Determinants of Secondary Schools Teachers’ Performance in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the determinants of secondary schools teachers’ performance in Machakos County, Kenya. The specific objectives of this study were to establish the relationship between employee engagement; job burnout; job demands; job resources; and employee voice to teachers’ performance in secondary schools in Machakos County, Kenya. The study adopted descriptive research design approach. The population of study was 5579 secondary school teachers working in Machakos County and a sample size of 359 respondents was selected through stratified random sampling. Primary data was collected using questionnaires which were issued to the respondents. Descriptive analysis was used, and this included weighted means, standard deviation, relative frequencies and percentages. A computer software programme, Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS) version 21.0 was used for analysis to generate data array that was used for subsequent analysis of the data. Inferential statistics using multiple linear regression model and correlation analysis was applied to examine the relationship between the research variables. Tables and graphical presentation were used to present the data that was collected for ease of understanding. The analyzed data was presented using tables, graphs and pie-charts. The study findings showed that a change in either of the variables definitely led to a significant change in Performance of Secondary Schools Teachers’ in Machakos County, Kenya. The conclusion drawn from the study is that there was a linear positive relationship between Employee engagement, job burnout, job demands, job resources, employee voice and Performance of Teachers. The entire null hypotheses were rejected and the alternative accepted. The study recommends that; the school management, the Ministry of Education and TSC should adequately involve the teachers in decision making so that they can own up the policies put in place hence get engaged; the school management should provide a good working environment, extra curriculum activities coupled with trips, seminars, conferences outside the school environment will ease physical and emotional exhaustion hence reduce burnout; the school management and TSC should at all times ensure the workload is fair and does not go beyond the maximum number of lessons per week, reduce time pressure of syllabus coverage hence minimize job demands; ensure job enrichment of the teachers’ responsibilities by enhancing adequate job control, full teachers support in their duties and responsibilities, provide them with opportunities for learning through seminars, conferences, workshops, study leaves and in-service all to enrich job resources Teachers should also be listened to, through both informal and formal channels.