Supervisory Practices used by Headteachers for Students’ Academic Performance in KCSE in Public Secondary Schools in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

Supervisory practices play an important role in promoting academic performance. It is therefore important that the performance of a school is appraised against the supervisory practices that are used. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between supervisory practices and students’ academic performance in KCSE in public secondary schools in Machakos County, Kenya. The research adopted a correlational study research design of the ex-post factor method. The target population was 270 schools and the sample for the study was 41 schools equivalent to 41 headteachers. Data was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative techniques. The statistical significance of the difference between sample means was tested using two sample t-test of equal variance while the relationship between dependent and independent variable was tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation. A coefficient value of 0.7289 was obtained and this was good enough to judge reliability. Findings on the relationship between supervisory practices and students’ academic performance revealed that there was a significant relationship between supervisory activities used by headteachers and students’ academic performance in KCSE in Machakos County. This was shown by a p-value of O which was less than 0.1. This implied that supervisory practices used by headteachers are key determinants of students’ good academic performance in KCSE in Machakos County. The study recommended that research should be done in other strategies used by headteachers in pursuit to improve performance in KCSE.