Predictors of Students’ Achievement in English and Kiswahili Languages in Selected Secondary Schools in Kajiado North District, Kenya

ABSTRACT The study empirically investigated on the predictors of student achievements in English and Kiswahili languages in particular in Kajiado North District. It was guided by four objectives, to find out the profile of the respondents, the level of predictàrs (independent variable) in English and Kiswahili, level of students’ achievement (dependent variable) in English and Kiswahili and the relationship between the two variables. The study used descriptive correlational survey research design with a sample of 476 respondents. The study found out that there was significant relationship between the level of predictors and level of student achievements in Kiswahili and English languages. The study also found out that the level of academic achievement in English and Kiswahili languages in the district of study was moderate. The study concluded that the hypothesis of no significant relationship was rejected. The r values in this study indicate a positive relationship between all aspect s of use of predictors (r value>.0), suggesting that the higher the level of predictors the higher the achievement levels and vice versa. The new information generated fro the findings is that there are more girls than boys in Kajiado North District secondary schools and majority are less than 20 years old. The theory of internal and external attribution by B Weiner, et al (1980) which assigns the cause of behavior to some characteristics of the target under assigns credit or blame to the individual actor and to factors outside the individual was proved in this study. For students to maintain high achievement in the two languages, this study recommends that predictors used in this thesis need to be applied in a learning environment. A major recommendation in this study is that future research needs to be done on other predictors of student’s achievement such as management and instructional time, instructional monitoring and management of student’s behavior and instructional feedback and how they could be applied in learning to realize greater achievement.