Relationship between Students’ Involvement in Decision-Making and Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools of Kenya

Abstract

Secondary school principals play a key role in decision-making leading to students’ academic performance. There was a decline in the percentage of the examination candidates from Kakamega County who were selected to join public universities from the year 2011 to 2015. This study intended to establish the relationship between students’ involvement in decision-making by principals and academic performance. Respondents were sampled by simple random sampling. Pre-testing of instruments of data collection was undertaken to ensure validity and reliability of the instruments. Data was collected from 36 principals, 199 teachers and 393 Form 4 students by use of questionnaire and interview schedule. Research experts determined validity of the instruments. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequencies, percentages, means, cross tabulation and Pearson’s correlation. Hypotheses were tested through regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. Regression analysis revealed that students’ involvement in decision-making explained 24.6%, and of the variation in academic performance. Leadership functions such as students allowed to elect prefects, prefects attending staff/BoM meetings. It was recommended that principals should involve students in decision making. This study would be significant to policy makers, principals, teachers and other education stakeholders in Kenya. The study would also form baseline information for future research.