Effects Of School Culture On Students’ Performance In Kenya Certificate Of Secondary Education (KCSE) Examination In Matungulu District, Machakos County, Kenya.

Abstract

School culture is related to students’ achievement in that if school culture is not hospitable to learning, then students’ achievement can suffer. School culture therefore has a more powerful effect on students’ achievement than any other variable(Watson,2001).The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of school culture on students’ performance in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination in Matungulu district, Machakos County, Kenya. Four research objectives were formulated to guide the study. The objectives sought to establish how school vision, mission and values, frequent communication through school assemblies, motivation through prize giving and continuous assessment tests influence students KCSE performance. This study used descriptive survey design. The target population for this study was 35 head teachers, 336 teachers and the 8571 students in the district totaling to about 8,945 respondents. Stratified and random sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study. The sample size comprised of 333 respondents, categorized as all 9 head teachers in the nine sampled schools, 67 teachers (20% of the 336 teachers) and 257 students (3% of the 8571 students). Data was collected by use of questionnaires and was analysed by use of descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that there was a positive relationship between mission, vision and values and students ’performance as indicated by a correlation of 0.63. Findings also revealed that there was a positive relationship between communications through school assemblies and students’ KCSE performance as indicated by a coefficient of 0.69 which implied that communication through school assemblies had a strong influence of KCSE performance. Findings also revealed that there was strong positive (0.72) correlation between motivation through prize giving and students’ KCSE performance. Findings further revealed that there was a positive relationship between continuous assessment tests on students’ KCSE performance as shown by a coefficient of 0.65. The data implied that continuous assessment tests contributed 65 percent to students KCSE performance. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that elements of school culture affect the performance of students in KCSE examination in Matungulu District. Head teachers visit class rooms during administration of continuous assessment tests. Both students and teachers were not fully motivated to achieve their best performance. The study recommended that the school administration should support holding of more frequent assemblies so that head teachers, teachers and students can be able to share and discuss how to improve their academic performance; that teachers should offer more frequent continuous assessment tests to their students to enable them to be more confident and ready for the final KCSE examination. That the school administration should create various student and teacher motivation methods that will fully motivate and challenge them to do their best. Taking the limitations and delimitations of the study into consideration, it was suggested that a study on the extent at which financial constraints, indiscipline among students and students’ low entry behaviour affect student performance in the district should be conducted.