Students’ Learning Challenges In Physics In Public Secondary Schools In Laikipiacounty, Kenya

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to establish students’ learning challenges in the study of Physics in public secondary schools in Laikipia East Sub-County, Laikipia County, Kenya. The study was guided by the following objectives: To determine the effect of Practical work in the learning of Physics in public secondary schools in Laikipia East sub-county, find out whether Physics Instructional methods influence the students learning of Physics, determine whether students’ attitude towards physics is a challenge in the learning of physics and to establish whether student’s gender is a challenge to his/her learning of physics in Public Secondary Schools in Laikipia East Sub-county, Laikipia County, Kenya. This study was based on Bloom’s theory of School Learning as presented by Murphy Jo (2007). The research adopted descriptive survey design to establish students’ learning challenges in Physics in public secondary schools in Laikipia East Sub-County, Laikipia County. The researcher used two questionnaires, a student’s questionnaire and the physics teacher questionnaire as the research instruments. The researcher used stratified, purposive and simple random sampling whereby the students were stratified as boys only, girls only, and mixed. The sample size comprised of 360 students, in which 100 were boys, 82 were girls and 178 were in mixed category. Before the actual data collection, the questionnaires were piloted in three secondary schools, one boy’s only one girl only and one mixed to test the validity of the research instruments. The researcher employed split half method to test the reliability of the instruments. Quantitative data was coded, assigned labels to variable categories and entered into the analyzed by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences(SPSS) to get descriptive statistics such as ffrequency tables, percentage, and graphs which were used to present the information. The study found that there was a significantly higher enrolment in single sex schools than in mixed schools. All single sex schools in the study were county boarding schools with more laboratory resources compared to mixed schools which were day schools and less established in terms of resources compared to the former schools. All students who enrolled in physics had a positive attitude towards the subject and therefore the study found that students’ attitude had s positive effect towards Physics learning. Boys performed better in physics in mixed schools than girls. However, in single sex schools, the girls’ schools performed better than the boys’ schools. Students whose physics lessons were conducted frequently in the laboratory performed better than those students who did not frequent the laboratory for their physics lessons. The study recommended that Physics teachers should effectively use teaching/learning resources to improve student’s conceptualization skills. Physics teachers should embrace modern teaching methods as the method of instruction was found to affect the performance of Physics. Further, it was recommended that school administrators prioritize the provision of laboratory equipment and for the physics teachers to expose students to the equipment in the laboratory more frequently. Further research needs to be carried out on challenges faced by students in the other science subjects.