Effect Of Teacher Motivation On Student Performance In K.C.S.E In Public Secondary Schools In Manga Sub County, Nyamira County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Education is considered as the key to success in many countries. As a result, in Kenya most parents take pride in their children when they perform well in educational matters, this should be inclined towards passing examinations, since the Kenyan education system is examination oriented. With this in mind, the researcher investigated how the teacher‟s motivation influences the student‟s performance. The student‟s performance in this research was based on the scores in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (K.C.S.E.) examinations. The research was guided by two objectives: to find out the effect of conducting seminars, conferences and workshops for teachers on teacher motivation in Manga sub-county, Nyamira county, Kenya, determine how the personal characteristics of teachers influences teacher motivation and its effect on students‟ performance and to determine the effect of teacher motivation on learner motivation towards performance. The researcher answered four main questions: does the conducting of seminars, conferences, and workshops on teacher motivation in Manga sub-county, Nyamira county, Kenya? To what extent is teacher motivation influenced by personal characteristics? Does the level of motivation influence student academic performance? What strategies could be employed by secondary school principals to ensure a motivated staff? The study also did employ the use of Hertzberg‟s two factor theory of motivation. The researcher used the descriptive survey design. The study was carried out in Manga sub county of Nyamira county, Kenya. The 28 public secondary schools in Manga sub-county and 340 teachers together with the 28 principals of the secondary schools formed the target population. The researcher employed simple random selection so as to give all the schools in Manga and the whole target population equal chances of participation. Questionnaires were used as data collection instruments before proceeding to the field, the researcher acquired all the necessary research permits. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected, the quantitative data was presented by use of tables and analyzed using percentages and ratios while the qualitative data was analyzed by narratives. Several factors were found to influence the level of teacher motivation. The factors included: level of training, job security, student performance, promotions among others. The researcher also found that in the highly performing schools, all the teachers including those hired by the Board of Management were trained while the schools with low performance had hired teachers some without training. The researcher did conclude that an intrinsically motivated teacher can perform way above the expectations of the educational stakeholders but the extrinsic motivators cannot also be ignored because the extrinsic motivators do determine an individual‟s behavior. The researcher suggested that the same research be carried out on national level as well as the relationship between class-size and school performance since most of the schools with good performance had large class-sizes.