Effects of teachers' motivation on students' KCPE performance in public primary schools of Westlands District, Nairobi county, Kenya.

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Teacher motivation on academic performance is essential to the long term growth of any educational system in the world. Determinants of pupils' performance have been the subject of discussion among all stakeholders including children, parents, educators, academics and policy makers. This study assessed the effect of teachers' motivation on academic performance in public primary schools. The study was undertaken in Westland district, Nairobi County, Kenya. The study was guided by three objectives: To establish the relationship between intrinsic motivation and students KCPE performance, to establish the relationship between extrinsic motivation and students KCPE performance, to find out the impact of incentives to teachers on students KCPE performance and to examine the relationship between challenges faced by public primary schools teachers and students KCPE performance. The study used descriptive research design. The target population for this study was 320 teachers and head teachers of Westland district Nairobi County. Cluster and then random sampling was used to select 175 respondents. Data was collected by use of semi structured questionnaires. Piloting was done before the questionnaire was administered to establish the validity and reliability of the research instrument. The data was then analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics. Content analysis was employed for the qualitative data from the open ended questions. In addition, Karl Pearson's product moment correlation analysis was conducted to establish "'relationship between teachers' motivation and students KCPE performance in public • schools. The study found that intrinsic motivation has the highest effect on students KCPE performance (r = 0.638; P = 0.029), followed by extrinsic motivation (r = - ; P = 0.017) while incentives had the least effect on the students KCPE performance in public primary schools of Westlands District, Nairobi County (r = 0.522; = 0.031). The study concludes that teachers' motivation affects students' KCPE performance in public primary schools of Westland District. This is achieved when teachers have intrinsic motivation for their students to learn more as they feel that they personally responsible for part of the education of every student they teach, spend a lot of energy to make my classes interesting and view teaching as a noble career. The policies of the school system allow the teachers to do their job effectively and the teachers have the support of the entire staff in doing their work. However, the teachers motivation and hence students KCPE performance is negatively affected by poor salaries, unreasonable student load, unappreciative principals and compensation disparities based experience. The study recommends that teachers should be offered incentives such as to finance remedial education and given better pay by TSC which will go a long way in improving students KCPE performance. Teachers should be encouraged to cooperate with other teachers from different schools in Westlands and there should be cooperation between teachers and all the other stakeholders of primary schools. Further, working conditions should be improved with a reasonable teacher-students ratio, adequate teaching resources and zero interference by parents.