| dc.description.abstract | The Kenya government through the ministry of education and in conjunction with JICA came up
with strengthening of mathematics and science in secondary education (SMASSE) as a remedy to
poor performance in mathematics and sciences in secondary schools. However, minimal studies
have been carried out to establish the implementation of this project despite poor performance in
mathematics over the years. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to identify the influence of
SMASSE project on students’ performance in mathematics in Nyakach sub-county in Kisumu
county. The objectives of the study were: To determine the influence of SMASSE on students
attitude towards mathematics and its performance in Nyakach Sub- County Kisumu county,
Kenya;, Influence of SMASSE on teachers attitude towards the use of ASEI/PDSI in
mathematics and its performance in Nyakach sub-county Kisumu county, Kenya; and the
influence of SMASSE on principals and QUASO supervision towards mathematics and its
performance in Nyakach Sub- County in Kisumu County, Kenya. Survey research design was
used in the study and structured questionnaires - with open and closed ended questions - were
employed to collect the data in attempt to answer the research questions. As well as interviews.
The target population was 40 public secondary school. The study randomly sampled 20
principles, 51 mathematics teachers, 330 form four students and purposively sampled 3 SMASSE
trainers and 1 QUASO. Census was employed on population of 40 public secondary schools from
which20 schools were randomly sampled. Expert judgment was used to determine validity while
reliability of the instrument was determined through test and re-test where a pilot study was
conducted in one public secondary school in upper Nyakach division. This was repeated after two
weeks and the correlated results were r=0.632 and < 000. The coded data was analyzed with aid
of statistical package for social science version 16 (SPSS) and Microsoft excel. Descriptive
statistics including means percentage, frequencies, standard deviations were used for continuous
and frequency distribution of categorical data. Pearson’s correlation was used to analyze the
relationship between attendance of SMASSE and KCSE results mean score. The study found
that, students had a positive attitude as shown by 176(57.9%) of students who enjoyed
mathematics as result of influence of SMASSE project in schools, teachers’ attitude towards
teaching mathematics improved as they employed ASEI/PDSI strategies, principles and QUASO
supervised and motivated the teachers and 15(88.2%)of the principals agreed with the project.
The study concluded that students had demonstrated appositive attitude towards learning
mathematics and their performance had supported this after introduction SMASSE. The study
recommends that SMASSE should continue and all mathematics teachers should go through
SMASSE in service and train others. School principals should continuously support, supervise
and motivate mathematics teachers. | en_US |
