Investigation of the poor performance in chemistry in Mathira West district in Nyeri county.

Abstract

The basic objective of this study is to find the students poor performance in chemistry, to find out if mathematical calculations in chemistry influenced student’s performance in chemistry, to find out whether the availability of equipped chemistry laboratories influences student’s poor performance in chemistry, to find whether there is sex differences in student’s poor performance in chemistry. The study is aimed at finding the cause for poor performance in Mathira west district that cause student to perform poorly in national examination contributing to low mean in the overall performance and few individuals quality to be admitted in public and private university, tertiary colleges and finally coming up with solutions and recommendations to improve the performance in chemistry. The study used descriptive survey design. It was carried out in Mathira West district in Nyeri county of Kenya. The district has 52 secondary schools and stundent’s population of about 13500 students. The instruments were used; a student’s questionnaire and a laboratory equipment observation checklist. Mathira West is in Nyeri county is about 30km from Nyeri town. It has about 30,000 people in approximately land area of about 60km. The main economic activity is agriculture where the farmers grow tea in large and small scale and keep daily farm animals.