Journal of Education

Influence of Teachers’ age, gender, and personality on Students’ Academic Achievement in Kiswahili: A case of Public Secondary Schools in Murang’a and Kiambu Counties

Munyaka Lucy Wanjiru — 2024-11-07

Purpose: Teachers have a vital influence on students’ academic achievement. The steady decline in academic performance of secondary school students has generated a lot of interest among stakeholders in the education sector in Kenya. Despite efforts by teachers to improve their skills and technical expertise the performance of students in KCSE examinations and Kiswahili in particular has not been encouraging. In the year 2020, Murang’a and Kiambu posted the least mean scores of 4.3 and 4.4 respectively in comparison to neighboring counties Nyeri and Kirinyaga which had mean scores of 4.62 and 4.64 respectively. The purpose of this paper was to establish the nexus between Kiswahili teacher characteristics and students’ academic achievement in Kiswahili at the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination (KCSE) results in Kiambu and Murang,a counties. The objective of this paper was to establish the influence of teachers’ age, gender, and personality characteristics on students’ academic achievement in KCSE examination results.

Methodology: A descriptive survey research design was utilised. The target population was 29,134 comprising 512 principals, 1,172 teachers, and 27,450 students across 512 secondary schools in Murang’a and Kiambu counties. A sample size of 103 schools through proportionate and 299 Kiswahili teachers, and 395 students was obtained through Yamane sampling formula. Purposive sampling criteria were used to obtain 103 principals across the 103 sampled schools. Data was collected using a questionnaire for principals, students, and teachers.

Results: It was established that teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge, professional skills and academic achievement, and teachers’ characteristics positively influenced student academic achievement in Kiswahili at KCSE, (M = 4.0, SD = 1.1), (M = 3.9, SD = 0.8) and (M = 3.8, SD = 1.1) respectively. ANOVA test showed teachers characteristics in terms of gender was the only aspect which statistically, significantly differed with teachers’ response and the response from principals and students, p =. 000. These findings emphasized the complexity of teachers’ factors affecting students’ academic achievement.

Conclusion: There is a nexus between teacher characteristics and students’ academic achievements as perceived by principals, teachers, and students. This is related to recommendations that every practicing teacher should enroll in a teacher performance development program initiated by TSC to enhance and update teacher pedagogical content knowledge in teaching for an impressive students’ academic achievement.

School Principals’ Conceptual Skills and Students’ Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Kakamega County

Titus Masika Odinga — 2024-11-18

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to establish how school principals’ conceptual skills influence students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Kakamega County.

Methods: The study made use of a correlation research design. A total of 3,350 teachers, 276 deputy principals, 1104 heads of departments, and 276 principals of secondary schools in Kakamega County make up the target population of 5006 subjects. The study sampled 152 respondents, which comprised 8 principals, 8 deputy principals, 34 HODs, and 102 teachers. Stratified simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were applied to sample participants who were 152. Questionnaires were used to collect data from teachers, deputy principals, and heads of departments, and an interview guide for the principals. Inferential statistics which included regression analysis was used to determine how the independent factors affect the dependent variable.

Results: The study found that principals’ conceptual skills had a positive and significant effect on academic performance in public secondary schools in Kakamega County.

Conclusion: Ensuring teachers understand the vision and mission of the school which is the responsibility of the school principal enhances the school performance. The principal should however provide guidance to the teachers on ways to achieve the school’s vision and mission. Policymakers who make school-related policies should formulate a policy that will guide the TSC when posting principals to only post those who are competent in conceptual skills.

Keywords: Leadership skills, conceptual skills, academic performance

Principals’ Instructional Leadership in Teacher Professional Development and its Relationship with Students' State Examinations Performance in Bururi Province Schools, Burundi

Onésime Nzambimana — 2024-12-04

Purpose: Students who sit for the state examinations in Bururi Province have recently posted unsatisfactory performance. This poor performance could potentially have a severe impact on the educational system and the subsequent transfer from secondary schools to higher education if it is not addressed. The goal of the current research was to explore the principals’ leadership in teacher professional development and its relationship with student’s performance in the state examinations in secondary schools in Bururi Province.

Methods: The transformational leadership theory served as the foundation for the present study. The research design for this study was the correlational research design. The target population was public secondary schools in Bururi province and the study involved principals, teachers, and the provincial directors of education. The researcher used a purposive sampling technique to select 11 boarding schools, all the principals, and the 6 provincial directors of education in the study while simple random sampling was adopted to identify teachers who participated in the study. Principals’ and teachers' questionnaires, as well as interview guides for directors of education in Bururi province, were utilized for collecting data. For quantitative data, Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to identify correlations between the independent and dependent variables in this study. Qualitative data from the interview was analysed thematically.

Results: The findings indicated that coordination of teacher professional development had a positive and significant relationship with student performance in the state examination.

Conclusion: The study recommends that principals should strengthen activities related to instructional leadership in coordination with teacher professional development.