the TIVET curriculum taught was outdated and inflexible and that there was inadequate quality assurance mechanism put in place by the Kenya government which is necessary for bridging the achievement gap in the institution.
From the findings of the study; it is recommended that the government staffs the institution with relevant qualified and adequate teachers for the technical courses; there is also need for the current TIVET curriculum to be restructured as to meet the country's development goals of Vision 2030; an effective quality assurance mechanism also needs to be implemented; proper guidance and counselling mechanisms need to be put in place to help curb the negative peer influences which affect students' academic performance, and lastly, the government of Kenya needs to go beyond rhetoric and implement TIVET policies if it expects the institution to produce high-quality standards graduates. | en_US |
