| dc.description.abstract | This research was aimed at establishing factors influencing performance of students in KC.S.E in Rachuonyo North district. To achieve its objective, the study was guided by the following specific objectives: to establish the influence of lack of material and financial support on the performance of students in KC.S.E, to determine the influence of school environment factors on academic performance of students in KC.S.E, to investigate whether students' home environment and parental educational background influence performance of students in KC.S.E and to explore the influence oflearners' related factors on their performance in KC.S.E in Rachuonyo North District.The target population for the study was about 5320 students, 300 teachers, 1000 parents, 26 principals and 4 Quality Assurance and Standards Officers in Rachuonyo North District.
Descriptive research design was adopted for the study. A total of 10 secondary schools were sampled for the study out of a total of 26 in the District. Stratified sampling design was used in the selection of the schools for the study where the schools were grouped into either district or Provincial schools. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample principals from the selected schools while teachers, parents, students and Quality Assurance and Standards Officers were randomly sampled for the study. A total of 144 respondents were targeted by the study out of which 119 responded giving a response rate of 83%. Questionnaires and interview guides were used as instruments for data collection.
Two sets of questionnaires were developed for teachers and students while the interview guide was used to collect the data from the principals, parents and Quality Assurance and Standards Officers. The data collected was edited, coded and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation were used to describe the data. The analyzed data was then presented in form of tables where applicable. The study found that lack of material and financial support influence students' performance as indicated by 100% of the respondents. The study also found that parental educational background influence the performance of students as indicated by 64% of the respondents.
It was found that school environment factors such as unconducive learning conditions like inadequate classrooms, lack of lighting facilities in schools hindering morning and evening preps, inadequate teaching and learning resources and inadequate teaching staff in schools influence performance of students in KCSE. The study further found that home environment influence the performance of students as a result of the following factors: peer group influence, high poverty levels leading to lack of basic needs, unconducive study environment, drug abuse, lack of parental concern about their children's academic progress, late payment of school fees by the parents, family problems, orphan-hood, media liberation and exposure to bad literature influence the performance.
The study found that learner related factors such as, failure to do assignments as indicated by 91 % of the respondents influence students' performance. The study concluded that all the factors under investigation influenced students' performance. The researcher recommends that a similar study be done in other districts in Kenya to find out Factors influencing KCSE performance in Secondary schools. | en_US |
