Thesis:

Examining selected psychosocial factors as correlates of achievement motivation among public secondary School students in Garissa county, Kenya

Among the most important factors that influence students' motivation to succeed and their eventual academic performance are psychosocial aspects: attitude, self-belief, and social interactions. This has an important role in determining academic success, thus often delivered through teaching and learning experiences. There has been a decline in students' academic achievements in public secondary schools in Garissa County, as evidenced by the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education. Therefore, this study aimed to examine how psychosocial factors such as academic self-efficacy, social support, school climate, and personality factors affected academic motivation among secondary school students in Garissa County. The expectancy value-based theory of motivation informed the research. A mixed-methods research approach was employed, utilising an integrated descriptive survey and phenomenological design to gain a comprehensive understanding of its dynamics. The target population for the study were 12,357 students in 42 public secondary schools in Garissa County. The cluster sampling technique selected 330 students, out of whom 294 students actively took part in the research. Reliability and validity of the instruments were utilised, and piloting was conducted with 18 participants from the three sub-variable schools. The data were obtained through structured questionnaires that were designed to capture factors relating to academic self efficacy, social support, school climate, personality factors, and achievement motivation. Quantitative data analysis research methods were carried out with the aid of SPSS software. The statistical significance of the relationship between the variables was tested using ANOVA at a 95% confidence level. the ARSQ results indicated a correlation between academic self-efficacy and achievement motivation: The F-statistic value of 10.036, with a p-value of 0.002, suggests that students with positive academic self efficacy were more likely to have higher achievement motivation. The school climate had a strong positive relationship with achievement motivation. The regression sum of squares amounted to 52.431, explaining approximately 93% of the total variation in achievement motivation. Personality factors had a strong positive relationship magnitude with achievement motivation, confirmed with a regression sum of squares was 53.244, with 1 degree of freedom, and the residual sum of squares was 65.522, with 292 degrees of freedom. The study found that academic self-efficacy was a major determinant of students' achievement motivation; a good school climate highly fosters achievement motivation. The high motivation of students was strongly attributed to personality factors; Based on these findings, the study recommended that there ought to be programs initiated in institutions that aim at improving students' academic self-confidence for instance mentorship and workshops intended for skill-building, issues of funding constraints addressed by the governments to provide learners with all the necessary materials including libraries, laboratories, and technological items that help increase student motivation towards education.