Investigation into poor performance in science subjects among public secondary schools students in Lang’ata sub- county Nairobi county.

Abstract

This study was conducted to examine the performance of secondary school students in science subjects i.e. Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. TOSRA was used to measure students’ performance in science and data was collected from six public secondary schools. Simple correlation (r), Multiple regression analyses (R) and standardized regression coefficients (β) was used to investigate the relationships between attitude towards science and achievement in science. In this study, the researcher sought to provide foundations for new studies in the field of science and also study how certain factors i.e. individual factors, school factors and social-economic factors, gender, ethnicity ,ability, socioeconomic status, school size, school type (single-sex/co-educational), school type (independent/local authority),school type (religious denomination), grouping practices (i.e. setting by ability), geographical setting, qualifications of teaching staff, school status(degree of autonomy of school management), gender ratio of staff and urbanity influence performance in science subjects in public secondary schools. The study was purposed to help researchers, science and advocators and parents for enhancement of student performance and getting higher achievement in science subjects. The researcher made use of a structured questionnaire, interview schedules and observations to collect data. Statistical Techniques for Data Analysis (STDA) was employed i.e. Simple correlation analysis was used to describe the vicariate relationships between each individual achievement scale and each individual attitude scale. Multiple regression analyses was used to investigate the multivariate relationships between each achievement scale with the set of four attitude scales as a whole. The standardized regression coefficients (regression weights) was be examined to interpret the significant multiple correlation. The researcher sought to answer the following questions; does students’ attitude towards science subjects affect their performance? How can performance in science subjects in secondary schools be improved and how teachers, parents and other related scientists’ attitude towards science affect student achievement and choice of science subjects in secondary schools.