Influence of subjective norms of family members on students’ performance in mathematics in public secondary schools in Migori County, Kenya

Abstract

Performance in Mathematics has been poor at secondary level in Kenya despite initiatives like Strengthening Mathematics and Science Studies Education (SMASSE), providing text books and employing trained mathematics teachers by the Government. In view of the aforementioned problem; the purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of home based factors on students’ performance in Mathematics in selected public secondary schools in Migori County, The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of subjective norms on students’ performance in Mathematics in Public Secondary Schools. The study was guided by Ajzens theory of planned behavior. The study adopted mixed methods approach and its research design was descriptive survey. The targeted population was 17000 form IV students. Using simple random sampling, purposive sampling techniques and Glen’s Israel formula of getting the sample size was used to get a sample size of 56 schools and 800 students. Data was collected using a questionnaire for selected students analyzed by descriptive statistics of mean, frequency, standard deviation, correlation coefficient and inferential statistics (ANOVA).SPSS Program version 23 was used in the analysis of data. The study has revealed that, subjective norms significantly predicts performance in mathematics among secondary school students, F(1, 690) = 436.580, p< .05.